The Links: women's organization celebrates 50th anniversary

Ebony, July, 1996

Last year, the Links initiated a new program, Walk-A-Thon for Health and Hunger, a project promoting good health in the African-American family. In September 1995, thousands of Links, along with family and friends, across the United States, in Germany and the Bahamas walked in the name of good health and to feed the hungry. Proceeds were donated to food banks and homeless shelters. The pilot program was so successful that the Centers for Disease Control issued a grant for the Links to continue the project on a larger scale. Mary Clark, the Links Health & Wellness director, says the theme is Make Health A Habit. "African-Americans need to embrace a lifestyle change in pursuing good health," she says. "Moderate exercise, such as walking, is a step in the right direction."

With its numerous programs and services, the Links believe they are stepping in the right direction. However, the president says the organization would like to dispel the myths surrounding it. "I think that because membership in this organization is by invitation only, it creates an aura of mystique, and it lessens the knowledge and understanding of the mission," she says. "Therefore, the stereotypical portrayal that gets attached relates possibly, and unfairly, to an upper middle class that is insensitive to the greater needs in the community. But our record speaks for itself, and in the past and now our purpose has been demonstrated, our commitment firm."

She adds that members of the Links are physicians, attorneys, engineers, educators, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and homemakers, and all use their considerable resource base to improve the quality of life for others.

The Links feel that the most pressing social need that the organization is addressing today is the quality of public education. The Links leadership advocates a hands-on approach that goes back to the extended family concept of neighborhoods and villages in which every adult considers each child his or her responsibility. Consequently, each child can stand tall and have pride, dignity, integrity and character.

Russell-McCloud seeks to lead by example as she prepares the organization for the next century. "I want my legacy on the eve of the millennium to be that we did not miss this opportunity to be a viable, dynamic, comprehensive force of empowered African-American women," she says. "We are a cadre of competent women who have our fingers on the pulse of the possible, linkages toward the possible....We have been successful because we understand that those of us to whom much is given, much is required," she adds, "and we have been responsive to that through our programming."