Past VBW Award Nominees
Renee Chenault-Fattah is a lawyer, broadcast journalist and filmmaker who is currently serving as the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations. She previously served as Director of Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity and the SeniorLAW Center. Her career in broadcast journalism spanned 28 years, including almost 25 years as anchor and reporter at NBC 10 News in Philadelphia. Before her career in journalism, Renee practiced law in New York City. Throughout her career, Renee has served on numerous boards, including the National Association of Black Journalists, NAACP, and Philadelphia Museum of Art. She is currently a trustee of Johns Hopkins University. Renee has been recognized with a number of awards for her civic engagement, contributions to broadcasting and personal commitment to community service.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize winning historian, biographer, public speaker, and New York Times #1 best-selling author. In her career as one of the most renown presidential historians in modern history, Doris has written numerous biographies detailing the incredible hidden histories of presidents such as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, William Howard Taft, and most significantly, John F. Kennedy.
Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne "Cokie" Roberts was an American political journalist, author, and analyst for countless major news outlets such as National Public Radio (NPR), PBS, and ABC News, and more. In her work as a journalist, Cokie was known as one of the "Founding Mothers" of NPR, which she joined in 1978 as a Capitol Hill correspondent helping to shape the voice of the organization for over a decade before moving on to ABC news. Cokie's impact on the world of political journalism was profound, and she maintained a relationship of trust with her viewers for over 40 years. Throughout her career, Cokie won three Emmy Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award and was named a "Living Legend" by the Library of Congress.
Nancy Brinker is a Philanthropist, Former Ambassador of Hungary, and founder of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the largest nonprofit breast cancer research fund in the world, which has invested nearly $3 billion in research, community health outreach, advocacy, and programs in over 60 countries. Nancy also founded the Race for the Cure® in 1983, the world's largest series of 5K run/fitness walks, with over a million annual participants. In 2011, Nancy was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for Cancer Control by the World Health Organization (WHO) and has been recognized with countless awards, including most notably, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was an American attorney, politician, and associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. Justice O'Connor was the first woman ever to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice and was considered one of the most powerful women in the world during her term. Before beginning her term, Justice O'Connor was an Arizona state judge and an elected legislator in Arizona, where she served as the first female majority leader of a state senate as the Republican leader in the Arizona Senate. After retiring from her term, she became chancellor of the College of William & Mary and in 2009, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
