By Delores Jones and Laura Ziegler
Kansas City MO – As a regional administrator of the Women's Bureau for the U.S. Department of Labor, Rose Kemp's efforts to get equal housing, equal wages and equal opportunities for all women earned her a reputation as a champion of women's rights.
Ruth Margolin, a close friend of Kemp's and former director of the UMKC Women's Center, talked about the goals and vision of this remarkable civic leader.
Before she died last November, Rose Kemp came to the UMKC Women's Center with an idea for a conference exploring leadership among black women. Her idea was to provide a forum for these women to share their stories of success and failure with one another.
On April 6th and 7th, the first Black Women Leaders Conference,Opening Minds, Opening Doors, will be held at UMKC to honor the memory of Rose Kemp.
The key note speaker for the conference will be Iyanla Vanzant, an author, lawyer, motivational speaker, and perhaps most recognizably, a regular on "The Oprah Winfrey Show".
She won the 31st NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literay Work for her non-fiction book, Yesterday I Cried, and currently hosts a TV program called "Starting Over". Last week, Iyanla Vanzant talked with Laura Ziegler about her story and her work.
