Buffi Williams’ grandmother did not approve of her not voting during one election.

She knew how hard Black people had fought to be able to vote.

“You do not have the right not to vote,” Williams remembered Grandma Davis telling her. “She was passing the baton of what it is to allow your voice to be heard in the community.”

Williams took the conversation to heart. She will be the keynote speaker at Saturday’s 36th annual NAACP life membership banquet, to be held from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Life Celebration Reception Center, 129 S. Main St.

Williams will address the theme of the banquet, “Voting is Power.” She jumped at the chance to speak.

“Who says no to the NAACP, right?” Williams asked.

She is the clinical program director of A Beautiful Mind, which has offices at 1 Marion Ave. and 215 Trimble Road. Williams is a licensed social worker and licensed independent chemical dependency counselor. She also is pursuing a doctorate degree.

Williams and Sylvia Jordan, sister of the late Walter Jordan II, who was pastor of Oasis of Love, started A Beautiful Mind with a mission to “positively impact lives by investing in culturally competent mental health services that educate, enlighten and empower our diverse community.”

In May, the business will have been in place for a year.

“We’ve grown a lot,” Williams said. “We got a lot of clients real fast.”

She and Jordan, who worked at Richland County Children Services for a number of years, work on identifying the mental health needs of Black and brown people.

Among their clients are young people from Mansfield City Schools, who need help processing the gun violence that has plagued the city.

“I love making complex things simple,” Williams said “… I love this community. I love humans.”

She refers to her native Mansfield as her “village.”

Williams said she is humbled to be the keynote speaker at Saturday’s banquet.

“People are paying to hear you,” she said. “It’s almost like I don’t want to disappoint. I want to use the moment when I have the ear of the community.”

She wants to share the importance of unity, noting the Black community has been able to achieve a lot when it has united.

“We’ve always done things as a unit,” she said. “The civil rights movement would never have gotten where it was if we weren’t unified.”

Three new life members will be recognized at the banquet. They are Angela Brooks Wright, Deanna West-Torrence and Alverta Williams.

Williams is the manager of pastoral care for Ohio Health Mansfield and Shelby hospitals.

West-Torrence is the CEO and founder of the North End Community Improvement Collaborative. She is also a former member of both Mansfield City Council and Mansfield City Schools Board of Education.

Williams is the owner of Mary McLeod-Bethune Intervention and Enrichment.

Tickets are $45 per person and can be purchased from Betty Palmer-Harris or any executive committee member. For more information, contact Palmer-Harris at 419-526-1785.

mcaudill@gannett.com

419-521-7219

X: @MarkCau32059251

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Local branch of NAACP holding 36th life membership banquet