Black Directors Health Equity Initiative to Honor Billye Suber Aaron at Atlanta Summit

ATLANTA, Oct. 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Broadcaster, activist and philanthropist Billye Suber Aaron will be honored at the Black Directors Health Equity Initiative (BDHEA) 2022 National Summit meeting in Atlanta.

John W. Daniels Jr., BDHEA board chair and executive sponsor, will present Mrs. Billye Suber Aaron with the BDHEA Chairman's Award at 8 a.m. Oct. 4 at the Morehouse School of Medicine.

Mrs. Billye Suber Aaron shares the BDHEA's goal of advancing health equity and is a longtime Morehouse School of Medicine supporter. Morehouse classroom and clinical programs promote careers in under-represented and rural communities. The Aarons' gift to expand the Hugh M. Gloster Medical Education Building was essential in building the meeting rooms and laboratories of its distinctive Billye Suber Aaron Pavilion. Mrs. Billye Suber Aaron has also been instrumental in raising scholarship funds for Morehouse medical students.

"As directors of healthcare organizations, we respect Mrs. Billye Suber Aaron's many roles in serving her communities and driving them forward," said Daniels, chair emeritus of the Quarles & Brady law firm. "Her life shows us how to persevere in building civic institutions and Black leaders."

BDHEA will donate $5,000 to the Hank Aaron Chasing the Dream Foundation honoring Mrs. Billy Suber Aaron's late husband, Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Henry Aaron Jr. A BDHEA supporter will match up to $10,000 in donations raised by summit participants—healthcare executives and board members who are developing sustainable approaches to end health disparities in Black communities.

The purpose of the Hank Aaron Chasing the Dream Foundation is to endow four year scholarships to students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Nearly 30 years  later, the Aarons' foundation has awarded hundreds of scholarships to underprivileged youth from across the United States providing them with the assistance necessary to fulfill their dreams.

Mrs. Billye Suber Aaron was a host of WSB-TV's "Today in Georgia," becoming in 1968 the first Black woman in the Southeast to host a daily talk show. She taught English at Morehouse, Spelman College, South Carolina State, Morris Brown College and the Atlanta Public Schools. After the death of her first husband, Baptist minister and philosophy professor Samuel W. Williams, she returned to Morehouse as community relations director.

The Aarons married in 1973 and co-founded the Hank Aaron Chasing the Dream Foundation in 1994. Mrs. Billye Suber Aaron hosted a weekly talk show at WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee before starting a long fund-raising association with the United Negro College Fund and its "Lou Rawls Parade of Stars" telethon. She retired from UNCF in 1994 as Southeast vice president. Mrs. Billye Suber Aaron also was active in the NAACP and served for 45 years as a national director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Hank Aaron died in 2021.

About BDHEA

The Black Directors Health Equity Agenda (BDHEA) is made up of board directors and senior leaders who are working to eradicate the health disparities and inequities that threaten the individual and collective prosperity of Black families. As change agents, its members across the health ecosystem foster and facilitate board education for up-and-coming leaders, encourage revised business models, spur innovative thinking and action and support policy reforms that advance health equity for Black Americans that will ultimately ensure equal and fair healthcare for all. Learn more at bdhea.org.

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SOURCE Black Directors Health Equity Agenda