NOW-NJ elects first African-American president
Maretta J. Short prevails in statewide contest
Maretta J. Short (second from left), the newly elected president of NOW-NJ, is the first African-American to hold the post. She is pictured here at the organization’s March Women Making History event, together with NOW activists Terry Fasano to her left and, to her right, Susan Waldman (holding grandson Joshua), Shirley Henderson and Barbara Foley. photo courtesy NOW-NJ
Your blogstress just couldn’t be more tickled to learn that Maretta J. Short, your Webwench’s college friend and nearly lifelong compatriot in la causa, has been elected president of New Jersey’s state-level National Organization for Women (NOW), which in the most densely populated state in the nation really means something. And she’s the first African-American to hold the post.
Maretta, who was nominated from the floor of NOW’s state convention, comes to the organization’s top statewide leadership post from her role as chapter president of the Women of Color & Allies, NOW-NJ’s Essex County chapter. She tells your cybertrix of a diverse roster of officers that were elected with her, including a transgendered person and two other African-Americans, as well as a contingent from the South Jersey Alice Paul chapter.
Back in the days when your écrivaine chased the religious right around the country, she would periodically sink into a pit of despair. In those moments, it was Maretta who commanded, “Keep the faith!” And she was clearly true to her own word.
After an hour of burning the phone lines between Essex and Hudson Counties (your blogstress having inhabited the latter), Retta invariably issued her signature sign-off: “Plant ya now; dig ya later.”
Congratulations, Maretta!
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