MANSFIELD — Buffi Williams’ grandmother once told her she didn’t have the right not to vote.
She knew then what Williams knows now. Voting is an individual right that, when used, becomes a collective source of power.
“She was grounding me in my obligation to the community,” Williams said. “She took my individuality and placed it into a community lens.
“The fact was, I needed to understand the ballot and my responsibility to construct my life around community leadership.”
Williams served as the keynote speaker for the Mansfield NAACP’s Life Membership Banquet on Saturday. This year’s theme was “Voting is Power.”
“We are obligated to get out and vote,” said Leonard Dillon, president of the Mansfield chapter.
“There are so many attempts every year made to keep certain people from voting. It’s not going to stop unless you vote. Take somebody with you to the polls to vote. Get them registered, get them the proper identification forms. That’s what we have to do.”
A Mansfield native, Williams issued a call to be in agreement, urging each audience member to see the welfare of their community as a personal obligation.
“There’s not one gift that God gives any of us that is not for somebody else,” she said.
Williams is a licensed social worker, licensed independent chemical dependency counselor and the clinical program director at A Beautiful Mind. She said her parents and grandparents instilled a sense of community in her from a young age.
She encouraged the audience to embody that sense of community and embed it into the next generation.
“I stand here still obligated by the people who told me I was obligated. Who have you told they have obligations?” she said. “Why should our Black youth be obligated to a community we are not?”
“The victory is in agreement.”
Mansfield NAACP honors three new life members
The NAACP has been bringing Mansfield residents together for more than 100 years.
While Saturday’s event was the 36th annual life membership celebration, the organization’s history in Mansfield goes back much further. L. T. Wisdom was the first director of the Mansfield chapter of the NAACP, established in 1920.
The Mansfield NAACP recognized its three newest life members at the banquet — Alverta Williams, The Rev. Angela Brooks-Wright and Deanna West-Torrence.
Williams is the founder of the Mary McLeod Bethune Intervention & Enrichment Center (MBIE), a non-profit organization on Mansfield’s east side. The MBIE provides transportation services and youth programming.
Brooks-Wright is the manager of pastoral care for OhioHealth’s Mansfield and Shelby Hospital. She also received the Ernestine Jefferson Award.
“To be acknowledged in this way is very meaningful because it’s very important to me to give back to my community,” Brooks-Wright said.
West-Torrence is the founder and executive director of the North End Community Improvement Collaborative (NECIC). Since 2007, the NECIC has worked to improve quality of life and economic landscape of Mansfield’s North End.
“I think it’s important for people to continue to invest in the NAACP and continue to support it, because the fight for equality continues,” West-Torrence said.
Membership Chair Yolanda Allen said members are the lifeblood of the NAACP.
“Without membership, this organization of over 100 years will not continue,” Allen said. “We need each and every one of you to be a card-carrying member of the National Association for the Advanced of Colored People.”