Nonprofit Executive

Nonprofit executive Arva Rice was born on February 23, 1968 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After graduating from Heritage Christian Schools in 1986, Rice received her B.S. degree in social policy from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1990, and took post-graduate courses in education at the Teachers College at Columbia University in New York, New York.

After graduation, Rice moved to New York City where she received a fellowship from the NYC Urban Fellows Program, and worked in the office of political leader Ruth Messinger. In 1993, Rice was hired as the technical assistance director at the Fund for the City of New York. She then served as program director of economic literary for Girls, Incorporated, where she partnered with American Express that brought about the publication of Money Matters: An Economic Literacy Action Kit for Girls. In 1999, Rice became executive director of Public Allies New York; and, then executive director of Project Enterprise in 2003. During her tenure, the agency doubled its revolving loan fund. In 2009, Rice became president and chief executive officer of the New York Urban League (NYUL), becoming the second woman to hold this position. In this role, Rice forged a partnership with the Mary J. Blige Foundation For the Advancement of Women Now (FFAWN) that resulted in establishing the inaugural Girls Empowerment Day and a four-year scholarship for an outstanding college-bound young woman. Under her leadership, the NYUL also allied with Jordan Fundamentals, the nonprofit organization run by Michael Jordan, providing students the opportunity to be trained as Team Jordan athletes through a ten-week sportsmanship program.

In 2010, Rice was appointed commissioner of the New York City Equal Employment Practices; and, in 2018, she was appointed commissioner of the Commission on Gender Equity. In 2018, Rice joined the board of trustees of First Corinthians Baptist Church. She was also a member of the New York Women’s Forum and The Links.

In 2005, Rice was named a Network Journal Forty Under 40 honoree and was a grantee for the Robin Hood Foundation. In 2013, Rice was selected by the Annie E. Casey Foundation as one of sixteen leaders for its Children and Family Fellows. Two years later, she received the Alumni Merit Award for the School of Education and Social Policy from Northwestern University.

Rice was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on March 28, 2019.

Civic leader and corporate executive Linda Whitlock was born on December 3, 1947 in Richmond, Virginia to Kenneth Edward Whitlock and Sarah Johnson Whitlock. Whitlock attended Virginia Union University’s Lab Nursing School, Mary Scott Elementary School, Chimborazo Elementary School, Randolph Junior High School, and Maggie L. Walker High School. She received her B.A. degree in psychology from Mount Holyoke College in 1972. In 1981, Whitlock received her M.A. degree in psychology from the University of Michigan. 

In 1980, Whitlock served as an instructor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and as director of the Massachusetts Government Land Bank. Three years later, she was appointed director of the Massachusetts Office of Real Property. In 1984, Whitlock joined Tufts University as an instructor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy. She served as vice president of Harvard Real Estate, Inc. in 1989. In 1990, she was hired by Concord Academy as assistant head for marketing and associate director of admissions. Two years later, she joined Buckingham Browne & Nichols School and became assistant head for enrollment management. From 1999 to 2008, Whitlock served as the Nicholas president and chief executive officer of Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston. In 2008, she founded and was principal of The Whitlock Group, through which she served as senior advisor to Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter, senior advisor to John Fish, CEO of Suffolk, and strategic advisory board member of AesRx LLC.

She was a board member of numerous companies, including Cambridge Trust Company, and was the first Lead Director in 2011. She also was on the boards of the Red Sox Foundation, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, The Princeton Review, National Association of Corporate Directors New England, Museum of Afro American History, and Brandeis University.  Whitlock was co-chair of Women Corporate Directors Boston, and a member of The Boston Club’s Executive Advisory Council, the Boston Women Leaders Network, and the Boston Library Society. She was appointed to commissions by Democratic and Republican Governors and Mayors, and served as associate finance director for Dukakis for President in 1987, co-chaired Obama Victory Trustees in 2012, and was a leading national fundraiser for Hillary for America in 2016.

In 2009, Whitlock was inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Bostonians by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. In 2003, she was named one of the Most Powerful Women in Boston by Boston Magazine, and was the Boston Municipal Research Bureau’s Shattuck City Champion. In 2008, she received the National Service to Youth Award from Boys & Girls Clubs of America as well as the Woman of Valor Award from the Anti-Defamation League New England. In 2011, she received the Advancing Women Award from the Boston Business Journal; and, in 2017, she received the Abigail Adams Award from the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus. Whitlock received honorary doctorates from Babson College, Suffolk University, and Pine Manor College.

Whitlock and her husband, Marc Cumsky, have two children, Jake and Leah, and seven grandchildren.

Linda Whitlock was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on August 23, 2019.

Nonprofit president Grover Lee Pettes, Sr. was born on December 10, 1925 in Las Cruces, New Mexico to Robert A. Pettes and Ella C. Pettes. He attended Booker T. Washington School and also worked on his family’s farm which was purchased by his father in 1939. In 1974, Pettes received his G.E.D. from Dona Ana Branch Community College.

In 1949, Pettes joined the Shook Tire Company as a tire recapper. Three years later, he moved to El Centro, California to serve as shop foreman of McNeese & McNeese, a Goodyear distributor.
In 1955, Pettes began working as a repairman for the United States Air Force and the White Sands Proving Ground in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He returned to the car detailing business in 1958 to serve as owner and operator of A-1 Car Wash, Polish, and Paint. In 1960, Pettes was elected president of the Dona Ana County branch of the NAACP, a position that he held for five years. In 1963, Pettes founded the Mesa Development Center, a small water utility on the East Mesa, from property that once served as his family’s farm. From 1964 to 1985, Pettes served as a painter and plumber for the United States Air Force and as a fire alarm systems specialist for the Holloman Air Force Base. Later, Pettes became president of the Community Cemetery’s board of directors, the only burial site for African Americans in Las Cruces. The cemetery was first purchased in 1938 with the help of Pettes’ uncle, and the first person to be buried there in 1940 was Pettes’ grandmother, Annie Pettes Franklin. As president of the Community Cemetery, Pettes led the effort to restore and preserve the cemetery, which had been poorly maintained. In 2016, Pettes sold the Mesa Development Center to the city of Las Cruces.

Pettes served as president of the Booker T. Washington Elementary School Parent Teacher Association. He also served as a deacon and chairman at Bethel Second Baptist Church of Las Cruces. In 1984, Pettes received the Sustained Performance Award from the United States Air Force. In 2019, Pettes and his daughter Marilyn were panelists at the African American Museum and Cultural Center of New Mexico’s exhibition “The Virtue of Ownership,” where they discussed their family’s history in Blackdom, New Mexico, the first all-African American settlement in the state.

Pettes and his wife, Laura Wright Pettes, have five children: Grover Pettes, Jr., Shirley Daniels, Dolores Webb, Steven Pettes, and Marilyn Hill.

Grover L. Pettes, Sr. was interviewed by The History Makers on July 22, 2019.

Nonprofit executive Mora McLean was born on December 6, 1955 in New York City to Vera and William McLean. She was raised in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands where she graduated from Charlotte Amalie High School in 1973. McLean then graduated from Wesleyan University where she earned her B.A. degree in African studies in 1977 before receiving her J.D. degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1980.

From 1980 to 1981, McLean worked as a legal associate for Riker, Danzig, Scherer & Hyland, Attorneys at Law where she focused on commercial litigation. The following year, she became an aide to the New Jersey Assembly Labor Committee, working on legislative research, analysis, and drafting. McLean remained there until 1985 when she was appointed counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives’ commerce subcommittee on commerce, transportation, and tourism. She served in this capacity for five months before becoming an assistant program officer in the human rights and governance division of the Ford Foundation. She was promoted to program officer in 1987; and, in 1990, she became the Foundation’s representative for Nigeria and assistant representative for West Africa. From 1993 to 1995, McLean served as the Foundation’s representative for West Africa with oversight of the Foundation’s offices in Lagos, Nigeria and Dakar, Senegal. For the next year, McLean served as deputy director for all of the Foundation’s Africa and Middle East programs. She left the Ford Foundation upon being named president and CEO of the Africa-America Institute in 1996, which she led until 2012. Rutgers University hired McLean as a visiting scholar at their center for African studies where she worked for two years. In 2015, the school made her the program strategy advisor for their Newark campus’s launch of a global urban studies doctoral program; and, in 2016, she became a Cornwall Center Senior Fellow, adjunct professor, and director of corporate and foundation relations in the office of the chancellor. In 2019, West African Youth Challenges and Opportunity Pathways was published, of which McLean was editor.

McLean has served on numerous boards throughout her career, including the Council on Foreign Relations, Legal Aid Society of Mercer County, New Jersey, the Orphan Society of the Oranges and Maplewood, United States Institute of Peace, and chairing the U.S. Trade Advisory Committee on Africa. She has also received several awards, including the 2002 Distinguished Wesleyan Alumna and being named Wesleyan Trustee Emerita in 2008 and Africa-America Institute President Emerita in 2012.

McLean resides in New Jersey and has one adult child, Atinuke.

Mora McLean was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on October 23, 2019.

Nonprofit executive Rita Ann Turfley Powdrell was born on July 1, 1946 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Ann Scott Turfley and Richard Thomas Turfley. In 1968, Powdrell received her B.A. degree in sociology from the University of New Mexico.

In 1968, Powdrell served as a social worker in the county welfare system in Fresno, California. Four years later, she was hired as a California state regulations interpreter and trainer. In 1974, Powdrell and her family moved back to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she served as a counselor advisor at the Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute. At the Technical Vocational Institute, Powdrell worked on Preparatory Program, a new program that supported students who were coming out of high school. In 1983, Powdrell opened and managed a new location of the restaurant Mr. Powdrell’s Barbeque House with her husband, his brother and her sister-in-law. Mr. Powdrell’s Barbeque had been owned and operated by her husband’s family since 1962. In 1991, Powdrell co-founded the Griot Society with Brenda Dabney; and, in 1995, they curated and exhibited “New Mexico's African American Legacy: Visible, Vital, and Valuable,” a pictorial history of African Americans who were brought or migrated to the territory of New Mexico. In 2002, the Griot Society joined with numerous African American organizations in New Mexico to form The African American Museum and Cultural Center of New Mexico. The center, where Powdrell served as executive director, exhibited the wealth of African American history in New Mexico at museums and other venues throughout the state and served to increase awareness and understanding of the contributions of African Americans in New Mexico and the southwest.

Powdrell has received multiple awards for her work. In 2011, Powdrell received the Outstanding Service Award from the Office of African American Affairs. In 2012, the African American History Museum and Cultural Center of New Mexico received the Heritage Organization Award from the Department of Cultural Affairs, New Mexico Historic Preservation Division. In 2014, Powdrell received the “Living Legend” award from the University of New Mexico Black Alumni Chapter and the state of New Mexico’s Distinguished Public Service Award.

Powdrell and her husband and business partner, Joe Powdrell, have four children: Carmen Powdrell, Nataura Moore, Jovona Webb, and Richard Powdrell.

Rita Ann Turfley Powdrell was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on July 25, 2019.

Nonprofit executive and dietitian Wendy Van Amson was born on July 18, 1955 in Brooklyn, New York to Carlton and Shirley Tempro. Van Amson attended P.S. 262, Meyer Levin Junior High School, and Midwood High School. She received a full scholarship to attend Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1972; and, in 1973, she transferred to New York University, where she received her B.S. degree in nutrition in 1976. Van Amson then received her M.P.H. degree in public health education from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in 1983.

In 1976, Van Amson completed a year-long dietetic internship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston before working at Queens Hospital Center in New York until 1981. During graduate school, she worked for Project Return, a drug rehabilitation facility. In 1983, Van Amson launched her own private nutritional advising firm, Tempro and Associates, and worked as a registered dietitian and certified nutritionist, providing consultations to individuals, schools, therapeutic communities, and corporate nutrition education programs with a focus on preventative measures and public health. In 2003, Van Amson co-founded and became director of Independent School Diversity Network (ISDN) with retired actress Ester Moses Hatch, creating safe spaces for communication between parents and educators and acting as a support system for parents with African American students in private schools. Van Amson has also worked with the Anti-Racist Alliance movement for racial equity in New York, coordinating parent group meetings during the school year, educating parents on independent schools, and providing assistance with the college application process.

In 2005, Van Amson joined the board of directors of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies and the board of directors for the student-run organization Diversity Awareness Initiative for Students in 2007. Van Amson was also a board member of the Nightingale Bamford School in New York and served on the board of trustees at the Bank Street College of Education.

Van Amson married George Van Amson in 1986, and the two reside in New York City. They have three children: Alexandra, Victoria, and Schuyler.

Wendy Van Amson was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on August 15, 2019.

Museum director and cultural activist Lyn Hughes was born on March 1, 1945 in Cincinnati, Ohio to Otis and Alberta Cooper. She graduated from Spertus College in Chicago, Illinois before receiving her Ph.D. degree in education with a minor in museum studies from Northern Illinois University, in DeKalb, Illinois.

Hughes was a professional entertainer, singing in a girl’s group beginning in high school. She left the music business and began working in real estate and cultural economic development in Chicago. Hughes did this so more than a decade before founding the National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum in 1995. The National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum is the first Black labor history museum in the United States focused on the story of the Pullman Porters, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters labor union, and its founder A. Philip Randolph. Since then, she served as a subject matter specialist on the Pullman Porters, and has been a consultant on numerous documentary films on the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, including the 2003 Showtime docudrama 10,000 Black Men Named George. Her work with the museum has been featured on ABC's Good Morning America, and in publications like USA Today, Essence, AARP, and the Chicago Tribune. She authored the book, An Anthology of Respect: The Pullman Porters National Historic Registry Of African American Railroad Employees in 2007, and created the companion national traveling exhibition, "From Servitude to Civil Rights.” In 2010, Hughes was elected museum president emeritus, and subsequently served as a consultant for Cultural Edutainment, LLC. In 2012, Hughes was the founding director of the Center For Black Labor Research, in Chicago; and, in 2016, she became the creator and host of Live From Pullman National Monument, a talk radio show focused on cultural economic development tourism.

Hughes received the Living Legacy Award from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), a Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars 2006 honor, the 2007 Distinguished Service Award from the Amistad Research Center, is listed in the Who's Who Registry Among Executive and Professional Women 2008, and received The Purpose Prize from Encore.org in 2013.

Lyn Hughes was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on July 11, 2019.

Nonprofit executive Harold Bailey was born on October 15, 1946 in McKinney, Texas to Dorothy L. and John Curtis Bailey, Sr., and was raised by his mother and Ray E. Landrum. In 1948, he moved with his family to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he attended Lowell Elementary School, John Marshall Elementary School, and Lincoln Junior High School, before graduating from “the old” Albuquerque High School in 1964. He received a track scholarship to attend the University of New Mexico, where he received his B.S. degree in health and physical education in 1969. Bailey went on to receive his M.A. degree in special education in 1971, and his Ph.D. degree in American studies in 1975, both from the University of New Mexico.

In 1972, Bailey served as director of the Institute for Social Research and Development’s Child Development Program at the University of New Mexico. The same year, he joined the University’s Afro-American Studies Program as the assistant director. From 1975 to 1980, Bailey served as director of the Afro-American Studies Program. In 1976, he was appointed chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee at the University of New Mexico. Bailey later served as a homebound teacher, a special education teacher, a community liaison, and a certified diversity trainer in Albuquerque Public Schools. From 2000 to 2004, he served as president of the Albuquerque branch of the NAACP. In 2003, Bailey was appointed executive director of the New Mexico Office of African American Affairs. He held the position until 2012, when he was once again elected president of the Albuquerque branch of the NAACP.

Bailey has served as a national executive board member of the National Council for Black Studies, state chairman of the New Mexico Black Studies Consortium, state education chairman of the New Mexico Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and state chairman of the New Mexico Dr. Martin Luther King Federal Holiday Commission. He was a member of the School Restructuring Council at Lavaland Elementary School and Hayes Middle School, and is a certified diversity trainer.

Bailey has received many awards for his commitment to education and community service. In 2007, he received the Grant Chapel AME Community Service Award. In 2008, he received both the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Legacy of Service Award and the AKA Albuquerque Legacy of Leaders Community Affairs Award. Bailey also received the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award in 2013.

Harold Bailey was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on July 24, 2019.

Nonprofit executive Argelia Rodriguez was born on May 12, 1959 in Havana, Cuba to Argelia Velez-Rodriguez and Raul Rodriguez. In 1962, Rodriguez immigrated to the United States with her mother and brother, Raul Rodriguez, Jr. After graduating from the Ursuline Sisters Academy in Dallas, Texas in 1976, Rodriguez went on to receive her B.S. degree from Stanford University in 1980, and her M.B.A. degree from the Harvard Business School in 1984.

In 1980, Rodriguez worked for the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) as an engineer and later for Texas Instruments, Inc. She then was hired by Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. in New York City, where she worked on strategic planning technology and mergers and acquisitions. After Rodriguez received her M.B.A. degree in 1984, she returned to Booz Allen Hamilton, before starting her own independent consulting firm in Washington, D.C. There, she worked for the District of Columbia Public Schools to increase STEM education among minority students. In 1997, Rodriguez served as the deputy director of product marketing and educational outreach for President Bill Clinton for the 1997 Presidential Inauguration. Then, in 1999, Rodriguez was appointed president of the D.C. College Access Program (DC-CAP), which partnered with D.C. schools to provide counseling and financial assistance to underserved students in the D.C. area. In 2007, Rodriguez launched the Alpha Leadership Program (ALP) for DC-CAP, an initiative that relies on community volunteers who serve as mentors to young men in five D.C. public and charter high schools. The following year, DC-CAP held their first annual DC-Capital Stars Gala Competition which showcased the artistic abilities of college-bound students from the D.C. area.

Rodriguez served on the board of trustees at Trinity Washington University and was elected to the Harvard University Board of Overseers in 2013. In 2010, she delivered the commencement address at Trinity Washington University and received an honorary degree. That same year, she received the Bert King Award for Service from Harvard Business School and was named a Murdoch Community Hero by News Corp in 2014.

Rodriguez resides in Bethesda, Maryland.

Argelia Rodriguez was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on January 21, 2019.

Nonprofit executive and Olympic athlete Anita DeFrantz was born on October 4, 1952 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Robert David and Anita Page DeFrantz. In 1970, she graduated from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. DeFrantz received her B.A. degree in political philosophy in 1974 from Connecticut College, and her J.D. degree in 1977 from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia.

DeFrantz captained the U.S. women’s rowing team and rowed in the eight boat that won a bronze medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. In 1977, she started her career as a staff attorney at the Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar. In 1980, she led the athletes’ fight for the right to compete at the Moscow Olympic Games, including suing the United States Olympic Committee. The International Olympic Committee honored her with the bronze medal of the Olympic Order. DeFrantz served as vice president of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and was elected to International Olympic Committee membership in 1986, the first African American and the first American woman to serve on the committee. In 1987, DeFrantz was named president of the LA84 Foundation. From 1989 to 1994, she served on the IOC’s Program Commission and is credited with the acceptance of women’s soccer and softball onto the Olympic program. DeFrantz also helped increase the number of women’s competition opportunities on the Olympic program. She was elected to the IOC Executive Board in 1992 and appointed to the IOC’s Olympic Program Commission. In 1995, she was appointed chair of the Women and Sport Working Group; and, in 1997, DeFrantz was the first woman elected to a four-year term as vice president. DeFrantz established the Tubman Truth Corporation in 2016 and served as president. She also served on LA 2028, the Los Angeles organizing committee for the 2028 summer Olympic Games, and was a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) where she was elected for a second term as a vice president in 2018.

From 1991 to 1999, The Sporting News named DeFrantz one of the 100 most powerful people in sports. In 2003, Sports Illustrated named her one of the 101 most influential minorities in sports; and, in 2006, the NCAA named her one of NCAA’s Most 100 Influential Student Athletes. The French magazine L’Equipe named DeFrantz one of the 10 Women Who Changed Sport in 2010; and, the following year, Newsweek named her one of 150 Women Who Shake the World, and Los Angeles magazine named her one of 10 Women Making a Difference in Los Angeles. In 2016, she received the Olympic Truce Award at the Rio Olympic Games. DeFrantz has also received honorary doctorate degrees from Pepperdine University, Mount Holyoke College and Pomona College. She received the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Center for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Research (CSSOR) at California State University, Fullerton.

Anita DeFrantz was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on December 12, 2018.