Peggy Brooks-Bertram, Ph. D., and Barbara Nevergold, Ph. D., are making a full-time effort to expose underappreciated truths.
Through their foundation, the Uncrowned Queens Institute for Research and Education on Women at UB, the two are putting the historical focus on the often-overlooked contributions of African American women in history.
The project, "Uncrowned Queens," is a continuing collection of biographies started locally, but now reaching as far west as Oklahoma, where the next phase of the project is taking off.
Luckily, Brooks-Bertram and Nevergold are two queens who will not go without receiving their due honors. The two will be inducted into the Western New York Women's Hall of Fame this March.
Additionally, Nevergold is one of five individuals to have been awarded the 2007 Dr. Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award by the State of New York at an annual ceremony celebrating King's life on Jan. 15 in Albany.
"It was a real honor to receive, because it was named after Martin Luther King and was awarded on his birthday," Nevergold said, "and also because it was awarded to people that were seen to maintain the ideals and philosophies that he had."
Nevergold was nominated for the award by Gladys Diji, affirmative action officer of the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, of which Nevergold has been a member of the board for 20 years.
"The award recognized community service, as well as the work Dr. Bertram and I have done on the Uncrowned Queens Institute," she said.
Nevergold was awarded in the "senior" category of the award. There were two other age categories - "adult" and "youth."
"It was quite an event, and it was really very inspiring in that the award was not just presented to African Americans - the other senior awardee was a 92 year-old Caucasian woman housing advocate from Brooklyn who was still very active and feisty," she said. "I felt very honored in that the people who received the award... were really people who have done outstanding things in their communities. So it was a real honor to be among the group and to be selected from across the state."
The pair is publishing their fourth volume of "Uncrowned Queens" to focus on African-American women and "community builders" in the state of Oklahoma, which has been in progress for the past four years.
"This year is somewhat the culmination of the project there, because our goal was to identify women across the state... which is celebrating its centennial statehood. We were the only out-of-state project to be selected to receive funding under the state's master plan."
Nevergold explained that Brooks-Bertram had been working on the biography of Drusilla Dunjee Houston, whose poem became the inspiration for the title "Uncrowned Queens" as well as the reason they started a project in Oklahoma.
"She was born in the 1870s, and was a newspaper columnist... she was also a historian, author, teacher and a poet," Nevergold said. "Her poem, 'America's Uncrowned Queens' is how we got the inspiration to title our project."
Nevergold said that "Uncrowned Queens" has been a longtime work in progress, and has included a lot of hard work for over eight years, but it was the kind of effort "where you're rejuvenated by the work."
"The recognition that we're getting is certainly gratifying and encouraging," she said. "It bolsters when you go through periods where you're tired, and you're discouraged and things aren't going the way you hoped they go. It's really an infusion of courage and support for us."
Nevergold said that the two felt humbled by the fact that they have had people entrusting them with "valuable" personal information, and allowed them to make the information available to the public.
"This is a project that set out to capture the histories of women, but we couldn't do it unless we were trusted to be doing it correctly," she said. "The actions of the community support the fact that they have entrusted us, and that we're going a good job."
Nevergold added that she and Brooks-Bertram were "thrilled" to be part of the group of women that make up the WNY Women's Hall of Fame, as well as a new project the pair is working on - to be titled "Uncrowned Kings."
"We've started already. We're collecting biographies now - we're starting a webpage in April, and we expect a lot more biographies to come in once people can see examples of what the project is about."
