A day for honor
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No Comments [ Add Comment ]By Lynze Wardle and Shane Farver
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
lwardle@standard.net
Bountiful resident honored with Rosa Parks Award
SALT LAKE CITY -- More than four decades after she skipped class to march in a civil rights rally, Bountiful resident Jean Tracy was honored with the NAACP Salt Lake Branch's Rosa Parks Award.
Tracy was presented with the award Monday at the NAACP's 23rd Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Luncheon in Salt Lake City.
The annual award is designed to commemorate the accomplishments of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks and to carry on her legacy by honoring a Utah woman who is helping to keep alive the spirit of the civil rights movement. The first award given by the Salt Lake NAACP was presented by Parks herself.
Tracy grew up in segregated Selma, Ala., and said that as a child, she and her mother attended a 1965 civil rights rally.
She said she was honored to receive an award bearing a civil rights pioneer's name.
"It means a lot to me, coming from the South," she said.
Tracy was nominated because of her work with the Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau and with local service organizations, said Jeanetta Williams, president of the NAACP Salt Lake City branch.
Williams said the conventions that Tracy has organized have brought millions of dollars in revenue to the state.
Tracy also travels to Haiti twice a year to bring medicine to poor people through a local program called Hands for Haiti, and works with the Salt Lake Exchange Club to raise money for abused and poor children.
"Jean gets the job done and she does it in a quiet way -- much like the works of Rosa Parks," Williams said.
Tracy's oldest son, Marcius Mack, was one of several family members who attended the event. Mack called Tracy "a great inspiration for women."
"My mom always had the ability to lead by example," he said.
Tracy said that receiving the award has inspired her to strive even more to come to her community's aid.
"I've got to do more to help in my community," she said. "I feel like I've got to do more to spread the word."
Gov. Jon Huntsman and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff also attended Monday's luncheon. Huntsman said the efforts of the NAACP and civil rights leaders help to cultivate our nation's sense of humanity, which he called "the thread that ties us together."
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