Community

Stockton NAACP Presents Freedom Fighter Awards

Published

12 years ago

November 16, 2013

The Stockton Branch NAACP will be inducting longtime community activist Warren Gaines on Saturday, Nov. 23 into the NAACP Freedom Fund Hall of Fame as well as honoring excellence in serving the community with the Annual Freedom Fighter Awards for Community and Corporate partners.

Local leaders will be honored at 6 p.m. at a reception and dinner in their honor at the Brookside Golf & Country Club, 3603 St Andrews Drive in Stockton. The even will feature a live auction, raffle prizes, and dancing. Community Awards recipients include Stockton City Council and Community Activist Elbert Holman, Geraldine Edwards Hollis, Jose Rodriquez, Constance Smith, and Judge William Murray.

This year’s keynote speaker will be Orage Quarles III, publisher of the North Carolina News and Observer. Quarles was formally publisher of the Stockton Record. The honorary co-chairs of the event are Dr. and Mrs. Moses Elam.

Tickets are $100 per person. This is a Black Tie formal affair.

FREEDOM FIGHTER AWARDEES

Elbert Holman, Jr.

A native of Stockton, CA, Elbert Holman, Jr. attended Cal Poly State University and the University of the Pacific. For 20 years he worked for the San Joaquin County Sheriff Department and in 1988 was recognized as one of the “Top Blacks in Law Enforcement” by the National Blacks in Law Enforcement Organization.

In 1991, he transferred to the District Attorney Office Investigations unit, becoming the first African American to work in that division of law enforcement. He worked up the ranks and in 2000 District Attorney John Philips promoted Holman to Chief Investigator of the District Attorney’s Investigations Division. Holman became the first African American to hold the position.

Holman was elected to San Joaquin County’s Board of Supervisor’s in 2010; he currently is serving his third term.

CONSTANCE SMITH

Constance Smith is the Western Area Director of The Links, Incorporated and oversees 2000 members in 56 chapters from ten western states including California, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada.

A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Smith has been a Stockton resident since 1970. She joined the Stockton Chapter of Links, Inc. in 1973 and has served twice as the chapter president.

Smith holds Master’s Degree in Education from Cal State Sacramento and is a certified mental heath and chemical dependency clinician. She is a retired San Joaquin Delta College educator and an adjunct Professor at Delta College and Cal State University, Stanislaus. She holds life Memberships in Girl Scouts of America and the NAACP.

“I am indeed honored to receive this award but service is something that becomes very natural to me. I give because I truly recognize that I’ve been blessed,” said Smith.

She says she truly believes that, “It’s not what you gather that counts, but how much you scatter.

Justice William Murray

A graduate of George Washington University Law School in 1982, William J. Murray, Jr. served as a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York from 1982 – 1986 and the Office of the San Joaquin County District Attorney from 1986 -1995.

In 1995, he was appointed as a judge in San Joaquin County’s Superior Court, where he served for fifteen years. While a judge in San Joaquin County, he co-authored two programs which were recognized by the California Judicial Council and given the with the prestigious Ralph N. Kleps Award for innovative court programming. He was later appointed to serve on the California Judicial Council, the constitutional governing body for California’s courts.

Justice Murray was appointed to the Court of Appeal, 3^rd District, in 2010. He currently serves as the chairperson of the 3^rd District’s Outreach Committee for the Court of Appeal.

A member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, he participated in the fraternity’s Bear Creek Mentoring program. He is also active in the Beyond Incarceration programs, Youth Leadership academy, and does outreach in Stockton and Sacramento schools.

“I’m extremely honored to receive the award. I do the things for which I have been honored, not for the honor but because it’s my perception that’s what I’ve been put on this earth to do,”

Geraldine Hollis

Geraldine Hollis has committed her life to advocacy and change. A native of Mississippi, she received her B.S. in Health and Physical Education with minors in Mathematics and Biological Sciences from, Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi.

Hollis was apart of the historical “Tougaloo Nine” – a group of nine students to stage the first public sit-ins of public institutions in Mississippi in 1961. The demonstration helped spark the civil rights movement in Jackson, Mississippi.

She wrote the memoir “Back to Mississippi” and in 2012 Hollis and her book was inducted into the Mississippi State Department of Archives and History

Hollis worked as a teacher, counselor, and consultant in the Oakland Unified School District for 33 years before retiring. She lives in Stockton and is a member of Mount Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church. She is a proud wife, mother, and grandmother.

“…I’m actually elated, to be awarded this prestigious recognition. My civil rights experiences were all about the community and making things better for everyone,” Hollis said.

Jose Rodriguez

Jose R. Rodriguez has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Council for the Spanish Speaking more commonly known as El Concilio since 1996. Mr. Rodriguez is a graduate of the University of the Pacific and Humphreys School of Law.

Under his direction El Concilio has increased programs and expanded services, increasing the agency budget from $1.2 million dollars to $8 million dollars per year to become the largest Latino community based organization in the Central Valley.

“I am grateful to the San Joaquin County chapter of NAACP the nation oldest civil rights organization for this award,” said Rodriguez. “I have always considered the NAACP as the conscience of this country when it comes to fighting for justice and equality, this award from an organization that I have always held in high esteem is really humbling.”

El Concilio has been recognized by Hispanic Business Magazine as one of the top 25 non-profits serving the Latino Community in the United States. Through his leadership El Concilio has won local, state and national recognition for the services the organization provides to the communities of the Central Valley.

A community activist for many years Mr. Rodriguez has served on numerous board and committees such as the Mayor’s Task Force for Racial Harmony and Justice, Stockton Unified School District Measure C Citizen Oversight, and the National Council of La Raza Affiliate Council Member.

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

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March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.