Trio of AKAs Elected to Lead National Organizations

Rise to power parallels AKA’s leadership mission

Alpha Kappa Alpha’s resolve to cultivate leaders was dramatically underscored with the election of three of its members to leadership positions in the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Bar Association.

The new leaders are:

• Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), who was elected during the recent convention in Las Vegas;

• Kathy Times, who joins Ciara’s team as the newly-elected vice president/broadcast of NABJ; and

• Attorney Vanita Banks, who was recently installed as president of the National Bar Association (NBA).

President McKinzie applauded the trio of members by noting that they represent the Alpha Kappa Alpha ideal. “I speak on behalf of the membership in acknowledging their achievements and for symbolizing and personifying AKA’s leadership model.”

As 17th president of the NABJ, Barbara Ciara will lead a 3,300-member organization of journalists, students and media-related professionals. NABJ was founded in 1975 in Washington, DC, and is hailed as the largest organization of journalists of color in the nation. The organization provides quality programs and services to, and advocates on behalf of, Black journalists worldwide. NABJ was one of the lead agencies that spoke out when Don Imus disparaged the Rutgers University Women’s Basketball team. NABJ’s outspokenness sparked a national outrage that led to his firing.

Ciara’s victory culminated a successful campaign that focused on her strong media credentials and proven leadership skills.

She is the managing editor and primary anchor at WKTR News Channel 3 in Norfolk, VA. Throughout her 25-year career, Ciara has worked as a reporter, photographer, producer and assignment editor.

Her excellent work has won her an Emmy and several Emmy nominations, and she has been honored by Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for her reports on race and ethnicity. She also received the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio and Television News Directors Association, numerous Associated Press and United Press International awards, as well as a dozen prestigious "Excel" awards from the Hampton Roads Black Media Professionals.

Her broadcast duties have taken her all over the world and her stories have run the news gamut. She lists her one-on-one interview with Oprah Winfrey as a career high point.

Ciara has produced a number of works that bring history into perspective with today's world, such as her award-winning documentary on "Massive Resistance" in Virginia, with compelling interviews of the "Norfolk 17"—the students who integrated Norfolk School in 1959.

In keeping with the AKA credo, to “serve all mankind,” Ciara donates her talent, time and treasure to several philanthropic organizations, including the Tidewater AIDS Crisis Taskforce, Habitat for Humanity, the Boys and Girls Clubs and the Sorority, as an active member of Upsilon Omicron Omega Chapter (Norfolk, VA).

Ciara graduated summa cum laude from Hampton University.

Kathy Times, an investigative reporter for WVTM-TV (NBC13) in Birmingham, AL, was elected vice president/broadcast of NABJ.

She has won several awards, including an Emmy for an NBC13 investigative report.

Before joining NBC13, Times worked as a morning anchor and investigative reporter in Jackson, MS. She has also reported in Kansas City, MO., Miami, Mobile and Gainesville.

Times is a native of Miami. She earned degrees in both journalism and computer information systems from Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. She also earned a masters degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

She is an active general member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Attorney Vanita Banks was installed as the 65th president of the National Bar Association during its annual convention held recently in Atlanta. Elected to serve for one year, she will preside over the 20,000-member organization that represents African American lawyers, judges, legal scholars and law students internationally. In taking over the presidency, she becomes only the second female attorney from corporate America to head the organization in its 82-year history.

Banks has a long-standing record of tireless dedication to increasing diversity in the legal profession. As a founding member of the Allstate Law & Regulation Department Diversity Committee, her accomplishments include a summer internship program that provides learning and employment opportunities for minority law school students, and a collaborative effort with Allstate's Premier Law Firms that includes working with minority high school students to promote legal career opportunities, mentoring college and law school students, participating in minority job fairs, and providing scholarships.

Banks earned her B.A. in political science from Purdue University and her J.D. from The Valparaiso University School of Law. She also received an L.L.M. in Taxation from DePaul. Banks was recently designated a Purdue University Old Master and is a member of the American Bar Association, Cook County Bar Association, Black Women Lawyers of Chicago and North Shore Labor Counsel. She pledged the Sorority’s Epsilon Rho Chapter at Purdue University.

As a tribute to the newly-installed NBA president, and on behalf of AKA’s international president Barbara A. McKinzie and its 200,000 members worldwide, the organization’s first vice president, Carolyn House Stewart, presented Pink Tea Roses to the newly-installed president. As Attorney Banks accepted the roses, AKAs in attendance, gave her a standing ovation.