The Truth Staff
The National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, Toledo Club, brought together the 2026 Debutantes for a Females Empowerment Event on Saturday, March 14, in order to explore an “Understanding My Who & Why.”
The event, which united female mentors and role models with young ladies, took place at Vista on the Docks and for both the attendees and the room décor the color of the day was a brilliant yellow.
Pastor Marquisa Horton served as the mistress of ceremonies and attendees were greeted by Club President Tyra Smith-Williamson and NANBPWC District Governor Denise Black-Poon.
Marcel Hampton, the only area Black female chiropractor, sang “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” after which the 2016 Debutantes performed an ice breaker exercise by “introducing you to me and my mirror.”
And then, the message of the day was “confidence.”
Daijah Blackburn, Esq, 2016 Debutante, addressed that subject first. “Where is your confidence?” she asked the young ladies in attendance. “Is it in your clothes, is it in your car, is it in your accomplishments or is it in the people you know?
“Our confidence must remain firm; our values must remain firm, we were created in the image of God. I am confident because this is my Father’s world,” she added. “I am who I am, where is your confidence?”
The afternoon keynote speaker, Delvata Moses, PhD, deputy director of Human Relations and Community Services for the City of Lansing, MI, elaborated on this theme.
Moses spoke of her early years as a child when her intelligence, her outspokenness and even her skin color brought some blowback from others. She retreated, backed away from interactions with others.
“It was the beginning of a pattern, a pattern of questioning myself … ‘maybe I should be different,’” she recalled. “I began practicing how to make myself smaller, I learned how to dim my light.”
But she came back and overcame that doubt and uncertainty. “I made me who I am; I may not be everybody’s cup of tea – that’s why they make coffee.”
Encouraging her listeners to walk their own paths, Moses told them “you are good, no matter what others say.” She also told them that they can create their own feeling of being confidents.
“Confidence comes from understanding who you are and why you are here.”
The 58th Annual Cotillion Debutante will be held in May 2026.