Jean Fairfax
Recipient of the
YWCA's
2001 Tribute to Women Award
Category: Civic Leader
Ten outstanding women in Maricopa County were named honorees in the YWCA’s Tribute to Women 2001 Awards. The annual awards recognize women whose lives and accomplishments reflect the YWCA’s mission to empower women and eliminate racism.
In the category of Civic Leader, the honoree is Jean Fairfax. Ms. Fairfax currently serves as Trustee and Board Secretary for the Arizona Community Foundation, but for decades, Jean has led a life that truly defines the term "civic leader." Her civic career actually consists of three careers—academia, civil rights and philanthropy. A role model for students as Dean of Women at Kentucky State College and Tuskegee Institute, she later organized youth programs in social justice, peace and community service in Europe, Israel, Mexico and the USA. Participating with her students in the 1940s in the work of the YWCA in the South, she demonstrated the important role of women in challenging institutional racism. Jean is revered for her work with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in post-World War II Austria in its southern civil rights program, and for her leadership as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s Community Services Director. A professional civil rights worker for almost 30 years, Jean developed programs to advance civil rights, to educate low income and minority communities about the their rights, and to implement civil rights laws and court orders at national and grass roots levels. Highlights of her career include: involvement in the first desegregation of Mississippi’s schools and the integration of higher education systems across the South. She organized an interfaith group of church women to expose failure of schools to provide meals to needy children, leading to reform of the National School Lunch Program. Since 1970, Jean has built a national reputation for increasing the participation of women and minorities in grant making institutions as donors, policymakers and recipients. She was a founder of Women & Philanthropy and the Association of Black Foundation Executives, and co-chairs the Betty H. Fairfax Fund for Educational Equity. Jean is a Phoenix resident.
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© 2001 Judy Hedding, licensed to About.com
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