Beatrice Morrow Cannady Ubuntu Courage Award

The Beatrice Morrow Cannady Ubuntu Courage Award is presented each year by COCC's Afrocentric Program. Named for a civil rights pioneer whose work reached across the Pacific Northwest, the award honors a member of the community whose courage and care strengthen the people around them.

Ubuntu is often loosely translated as "I am because we are." The philosophy holds that our humanity is shared and that we thrive when our whole community does. The award recognizes a community member who lives out the Ubuntu courage principles:

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Who was Beatrice Morrow Cannady?

Beatrice Morrow Cannady (1889-1974) was a pioneering civil rights activist for Oregon. She was the editor and eventual owner of the state’s leading Black newspaper, The Advocate; a founding member of the Portland NAACP chapter in 1914; and the first Black woman to graduate from the Northwestern College of Law in 1922. Education and community building were her passion and she confronted discrimination in her writings and on the road throughout Oregon and Washington. In the early 1920s, Cannady visited Central Oregon on multiple occasions to speak on racial equity at local churches and social clubs. Cannady and the Rev. J. W. Anderson inspired the creation of the Bend Colored Men’s Business Club in 1926.

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Nominations

Nominations for the Beatrice Morrow Cannady Ubuntu Courage Award are open now through Dec. 1. Nominees can be a COCC student, faculty, staff or a member of the community at large. Each submission should be able to answer the following three questions:

1. How does the nominee embody two or three principles of Ubuntu?
   • Healing Lateral Violence
   • Risk-Taking for Others
   • Encouraging Collective Action
   • Building Community
   • Courage to Challenge and Be Challenge
   • Serving the Vulnerable
2. Why does the nominee deserve recognition?
3. What is a favorite moment or story that connects the nominee to Beatrice Morrow Cannady's legacy?

Submit a nomination

Nominees will be announced on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The community panel will then review all submissions and vote by Feb. 1 to select the honoree, who will be recognized at COCC's Black History Month Celebration. The panel will consist of the Afrocentric Program coordinator, representatives from the Deschutes Historical Museum and a current COCC student.

For questions, please contact Marcus LeGrand at mlegrand2@cocc.edu or call 541-330-4376.