“Do what you can for whomever you can while you can because you can.”
-Laverne Greene-Leech
“I love speaking and sharing my story. It must be told.”
Speaking Topics:
Black History/ Civil Rights
Local Mississippi History
Breast Cancer Awareness
Christian Living
Christian Education
Senior Motivation
Panels
Conferences / Conventions
Graduation/ Convocation
Interviews
On-Camera Segments
Strategic Partnerships
About Laverne
Laverne Greene-Leech, a native Mississippian, is a civil rights pioneer, poet, breast cancer survivor, author, and life-long educator. She is one of three African-American undergraduate students who desegregated Mississippi State College for Women — now Mississippi University for Women (MUW) — in 1966.
Her story is captured in the The Price We Paid anthology, and the Mississippi University for Women pioneers website, which includes photos and oral history accounts. In 2016, MUW awarded Green-Leech the university's Medal of Excellence.
After leaving the “W”, Laverne worked for more than thirty years as an educator, including making history as the first female Dean of Christian Education for the Gethsemane Mt. Moriah District Association of Baptist Churches.
Laverne continues to make and preserve history through her work as the founding Director and curator of the R.E. Hunt Museum and Culture Center in Columbus, Mississippi.
“The school was right down the street from where I lived, so there was no reason why I shouldn't go to that particular school. So that was it. It wasn't just to call attention to integration, or the fact that no one had gone before. This was a school close to home, and I decided I wanted to go.”
In Their Footsteps — Applying to the “W”
“When you think about cancer, you think about…Death. Well I want to let you know, you don't have to die.”
Say Hi!
Contact Laverne for speaking engagements, or to just say hi. =)