Fund honors Colorado official, ex-CCSN president

Jace Radke

Thursday, Oct. 26, 2000 | 10:41 a.m.

The Frederick Douglass Education Fund honored a black politician and a Las Vegas educator at a dinner Wednesday night.

Colorado Lt. Gov. Joe Rogers, the highest-ranking state-elected black in the country, was presented with the Frederick Douglass Award of Excellence, and former Community College of Southern Nevada President Dr. Paul Meacham was also honored at the event at the Venetian hotel-casino.

Rogers, the event's keynote speaker, spoke about the importance of education across all color barriers, and challenged the audience of about 200 to take hold of what he called the key to the future.

"If Frederick Douglass could stand up in his time against the ills and indignity of slavery to make the world a better place, then what do we do in this time of peace and prosperity?" Rogers, a Republican, said.

Rogers, who is only the fourth black to serve as governor or lieutenant governor in the nation's history, was further honored by Las Vegas City Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald with proclamations from both the city and Clark County.

Meacham, who served as president of CCSN from 1983-1994, is now a graduate coordinator, work force development program coordinator and a professor in UNLV's educational leadership department.

"Frederick Douglass is one of my idols, and anything connected to his name I'm proud to be a part of," said Meacham, who also is a sought after speaker on black student achievement.

Douglass, born in 1818 near Easton, Md., was a leader of the movement to end slavery in the United States in the years before the Civil War. He escaped slavery in 1838 and toured the United States and England to speak on the evils of slavery.

The publisher of the anti-slavery newspaper North Star, Douglass served as an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and later fought for constitutional amendments that gave blacks civil liberties and the right to vote. He served as consul general to Haiti, 1889-91, and died in Washington D.C. on Feb. 20, 1895.