Black History Month – Ester Huey

Black History Month – WVSD208 honors the history of service of Ester Huey

Ester Huey was born in the segregated South to sharecropper parents. In 1946 at the age of 10, she became part of the “Great Migration to the North” as her mother sought better economic and equal opportunities for Ester and her two siblings.

As a community mobilizer, friend, mother, foster parent, grandmother, great-grandmother, and African-American woman, Ester Huey has been an inspiration to untold children, adults, and families in our community. She lived through some of the most controversial and enlightening periods of America history, including the Civil Rights Act of 1963 that outlawed racial segregation. Only with the enactment of Affirmative Action was she recruited into a job with Washington Mutual Savings Bank. In 1982, she moved back to Yakima to take care of her ailing mother. It was the beginning of her work in social services. She was hired by OIC Washington.

Together, she and Henry Beauchamp worked to expand OIC Washington into the largest OIC in the United States. As part of her work with OIC, she served for many years at the Executive Director of the Southeast Community Center in Yakima which is now known as the Henry Beauchamp Community Center (HBCC). She provided leadership for the community center from near closure to a highly visible and successful service agency – serving babies to senior citizens – that continues to this day.

Throughout the years, Ester Huey has been the recipient of numerous accolades and awards, including the YWCA Woman of Achievement in Community Service, Yakima County’s “Person of the Year” Award, and the Ted Robertson Community Service Award. She also represented Yakima in the Olympic Torch Relay. Her most recent project was a 20-year campaign to bring the MLK Jr. Aquatic Center to fruition. The Aquatic Center is scheduled to open this summer.

In honor of Black History Month, the West Valley School District honors Ester Huey for her many years of service to the Yakima community.

This article was based on source material from Yakima Rotary.