Vermilion Housing Authority

03/11/2026

Mark your calendars and plan to join us along with these other wonderful agencies for this incredible event!

02/24/2026

First National Youth Poet Laureate to recite a poem at a U.S. presidential Inauguration (2021). An American poet, activist, and model. Her work focuses on issues of oppression, race, and marginalization, as well as the African diaspora. Gorman was the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate. She published the poetry book The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough in 2015. She rose to fame in 2021 for writing and delivering her poem "The Hill We Climb" at the inauguration of Joe Biden. Gorman's inauguration poem generated international acclaim and, shortly thereafter, two of her books achieved best-seller status and she obtained a professional management contract.
Gorman was highlighted in Time magazine's 100 Next list under the category of "Phenoms", with a profile written by Lin-Manuel Miranda.[3] That same month, Gorman became the first poet to perform at the Super Bowl, when she delivered her poem "Chorus of the Captains" at Super Bowl LV.

02/23/2026

An American professor and academic administrator. Simmons served as the eighth president of Prairie View A&M University, a historically Black university (HBCU), from 2017 until 2023. From 2001 to 2012, she served as the 18th president of Brown University, where she was the first African-American president of an Ivy League institution. During her time at Brown, Simmons was named the best college president by Time magazine. Prior to Brown University, she headed Smith College, one of the Seven Sisters and the largest women's college in the United States, beginning in 1995. During her tenure, Smith College launched the first accredited engineering program at an all-women's college.
Simmons is a professor of literature specializing in the Romance languages. As of 2017, Simmons is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society (1997), an honorary fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, and a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.
In February 2023, Simmons announced her plans to advise Harvard University on fostering relationships with historically black universities (HBCUs). As of April 2023, Simmons serves as a President's Distinguished Fellow at Rice University.

02/23/2026

An American artistic gymnast. She is the 2012 Olympic all-around gold medalist and the 2015 World all-around silver medalist. She was a member of the gold-winning teams at both the 2012 and the 2016 Summer Olympics, dubbed the "Fierce Five" and the "Final Five" by the media, respectively. She was also a member of the gold-winning American teams at the 2011 and the 2015 World Championships. Additionally, she is the 2012 U.S. champion on the uneven bars and the 2016 American Cup all-around champion.
Douglas is the first African American to win an Olympic individual all-around title, and the first U.S. gymnast to win gold in both the individual all-around and team competitions at the same Olympic Games. With a total of six Olympic and World Championship medals, she is the 11th most decorated U.S. female gymnast of all time.

02/23/2026

American writer and businessman. He was the founder of the Famous Amos chocolate chip cookie, the Cookie Kahuna, and Aunt Della's Cookies gourmet cookie brands, and was the host of the adult reading program Learn to Read.

Amos was born July 1, 1936, to Wallace and Ruby Amos. He was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida, until he was 12 years old.[2] When his parents divorced, he moved to New York City with his aunt, where he enrolled at the Food Trades Vocational High School. He showed his interest in cooking at a young age. It was from his aunt Della Bryant, who would bake cookies for him, that Amos later developed his chocolate chip cookie recipe. Amos dropped out of high school to join the United States Air Force.
He served at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, Hawaii, from 1954 until 1957. He earned his high school equivalency diploma before being honorably discharged from the military.

02/17/2026

Ruby Bridges was the first African American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, 1960. She was six years old at the time. Despite intimidation and discrimination, Bridges never missed a day of school.
Bridges has written two books on her experience and has been honored with the Carter G. Woodson Book Award. In 1999, she also set up The Ruby Bridges Foundation to promote equality in education. Bridges is also a lifelong activist for racial equality. In 1999, Ruby established The Ruby Bridges Foundation to promote tolerance and create change through education. In 2000, she was made an honorary deputy marshal in a ceremony in Washington, DC.

02/17/2026

The landscape of Hollywood has the work of many Black women, including Ava DuVernay, Issa Rae and Shonda Rhimes, to name a few. Maria P. Williams paved the way as the first Black woman to produce, write and act in her own silent crime movie in 1923, The Flames of Wrath. To distribute the film, she formed the Western Film Producing Company and Booking Exchange with her husband. The former Kansas City teacher was also an activist and detailed her leadership skills in her 1916 book, My Work and Public Sentiment.
Williams served as editor-in-chief (1891–1894) of the Kansas City weekly New Era. This spurred her to seek greater independence by founding, writing and editing her own newspaper, The Woman's Voice (1896–1900), "sponsored by the 'colored women's auxiliary' of the Republican Party; the paper was described as having "many pleasant things to say on a choice of timely topics.” In 1916, Williams went on to publish her memoir.

02/13/2026

With a distinctive baritone and demanding stature, Don Cornelius helped to shift Black culture into the spotlight with the creation of the show Soul Train. The “Hippest Trip in America” was picked up for national syndication in 1971, with its first episode featuring performers Gladys Knight & The Pips, Eddie Kendricks, Bobby Hutton and Honey Cone.

The dance show exposed Black acts to a larger national audience, featuring Soul Train dancers, the Scramble Board, the Soul Train Line and Cornelius’ famous catchphrase “Love, Peace and Soul.” The combination of performances and interviews proved to be a formula that worked. The show is one of the longest-running syndicated shows that ran until 2006. .

02/13/2026

Expeditions tried to reach the North Pole for 18 years but were always unsuccessful due to the brutal cold and untamed conditions, until Navy Lt. Robert Peary led the first expedition to finally reach the North Pole. By his side was Matthew Henson (1866–1955), an African American explorer born to free sharecroppers.

Peary learned the Inuit language of the natives in the area, which proved key to the explorers’ success. In addition, he mastered several Intuit survival techniques and had superior dog-sledding and navigational skills. In 1912, Henson published a book about his adventures, "A Negro Explorer at the North Pole", and went on to receive a Congressional medal and a Presidential Citation in 1950.

08/13/2025