Women of Achievement, Inc. was founded in 1984 by a group of women dedicated to honoring the extraordinary women who have made Memphis and Shelby County better through their lives and accomplishments. The coalition of diverse civic and professional groups and support agencies organizes events to recognize and celebrate these women.
For More Information, visit the Women of Achievement website.
DO IT NOW: Nominate great women for Women of Achievement 2025
Coming on March 30, 2025: the 39th Women of Achievement awards celebrating history-making women of Memphis and Shelby County or women whose achievements are centered in Shelby County.
So — now is the time to nominate the amazing women in your life! Use this form here. New nominations or updates to earlier ones are due by Jan. 10, 2025. Email those or print materials and mail them to PO Box 95, Memphis TN 38101.
Founded in 1984, Women of Achievement volunteers have produced awards celebrations every year except during COVID. Essays about 278 individuals and three groups are archived at womenofachievement.org and in three published books, documenting and preserving women’s role in local history. Nominees for Courage, Initiative, Determination, Vision and Steadfastness must be current residents of Shelby County or their work must be centered in Shelby County. Heritage nominees must have been residents of Memphis or Shelby County. No residence restrictions apply in the Heroism category.
Women of Achievement membership is open to all. WA members participate in and co-chair the seven selection committees that choose finalists for the annual awards in January.
WA is housed at the Memphis Area Women’s Council which administers the program as a gift to the community. The 2025 celebration will be March 30 at First Congregational Church, 1000 Cooper St. Watch for ticket information in the early new year. See you there!
2024 Women of Achievement Honorees
Photography by Andrea Zucker Photography. Left to Right: Sara Lynn Johnson Fultz, Amy Moses, Ellen Rolfes, Joy Brown Weiner, Jennifer Murry-Rodley, Vanessa Rodley, Phillis Lewis.
2024 Women of Achievement Honorees (clockwise from top left) Joy Brown Weiner, Ellen Rolfes, Phillis Lewis, Amy Moses and Sara Lynn Johnson Fultz, Madame Florence Cole Tolbert McCleave, Jennifer Murry-Rodley and Vanessa Rodley.
Women of Achievement 2024
Eight local women were celebrated for changemaking leadership on March 3 at the 38th Women of Achievement awards and celebration of National Women’s History month.
The Women of Achievement honorees for 2024 are:
Courage: Vanessa Rodley and Jennifer Murry-Rodley, Mid-South Pride leaders
Determination: Phillis Lewis, founder and CEO, Love Doesn’t Hurt
Heritage: Madame Florence Cole Tolbert McCleave, barrier-breaking opera singer and educator
Initiative: Ellen Rolfes, philanthropy strategist and innovator
Steadfastness: Joy Brown Weiner, concert violinist, teacher, 40-year Memphis Symphony Orchestra concertmaster
Vision: Amy Moses and Sara Lynn Johnson Fultz, co-founders MOJO Pelvic Health
Pat Mitchell Worley, CEO of the Soulsville Foundation, hosted the awards ceremony in the spacious sanctuary of First Congregational Church.
“This year’s honorees celebrate women who stand up and speak out – to empower women, to write the truth, to protect women’s health, for accessible arts education and for LGBTQIA+ rights and safety,” said co-founder Deborah Clubb, executive director of the Memphis Area Women’s Council. “They exhibit the integrity and tenacity, creativity and passion that make change and make history.”
One of the three cases featuring Women of Achievement memorabilia at the Vasco A. Smith Jr. Shelby County Administration building in early 2019.
One of three cases featuring Women of Achievement memorabilia in the downtown Memphis building in early 2019, including a large banner with images of WA honorees.
Women of Achievement News:
Judge Bernice Bouie Donald, the 2000 Woman of Achievement for Determination who retired in January, is being honored by the renaming of a section of Front Street between Poplar Avenue and Beale Street.
At a reception hosted by her new law firm, Burch Porter & Johnson, Bernice noted that the road was known as “Cotton Row” in the 1800s, home to cotton merchants who marketed the cotton she picked as a child in Mississippi. She has travelled far from those cotton fields.
After law school in Memphis, she became the first Black woman to become judge in Tennessee when she was elected Shelby County General Sessions Criminal Court judge in 1982, the first Black female U.S. bankruptcy judge for the Western District of Tennessee in 1988, first Black woman to serve as a U.S. District Court judge after she was nominated to the Western District of Tennessee by former President Bill Clinton in 1995 and the first Black woman to become a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit when former President Barack Obama appointed her in 2010.
Read the Women of Achievement essay about Bernice here.
- One of our 2024 Women of Achievement honorees, Ellen Rolfes, joined Deborah Clubb in a feature with Kontji Anthony on Live at 9! The video is available here.
- In 2019, Women of Achievement honorees Maxine Strawder and Rachel Greer were interviewed on Live at 9! Watch the video here.