Today In Black History: Dr. Hazel Dukes
Former president of the NAACP
Issue #820 Today In Black History, Monday, March 10, 2025
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Born on March 10, 1932, in Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. Hazel Dukes 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 started school at Nassau Community College, majoring in business administration.
In the 1960s, she joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where her leadership skills quickly became evident. Rising through the ranks, she became the President of the NAACP New York State Conference, a position she held for many years. Her tenure was marked by significant campaigns against racial discrimination and for voter registration, healthcare access, and educational equity.
In 1978, Dukes received a bachelor's degree in business administration from Adelphi University. She also completed post-graduate work at Queens College. She held three honorary doctorate degrees from the City University of New York Law School at Queens College, City University of New York’s Medgar Evers College, and Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine.
While living in Roslyn, on Long Island, she worked to combat discrimination in housing. She worked for President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Head Start" program in the 1960s. In 1966, she took a position at the Nassau County Attorney's Office, becoming the first black American to do so. She eventually worked as a community organizer for the Economic Opportunity Commission of Nassau County and taught children who were living in poverty.
Dr. Dukes served as a special assistant to the former New York State Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and later as the President of the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation, where she was one of the first African American women to hold such a position.
From 1989 to 1992, Dr. Dukes served as the national president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Dr. Dukes was appointed president of the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation (NYCOTB) in 1990, twenty-five years after she had been doing social work there. Dukes was appointed head of NYCOTB by New York City Mayor David Dinkins.
In 1990, Dr. Dukes received the Candace Award for Community Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. In 2017, the Women's Black Agenda presented her with its Economic and Business Award at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual conference.
Dr. Dukes was awarded the Empire State and Nation Builder Award by the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators and was recognized by the New York State Senate in 2018. In 2019, a plaque honoring Dukes was placed on 137th Street and Adam Clayton Boulevard in Harlem.
In January 2023, Dr. Dukes swore in Kathy Hochul as governor of New York. In March 2023, a street in Roslyn Heights, New York, where Dukes once lived, was given the honorary name of "Dr. Hazel Dukes Way".
In August 2023, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Dr. Dukes with the Spingarn Medal, the highest honor conveyed by the NAACP.
Dr. Hazel Dukes died in Harlem, New York City, on March 1, 2025, at 92.
Today In Black History
In 1893, the Ivory Coast became a French colony, Côte d’Ivoire.
In 1969, James Earl Ray pled guilty in a Memphis court to charges of assassinating Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ray was sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison.
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