died in 2021<\/a> from complications of Alzheimer\u2019s disease at the age of 90.<\/p>\nShe was the first African American woman elected to the Long Beach City Council in 1992, representing the city\u2019s Sixth Council District for two terms. She served as vice mayor twice.<\/p>\n
In 2003, Topsy-Elvord once again made history in Long Beach by becoming the first Black person, and just the third woman, to serve on the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners. She served on that board for five years and was its president in 2005.<\/p>\n
Topsy-Elvord was born in Mississippi and her family moved to Long Beach when she was 11 years old. She became the first Black student to graduate from St. Anthony High School in 1949 and later was inducted into the school\u2019s Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
During her tenure on the City Council, Topsy-Elvord helped found the Atlantic Community Economic Development Corp. the Long Beach Midnight Basketball League and cofounded the African American Heritage Society with Indira Hale Tucker.<\/p>\n
On the harbor commission, Topsy-Elvord helped shape the Green Port Policy \u2014 which is still in place \u2014 that guides the Port of Long Beach\u2019s efforts to reduce environmental and community harms caused by its operations. She also helped expand the port\u2019s Small Business Enterprise Program.<\/p>\n
The AACCLB exhibit enshrines and honors Topsy-Elvord\u2019s many achievements throughout her life, while spotlighting how her groundbreaking roles paved the way for other Black women today.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The exhibit) also recognizes the three African American women who followed in her footsteps on the City Council \u2014 Laura Richardson, Dr. Joni Ricks-Oddie and Tunua Thrash-Ntuk \u2014 whose leadership continues the legacy of doors opened by Doris Topsy-Elvord,\u201d AACCLB said in a news release.<\/p>\n
It will be on display until March 28.<\/p>\n
The exhibit is free. It is located at the Expo Arts Center, 4321 Atlantic Ave. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturda, and from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The African American Cultural Center Long Beach on Sunday celebrated the launch of a new exhibit honoring the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,584,23,131,133,132,137],"class_list":["post-210875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-events","tag-local-news","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}