BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Former Mayor Ted Berry is greeted by Ed Rigaud.
(Yoni Pozner photo)
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In an emotional tribute at Cincinnati City Hall Friday, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center announced it will honor former mayor Theodore M. Berry by creating a national distinguished lecture series named for him.
Mayor Roxanne Qualls said the honor is appropriate for a man she characterized as a genius and one of the clearest-thinking leaders the city has ever known.
The inaugural National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Theodore M. Berry Distinguished Lecture: A Series on Public Policy and Human Rights, will be delivered by A. Leon Higginbotham Sept. 25 at the Mayerson Academy.
A retired chief justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, Justice Higginbotham was inspired to study law as a college student after hearing Mr. Berry speak.
"There is no way to count the individuals and families all across this country empowered and enabled to climb the rungs of life out of poverty, all because of Theodore M. Berry," said Federal appellate Judge Nathaniel R. Jones, co-chairman of the center's board of trustees and a friend and protege of Mr. Berry.
Before he was Cincinnati's first black mayor in 1972, Mr. Berry was national director of the federal Office of Economic Opportunity, where he helped to establish more than 2,500 Community Action Agencies throughout the country to help empower the poor. He also served as president of the Ohio State NAACP and led the effort to enact Ohio's Fair Employment Practices Law in 1958.
Veteran Cincinnati Councilwoman Bobbie Sterne spoke of meeting Mr. Berry in 1949 when he was running for council on the Charter ticket. "I'm happy to say I was carrying your literature around, Mr. Berry, ringing doorbells for you," she said, smiling.
Freedom Center President and CEO Ed Rigaud said it's only natural that the center would honor Mr. Berry with the lecture series.
"Mr. Berry spent a lifetime promoting the same ideals for which the Freedom Center stands: freedom and racial reconciliation," he said.
The $80 million center is scheduled to open on Cincinnati's riverfront in 2003 to commemorate the secret network that helped runaway slaves reach freedom.
