Frances Pratt honored with Key to Rockland for decades of civil rights work, trailblazing Steve Lieberman, Rockland/Westchester Journal News
Dr. Frances Pratt receives the Key to the County for her service & leadership.
Replay Video UP NEXT
NEW CITY – Frances Pratt received the Rockland County executive s highest civilian award on Friday for her decades as Nyack NAACP president and a civil rights leader.
Pratt, wearing one of her trademark floppy hats, which earned her the moniker Pratt in the Hat, recently retired as Nyack NAACP branch leader. She had worked for years as a nurse and then as the first African American head nurse at Nyack Hospital s emergency room.
Pratt offered words of thanks in her signature style.
She thanked friend and brother the honorable Ed Day for this honor and told him that her mother s father was Irish so there may be more blood between us than one might think. While I don t have the documents to prove our kinship – our freckles speak volumes, Pratt said, drawing laughter during the short ceremony at the County Office Building.
She spoke of my daughter from another mother, Constance Frazier, a retired educator, and the Rockland Human Rights commissioner, as well as her grandson, Gerald Parker, and other friends and colleagues.
Friday, December 11, 2020 10:06 am
Jerry L. Frazier, 72, a lifelong resident of Cleveland and Bradley County, departed this life on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020.
He was born in Bradley County on July 29, 1948, to the late T.L. Frazier and Dorothy Sherlin Frazier.
Jerry was a pillar and foundational member of the educational system in Bradley County. He held a bachelor of science degree from Lee University, with a major in sociology; master of education degree from the University of Tennessee and had more than 45 post-graduate hours from Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Tennessee Tech, and Appalachian Technical College.
He spent 46 years in the educational area in numerous roles serving as the principal of Michigan Avenue Elementary for two years; assistant principal of Bradley Central High School for 10 years; Bradley County School Superintendent for eight years, from 1988-1996; principal of Charleston School from 1996-1999; and principal of Tennessee Christian Preparatory School for