At awards ceremony, Chair of the Gateway College Foundation Board Rev. Hiram Brett; Dr. Shiang-Kwei Wang, campus president of Gateway Community College; honorees Diane X. Brown, Carter Winstanley, and Fereshteh Ganjavi; Gateway Community College Foundation Vice Chair Ruby Melton; and honoree Gordon Geballe. Diane X. Brown was stuck. While a student at Southern Connecticut State College in the early 1990s, she needed a math course to get her bachelor’s degree, but she couldn’t pass it.  Go to Gateway, she was told.  “I enrolled at Gateway, formerly South Central Community College, and it was not only affordable but gave the individualized attention I needed to pass,” she told a spirited audience of 125 at the 29th annual Gateway Community College Foundation Hall of Fame ceremony at the downtown campus on Church Street last week. Brown joined business leader Carter Winstanley, educator Gordon Geballe, and refugee champion Fereshteh Ganjavi of Elena’s Light as the College’s 2026 Hall of Fame inductees at the event, which benefitted the Gateway Community College Foundation. That passing the math course led Brown to a bachelor’s degree in communications, a master’s degree in library sciences, and ultimately, her long-time post as manager of Stetson Branch Library, goes to the very mission of the foundation, according to Ruby Melton, the foundation board’s vice chair. “Sometimes the difference between a student having to give up and being able to move forward is simply whether someone is there to help,” she told the crowd. “A scholarship, a laptop, or assistance with transportation or childcare can make all the difference. It tells a student: we see you, we believe in you. We want you to succeed.” To hear Melton tell it, Brown has paid it forward. “The [multiple] awards she’s earned tell only part of the story,” Melton said. “Behind them are generations of children encouraged, lives changed, and a Village strengthened by her fierce love and tireless advocacy.”  Melton paid tribute to Brown’s mother, Lillian O. Brown, “a beloved Newhallville matriarch and community activist who taught by example that looking after your community is an obligation, not an option,” she said.  Perhaps from that example, Brown transformed her library, said community leader Erik Clemons in a video introduction, “into more than just a place or repository for books but as a vessel and refuge for those who need it, a place where Diane can facilitate dreams.”   That was Michael Spencer, a self-described “knucklehead” while growing up who later realized his aspiration of opening a food truck. Going to Stetson, he said, helped keep him out of trouble. “She tried to steer us in the right direction,” he said. “She raised the whole community.”  Gateway College Dean of Student Affairs LaRue Pierce with Black Wall Street’s co-founders Rashad Johnson and Aaron Rodgers and honoree Diane X. Brown. Credit: Lisa Reisman photo Another beneficiary has been Aaron Rogers, the Grammy Award-winning music producer and entrepreneur who co-founded the annual Black Wall Street Festival in 2022 with Rashad “Snacks” Johnson.  “Diane made sure we had all the resources we needed, and connected us to everyone we needed to help make the event not just a success but greater every year,” he said of the festival, which has over five years grown tenfold to 400 vendors and 10,000 attendees while providing critical support and visibility for Black- and Brown-owned small businesses, as well as panels, fashion shows, and community mixers. “Without her, I don’t know where we’d be.”  Reese L. McLeod, who in 2025 took over the reins from Brown as president of the Elm City Freddy Fixer parade committee, said “Aunty D,” as she calls her, is a role model and inspiration.  McLeod watched Brown helping to perpetuate the Freddy Fixer, the oldest and largest Black American parade in New England and a cornerstone of Black culture and community pride in New Haven. In the process, she taught her that, as McLeod put it, “true leadership is not about holding a title, but about opening doors, creating opportunities, and preparing the next generation to carry the torch.”   Shirley Ellis-West, executive director of Urban Community Alliance, was seated beside her childhood friend.  “Diane has this commitment to community service, and that’s from an early age in Newhallville and it’s never waned,” she said. “She just shows up, for my organization, for everyone. And that sense of responsibility to her people, that’s her legacy to New Haven.”  “Just imagine if she never got that math tutor,” she said. The post Dixwell Librarian Inducted Into Gateway Hall Of Fame appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less