Clyburn Honored to Receive Marjorie Amos-Frazier Pacesetter Award

WASHINGTON D.C. - Mignon Clyburn was destined for public service.

"I can't remember not knowing her," Clyburn said of Marjorie Amos-Frazier, a legend in Charleston and South Carolina political circles.

Amos-Frazier was the first woman, African American and non-legislator elected to the South Carolina Public Service Commission by the S.C. General Assembly, and served as was the first woman elected to the Charleston County Council. Last summer the West Ashley Democrats, an affiliate organization of the Charleston County Democratic Party, established the Pacesetter Award following the death of Amos-Frazier, to recognize people and organizations that exemplify her commitment to public service and community betterment.

Clyburn was named the 2011 recipient of the Pacesetter Award and said she was overcome with emotion when told she had been chosen.

"When I first heard the news I was euphoric," she said.

Now a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission, Clyburn, started her career in public office following Amos-Frazier's footsteps on the S.C. PSC. Prior to her election to the PSC Clyburn was the publisher of a weekly Charleston newspaper for 14 years.

She said she never really made a choice to go into public service, her parents - she is the daughter of U.S. Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) - and Mrs. Amos-Frazier essentially made the choice for her.

"She said to me one day, 'You're smart, you obviously work hard, you can do this,'" Clyburn recalls. "I said, 'But I don't know anything about utilities.' She said, 'That doesn't matter, you're smart you can do this.'"

In 1998 Clyburn was elected by the General Assembly to a spot on the PSC, beating out five other candidates for the spot on the first round of balloting. Amos-Frazier was sitting with Clyburn and her mother day in the General Assembly Chamber waiting on the results of the vote and all three jumped for joy when they were announced, Clyburn said.

"I don't know when it was that I started spending most of my Sunday afternoons in her house," Clyburn said. "Her home was the type of place you went to be with friends."

The Clyburns attended the same church as Amos-Frazier, Morris Brown AME in Charleston, and like many in the community congregated at Amos-Frazier's Ashley Avenue home on Sunday afternoons.

"The food was good, but the conversation was great," she said.

From a union organizer to a County Councilwoman to a Public Service Commissioner, Amos-Frazier passed her knowledge and skills on to countless others in the Charleston community who got involved in public life and civic improvement. And Clyburn was among them soaking in everything from the time she was a young girl.

"She saw something in me that I didn't know I had," Clyburn said. "But for her I wouldn't be where I am today."

Amos-Frazier kept in touch with Clyburn as she moved from South Carolina to Washington D.C. and Clyburn continued to visit when she visited Charleston.

"I miss her though," Clyburn said. "When I pass by her house I think about her. With this award, with any recognition I get, I think of her and my grandparents who paved the way for me."

Clyburn said she strives to live up to Amos-Frazier's legacy by being a conduit to connect people with organizations and individuals that can address their needs. In her role as an FCC commissioner she also tries to find ways to encourage more diversity on the airwaves and in the organizations that use them.

"It's bringing down the barriers from the control room to the boardroom," Clyburn said. "Diversity isn't just race and gender there is also geographic diversity."

"It is so important for everyone to have a full image of each other," she continued. "If we have a limited or tainted exposure of another group, it limits the exchange and ability of that group to be all it can be."

Clyburn said she looks to Amos-Fraizer's example in her own life.

"She saw the value in everyone who walked in her door," Clyburn said. "She took the time to listen and then did what it took to help them."