‘Retired’ McDuffie Never Quitting the Fight for Equality

It’s a good bet the knife-carrying suspect and his buddy who challenged racial justice protesters outside a Hertel Avenue bar never attended the Buffalo Urban League’s (Buffalo, NY) annual gala.

Neither, I suspect, did the Tonawanda store manager who called police on a Black man trying to cash his winning lottery ticket, or the cops who arrested and strip-searched the man for no good reason.

If they had, they would have been educated by the stories of African Americans who’ve defied all of the stereotypes and overcome all of the obstacles this society stacks against them.

On the other hand, if they were enlightened enough to attend, they probably wouldn’t have held such racist views in the first place.

It’s those types of attitudes that Brenda McDuffie, directly and indirectly, has confronted the past two decades as head of the Urban League. It was a tenure spent preparing Blacks and others to participate in and contribute to the Western New York economy, while also being a politely direct voice in pointing out social and economic inequity.

“We can’t afford to get tired, and I’m not tired,” she said, channeling the late civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. “We need to be sick and tired of what’s going on.”

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