ArtsXchange To Honor Michael H. Ross and Susan J. Ross September 28 Native Atlanta Brother and Sister Duo to Receive Community Service Awards
ArtsXchange To Honor Michael H. Ross and Susan J. Ross
ATLANTA GA (September 19, 2019) Michael H. Ross and Susan J. Ross will receive the ArtsXchange’s coveted 2nd Annual Ebon Dooley Awards for a life of service in the arts to the metro Atlanta Community. Guests attending will experience an evening of great food, art, dance, music, and song at the Harlem Renaissance-themed party at the ArtsXchange–South Fulton County’s newest community-based arts facility serving Metropolitan Atlanta.
The event will be held on Saturday, September 28 at 7 p.m. at the ArtxXchange in the Ebon Dooley Studio located at 2148 Newman St., East Point, GA. Tickets are on sale on Eventbrite.
The awards are named for the late Ebon Dooley, a Fisk University and Columbia Law School graduate who was well known for his work in the arts community and at WRFG Radio.
A long-time supporter of the arts, Michael H. Ross, President and CEO of MHR International, Inc., one of the leading Program and Construction Management firms in the Southeast United States will be named the 2nd Ebon Dooley 2019 Art & Justice Economic Justice Champion.
He is currently a member of the board of the Bronze Lens Film Festival, a Southeast Smithsonian Council member and an Ambassador for the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. He served as Chairman of the Board of the Georgia Black United Fund for more than 10 years and has served as a board member of the Georgia Technology Authority and the Piedmont Park Conservancy.
Michael worked with and supported several nonprofit organizations in the metropolitan Atlanta area including the YWCA of Greater Atlanta, the National Black Arts Festival, the United Youth Adult Conference, Beat the Odds and Let Us Make Men. The Atlanta Tribune named him one of the 2013 Men of Distinction.
A graduate of Morehouse College, he has a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law. Additionally, he holds a Project Management Certification from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Photographer Susan J. Ross will be named the 2nd Ebon Dooley Art & Justice Bridge Builder. For the past 40 years she, known as Sue the “photo griot”, has been documenting the cultural, political and social stories in our community. She is a founding member of Sistagraphy, the collective of African American women photographers, which recently celebrated its 25th Anniversary and she has exhibited widely. Her photography appears in several books, such as Reflections in Black: A History of African American
Photographers, the Atlanta Jazz Festival: 40 Years, and MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora.
Sue’s work is in the collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art in Georgia, the Clark Atlanta University Galleries, Spelman College and many private collections in the Atlanta Jazz Festival public art exhibit in Downtown Atlanta. She is one of the featured artists in the Elevate Atlanta SWATS Artists Mural in Southwest Atlanta. She recently retired after working for the city of Atlanta for 36 years. Her last position was Vendor Development Manager in the City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management
On October 1 Sue will receive another honor as she is inducted into the Atlanta Business League Women’s Hall of Fame at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis.
Michal and Susan are the children of the late Dr Hubert Ross, an anthropologist, and Edyth L Ross, a social work professor, both who taught at The Atlanta University, The Ross children grew up in Atlanta during the Civil Rights Movement, attending a segregated elementary school and participating in the desegregation of Atlanta public schools.
