Sunrise Rotary's Clara Harris at Hall of Fame Induction: 'Everyone Is valuable'

La Mesa Sunshine Rotary Club member Clara Harris summed up her life’s work Saturday in a video shown a standing ovation crowd: “Everyone is valuable. Every man, woman, child—wherever they’re from.”

Harris was inducted into the San Diego County Women’s Hall of Fame, telling an audience at San Diego State's Alumni Center that her “heart is full of gratitude.”

Harris was presented the Multi-Cultural Bridge Builder Award at the 10th annual induction ceremony. She was the first of the five 2011 inductees to be honored.

“I just appreciate all of you so very much,” Harris told the crowd. “This award means more to me than anything that I have ever received in my entire life. Thank you very, very much.”

Some of Harris’ friends from La Mesa Sunrise Rotary—which meets Fridays at Marie Callender’s on Alvarado Road—also attended the ceremony.

“Her mother taught her to respect other people,” said Bill Pogue, who first met Harris in 1987 through the club. “She’s very good at it. She gets people into constructive dialogue.”

A short video of each woman was played to give a brief history of the new inductees before they received their awards on stage.

In her video, Harris talked about promoting fair housing and speaking out against discrimination.

Harris, who has lived in Lemon Grove for almost 50 years, served as the executive director of Heartland Human Relations and Fair Housing Association, now known as the Center for Social Advocacy, for 20 years. Founded in 1969, the nonprofit organization is one of San Diego’s oldest civil and human rights organizations. 

Although she retired from the organization in 2003, Harris continues to work as a contracted consultant promoting equal opportunity and fair housing.

“We have passed several laws since that sort of bolster women’s rights,” she said in the video. “I’m very proud to have been part of some of the legislation that has gone through, and I feel it’s a testament to what happened and what can happen when a small group of people want to make change.

“This change came slowly, very slowly, and we’re still working on it. We are still working on it,” she continued. “Everyone is valuable. Every man, woman, child— wherever they’re from.”

Justice Judith McConnell, a 2010 inductee, officiated the ceremony. After the video, McConnell presented Harris her award and a bouquet.

“We are here to permanently and publicly recognize and honor Clara Harris for improving our collective lives with her life work, her courage, her willingness to stand up for her beliefs and the needs of San Diegans and all of us,” she said.

“You remain an inspiring role model. For all your contributions to the county of San Diego and humanity, we hereby induct you, Clara Harris, into the San Diego County Women’s Hall of Fame.”

Harris said: “I have been a defender of equal rights and equal opportunities all of my life. It came from my grandmother and my mother.”

She said that she had thought of her grandmother a lot during the days leading up to the ceremony.

“I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls, a lot of people have been congratulating me, and I could hear my grandmother’s little voice saying, ‘Now honey, don’t you get the big head,’ ” Harris said in a Southern accent, which prompted laughter from the crowd.

Harris thanked her family and friends, including her children and grandchildren in the audience. She also thanked the community.

“The community, to me, has changed so tremendously in the past 25 years,” she said. “I look at the way it was and the way it is now—and I have a basis for comparison.”

Several children were among Harris’ guests at the ceremony. The children were from Interactions for Peace, a nonprofit organization that promotes peaceful exchanges among youth.

“She goes out of her way to help people,” said Daevionne Beasley, a sixth-grader from Cajon Valley Middle School, before the ceremony. “She’s always worried about other people. She’s a selfless person. That’s why I think she deserves this award.”

Agreeing was Marina Ybarra, a fifth-grader at Lexington Elementary School.

“She’s a hard-working person,” she said. “She deserves it because she has a true heart.”

The other honorees are Rita Sanchez, who taught the first Chicana course at Stanford University and produced a Journal of Chicana Women’s Writings. She received the “Creator of Structural Change/Activist” award. Martha W. Longenecker, the founder of the San Diego Mingei International Museum, received the “Preserver of Culture/Historian” award. Judy Forman, an activist and owner of the Big Kitchen Café (where she is affectionately know as “Judy the Beauty on Duty” to patrons), received the “Empowerer of Women’s Lives” award. The late Margaret “Midge” Costanza, the first woman to be appointed as assistant to the president of the United States, was also honored. She received the “Trailblazer” award.

In addition to the five inductees, former San Diego City Councilwoman Donna Frye received the Spirit of the Hall of Fame award.

The Women’s Hall of Fame exhibit is housed within the Women’s Museum of California at 2323 Broadway, Suite 107, in San Diego.

The Women’s Hall of Fame is organized in collaboration by the museum, the Women’s Studies Department at SDSU, the Women’s Center at UC San Diego and the San Diego County Commission on the Status of Women.

“It is so empowering to be here with so many bossy women,” McConnell said. “I hope those of you who are not yet bossy will remember that it took some troublemakers and some bossy women to get you the rights that we didn’t have 40, 50 years ago.”