Teaneck civil rights activist Lacey receives award from Museum of the City of New York

TEANECK — Resident and civil rights activist Theodora Smiley Lacey has received the Clara Lemlich Award from The Museum of the City of New York.

The award celebrates the lives of women with decades of social activism who have enabled "real and lasting world change."

Lacey, 92, has been at the center of the civil rights movement almost from its beginning.

Story continues below photo gallery

Her father called Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to serve as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, as president of the church's board of directors.

Her mother was friends with Rosa Parks, whose refusal to sit in the back of a public bus touched off the 1955-56 Montgomery bus strike under King's supervision.

Lacey served as a driver and fundraiser during that boycott, where she met her future husband, Archie Lacey. They married in 1956, and King officiated at the baptism for two of the couple's four children before they moved to Teaneck.

As residents, the couple became involved in fair housing reforms, and were the driving force behind the historic May 1964 vote to desegregate its schools, the first in the nation.

The 60th anniversary of the desegregation vote was celebrated May 13.

Lacey retired in 2007 after 37 years as a science teacher with the Teaneck School District. For her civic involvement, the school district renamed its kindergarten building in her honor in 2020.

The award was presented by Jeremy Lentz, director of special projects for The Puffin Foundation. The award is named for Clara Lemlich Shavelson, who led the "Uprising of the 20,000" New York shirtwaist factory workers' strike for better working conditions in 1909.