NAACP Founders Day event is Sunday
ALBANY — The Albany NAACP Founders Day event will be presented virtually from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26, via Zoom.
The guest speaker will be Schenectady City Court Judge Teneka Frost. The moderator will be Walter Thorne, market president and publisher at the Albany Business Review. The theme is “Lighting the Torch for the Next Generation.”
The NAACP was founded by activists more than a century ago in New York City to fight against racial discrimination and brutality against people of color. Albany’s chapter was founded in 1935, where meetings began downtown on Hamilton Street.
Registration is required. For more information, contact albanynaacp1@gmail.com. According to the chapter: Thorne joined the Business Review in 2019 as advertising director and was promoted to president in July 2021. He brings over 30 years of sales and leadership experience to the Business Review where he leads a team responsible for implementing strategies that help customers grow their business, advance their career and simplify their professional life.
Thorne’s passion is to give back to the community by coaching and mentoring professionals amid today’s unrest. He combines a perspective of empathy, accountability, awareness and structural changes to guide organizations to new levels in an uncertain time.
Thorne grew up in Wappingers Falls and studied music and business at Wagner College.
He is a classically trained opera singer — trained in six languages — and an avid bowler. Thorne serves on the board of Albany Cancode, the Capital Region Chamber, the CEG board and the Community Foundation Board. He volunteers his time as a mentor through nonprofits, including Capital Region P-TECH and the SEAT Center.
Judge Frost was appointed in 2018 by Mayor Gary Mccarthy to fill a one-year vacancy as City Court judge and is the first African American to hold the position. In November 2018, she was elected to a 10-year term. Prior to her appointment, she was chief administrative law judge at the state Department of State. She is a 1998 graduate of Syracuse University, where she received a bachelor of arts in political science and African American studies. After graduation, she completed a dual degree program at Albany Law School and SUNY Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, where she received a juris doctor and master of public administration in 2002.
An Albany native, she began practicing law with Lemery Greisler LLC. She held legal, policy and management positions with the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, Albany Law School, state Department of Civil Service and Department of State. Frost is a past president of the Capital District Black and Hispanic Bar Association and currently serves as a board member. She is also a member of Schenectady County Bar Association, Capital District Women’s Bar Association, NYS Association of City Court Judges and National Association of Women Judges. She was elected to the Albany Board of Education in 2004 and was president from 200708.