The Conferring of Honorary Degrees
LeGree Sylvia Daniels
Citation Presented by Lonna Malmsheimer
Professor of American Studies and Director of Community Studies
LeGree Sylvia Daniels, mentor of young men, political organizer, civil servant, and seeker of social justice, your life has been the very exemplar of the American Dream. Born February 29, 1920 in Denmark, South Carolina, the granddaughter of a slave, you grew up in Philadelphia, seeking the education your father knew would take you far and following your mother's example of gracious hard work. The first African-American in Pennsylvania's State Department of Revenue in 1941, where you took your first job, you were greeted with hostility and anger on the part of white co-workers. Through determination and unfailing courtesy, you won your co-workers to your cause, eventually to become their supervisor.
You were an active Republican organizer, eventually chairing the Black Republican Caucus, even as you always stood for a public service of bipartisanship. Appointed by President Reagan as the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights of the nation's Department of Education, you advocated behind the scenes for the establishment of Martin Luther King's birthday as a national holiday. Later, you were appointed by first President Bush and then President Clinton, to the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service, a post in which you still serve in this your 84th year.
Over the years you served as staff assistant to Senate minority leader Hugh Scott, as chairman of the Pennsylvania Tax Equalization Board, as commissioner of the Pennsylvania Board of Elections, and as deputy secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In addition, you have been Vice-Chairman of the National Electoral College, a member of the Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations, on the Army Science Board, on the President's Commission on White House Fellows, on the Middle Atlantic Board of the United States Civil Rights Commission, the board of the National Endowment for Democracy and the Board of Advisors of the Pennsylvania State University.
As if that weren't enough, throughout your life you and your husband both ran a business and became the mentors and teachers of a generation of young black men, who remain your devoted "sons."
Mr. President, it is a privilege and an honor to present you, Governor LeGree Sylvia Daniels, for the honorary degree of Doctor of Public Administration.
Conferring of the degree by William G. Durden
President
LeGree Sylvia Daniels, upon the recommendation of the Faculty to the Board of Trustees, and by its mandamus, I confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Public Administration, with the rights, privileges, and distinction thereunto appertaining, in token of which I present you with this diploma and cause you to be invested with the hood of Dickinson College appropriate to your degree.
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