Hazel Dukes
*Hazel Dukes was born on this date in 1932. She was a Black activist during the 20th-century American Civil Rights movement.
Hazel Nell Dukes was born in Montgomery, Alabama. She was the only child of Alice and Edward Dukes. Her father was a Pullman porter. She enrolled at Alabama State Teachers College in 1949, hoping to become a teacher. However, after moving to New York City with her parents in 1955, she began attending Nassau Community College, where she majored in business administration. While living in Roslyn on Long Island, Dukes worked to combat housing discrimination and served in President Lyndon Johnson's "Head Start" program in the 1960s.
In 1966, she became the first Black American to work at the Nassau County Attorney's Office. She eventually worked as a community organizer for the Economic Opportunity Commission of Nassau County, teaching children living in poverty. In 1978, Dukes received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Adelphi University. She also completed post-graduate work at Queens College. She was outspoken about poverty and an advocate for education reform and the advancement of civil rights during the Reagan and Bush presidencies, spanning the 1980s and into the 1990s. From 1990 to 1992, Dukes served as the national president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was a member of the organization's National Board of Directors.
Dukes was president of the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation (NYCOTB) in 1990, twenty-five years after she had begun her social work career there. Dukes was the head of NYCOTB under New York City Mayor David Dinkins. In 1997, she pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny. She admitted to stealing $13,000.00 from a disabled NYCOTB worker who had allowed her to manage the worker's credit union account while Dukes was a manager of that organization. She also founded Hazel N. Dukes & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in strategic planning. She held three honorary doctorate degrees from the City University of New York's Queens College, Medgar Evers College, and Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Dukes received a Candace Award for Community Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1990. In 2017, she was awarded the Empire State and Nation Builder Award by the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators. In 2019, a plaque honoring Dukes was installed on 137th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Harlem. In 2023, Dukes won the Spingarn Medal. Hazel Dukes died at the age of 92 in Harlem, New York City, on March 1, 2025.
