Dance teacher gets Bethune honor
Some 250 guests gathered at Antun’s Queens Village on Feb. 7 for the UFT’s annual African Heritage Committee Awards Dinner, where Marcella Jones received the Mary McLeod Bethune Award for Excellence in Teaching. “It was very humbling and an honor,” said Jones, to receive an award named for Bethune, who was “vocal as an educator and for Africans and their rights.” A dance teacher at Performing Arts and Technology HS in Brooklyn, Jones brought 12 students to perform. The other honorees were UFT Staff Director Anthony Harmon, who received the Trailblazer Award, and City Councilman Donovan Richards, who received the Frederick Douglass Award for Civil and Human Rights. Students from Brooklyn’s Automotive HS and Manhattan’s LaGuardia HS received UFT scholarships. Committee Chair Wendy Walker-Wilson, a teacher assigned, says this year’s theme, “Stand up and be counted,” was inspired by the Census and the upcoming elections. “Be in the count — don’t stay on the sidelines,” said Walker-Wilson. “Every vote matters.”
