MILWAUKEE — Those who knew Jeanette Mitchell well say she led from the heart.
"She was relational," recalls Ron Adams, regional vice president of distribution performance at Northwestern Mutual. "She was deliberate in pulling us in when she needed support when trying to do good for this community."
Mitchell used her 30 years of experience climbing the corporate ladder, leading as Milwaukee Public School Board president, and earning her doctorate to create the African American Leadership Program, also known as AALP.
"We have a mantra in AALP—stage time is leadership time. And when I tell you Dr. Mitchell, every day of her life, she was on stage and she was leading," said Interim African American Leadership Alliance of MKE President and CEO Angela Adams.
Over the last 15 years, AALP has produced over 250 graduates. Ashley Hines is an alum of AALP, cohort nine.
"In the program, they talk about it as 'Black oxygen.' And that is such a beautiful way to put it. I was able to fill my lungs with people who were like me, people who had similar challenges as me, people like Dr. Mitchell who had overcome them."
Watch: Celebrating the life of Dr. Jeanette Mitchell
Dan Bader, president of Bader Philanthropies, has always been a champion of Mitchell's work. He recalls a woman who believed a "no" was just a delayed "yes."
"She was the most determined person I ever met in my life. You could say no, and she would figure out how to do it. She did that in a very classy way."
While Mitchell held many titles, the most important one, her eldest daughter Pamela Mitchell would say, is mom. The divorced mother of three did everything she could to give her daughters the exposure and access they needed to succeed.
"I like to say that we were the first leaders that she trained... She would take us to plays, she would take us to restaurants. She started when we were little at George Webb, sitting at the counter. So we knew how to operate. She gave us all these life skills that allowed us to operate within the world as leaders."
This past summer, Mitchell officially retired from AALP, but not before one last charge to a large audience of graduates and their family and friends. She asked them to take up the mantle and continue the work she started—creating leaders and making change in Milwaukee for all.
On Saturday, September 14, a community memorial will be held at Marcus Center for the Performing Arts - Uihlein Hall.
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