By Chinta Strausberg, Chicago Crusader
Reverend Jesse Jackson, along with local and national chapters of Black journalists on Saturday honored Chicago/Gary Crusader newspaper editor and publisher Dorothy R. Leavell, and Jack Lynch, director of community affairs for the nationally acclaimed Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network, for their community service.
During the live broadcast at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters, 930 E. 50th St., representatives from the Chicago Association of Black Journalists (CABJ) and the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) joined Jackson for the National Minority Donor Awareness Week celebration.
Jackson and CBS 2 newscaster Dorothy Tucker, who is also vice president of NABJ Broadcast, praised Leavell for her long time service to journalism. Tucker said the NABJ is the largest journalism organization and represented the CABJ whose members, including Wynona Redmond, were present. Redmond is also the president of the public relations firm, Wyn-Win Communications.
Standing next to Jackson, the newly elected chairman of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a position to which she has twice been elected previously, Leavell said, “We are going to show you how to do it. No more fake news. We are going to show that we are still on the battle field, and we’re going to have victories.” Leavell promised to give more print support to the organ donor program.
Jackson thanked Lynch for helping to save the lives of thousands of organ transplant recipients, like WVON radio’s Pam Morris, who received a heart transplant a year ago. Morris received her heart transplant through the Gift of Hope program. Morris, who has a gospel program on WVON thanked Lynch, and her supporters.
Norrine Nix, who will receive a double lung transplant, said, “I feel good and bad, blessed and sad because God has given me another chance of life, but someone has to lose their life for me to get a second chance on life.”
Jackson heralded the organ donor program and urged all to support the Black press, especially the Chicago Crusader, a 77-year-old African American newspaper headed by Leavell.
