The day’s theme was “resilience and Black enterprise,” with eight area entrepreneurs tapped to receive awards. State and local politicians and political hopefuls were there. So were educators and business owners and musicians and artists and clergy.
But it was someone not in the room who consumed a great deal of attention. President Donald Trump’s concerted attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion were an inevitable topic of discussion at an event hosted by a organization founded on those very principles, shorthanded as DEI.
“We have to continue in this fight for equality,” said Esther Lee, the Bethlehem NAACP executive committee chair who has been a raw force of nature in the Lehigh Valley’s Black community for decades.
“We’ve got a crazy man in there now,” she said, offering a typically blunt assessment of Trump as a kind of wrecking ball crashing against the edifice of Black achievement in a country that for so long hindered its construction.
People gather at the NAACP’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Rev. Clinton Bryant speaks during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
NAACP Bethlehem President Esther Lee greets people as they arrive at the organization’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
NAACP Bethlehem President Esther Lee greets people as they arrive at the organization’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
NAACP Bethlehem President Esther Lee greets people as they arrive at the organization’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
NAACP Bethlehem President Esther Lee greets people as they arrive at the organization’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Belinda Waller-Peterson, of Moravian University, speaks during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
People sing during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Former Allentown Central Catholic Coach Mike Kopp speaks with former players as the 2025 class is inducted into the Lehigh Valley Basketball Hall of Fame during the 50th Lehigh Valley Basketball All-Star Classic on Sunday March, 30, 2025, at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
NAACP Bethlehem President Esther Lee greets people as they arrive at the organization’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
G. Christopher Hunt, of Moravian University, speaks during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
People attend the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
People gather during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Bethlehem Area School District Superintendent Jack Silva speaks during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Belinda Waller-Peterson, of Moravian University, speaks during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Belinda Waller-Peterson, of Moravian University, speaks during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Belinda Waller-Peterson, of Moravian University, speaks during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Belinda Waller-Peterson, of Moravian University, speaks during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
People gather during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Belinda Waller-Peterson, of Moravian University, speaks during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
NAACP Bethlehem President Esther Lee greets people as they arrive at the organization’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Bethlehem Mayor J. William Reynolds speaks during the NAACP Bethlehem’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
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People gather at the NAACP’s 80th annual Freedom Fund banquet Sunday, March 30, 2025, at Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem Township. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
Jack Silva, superintendent of Bethlehem Area School District, credited the NAACP with keeping attention focused on “the higher objects, justice and fairness.”
“We will continue our DEI work and we won’t call it anything but that,” he said. “Shame on calling it anything else.”
Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure had a similar take, noting that the county has been committed to diversifying its workforce for years.
“Our society is better when it’s diverse,” he said. “Our society is better when we value equity. I’m for DEI and I always will be.”
The keynote speaker, as it happened, was Belinda Waller-Peterson, who is not only chair of the English department at Moravian University but associate dean for inclusive excellence.
She swept the shadow of the DEI controversy out of the room by recounting the extraordinary life of Madam C.J. Walker, who was born two years after the Civil War and became the country’s first female self-made millionaire by creating and marketing hair products and cosmetics to other Black women.
Walker “didn’t just break glass ceilings, she built new floors for others to stand on,” Waller-Peterson said.
“Black enterprise has always existed, in freedom and in bondage,” she added. “The same spirit lives in the entrepreneurs we honor today.”
Supporting Black business, she said, “is not just a moral action, it’s an economic imperative. Because when Black businesses grow, Black communities grow. Because when Black wealth increases, Black futures expand. Because ownership gives us power. Not just purchasing power, but decision-making power. Political power. Generational power.”
The banquet’s honorees were Miriam Frey, who has provided hair care and spa services to the Black community in Allentown for 25 years; Steve Holloman, the retired creator of the eclectic Bethlehem gift shop Topsy Turvy; Veronica Moore, an educator, children’s book author and co-owner of The Taste Smokers, a Bethlehem event space and catering business.
Also, Michael Perry, who began his hair salon career in Easton in 1987; Tyrone Russell, a racial justice activist and co-founder of Faces International, an Allentown marketing agency; Tyishe Sanderson, founder and owner of T&R Cleanings, a Bethlehem janitorial service; Chris Sell, founder and operator of the Official Cuts barbershop in Bethlehem; and Ulonda Weems, owner of Just For U Salon in Allentown.
Morning Call reporter Daniel Patrick Sheehan can be reached at 610-820-6598 or dsheehan@mcall.com.
