- March is Women's History Month, and The Michigan Chronicle recently held its 18th Annual Women of Excellence Awards at Huntington Place in downtown Detroit.

Now this event honors African-American women for their contributions in a variety of industries.

This year, 50 honorees were celebrated for their dedication, their leadership, and their impact on our community.

I am pleased to have two of them here with us today, Megan Madison from Bank of America, and Regina Strong from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, otherwise known as EGLE.

Welcome to "American Black Journal."

- Thank you.

- And congratulations.

- Thank you.

- It's a very cool honor.

Megan, I wanna start with you.

Talk about what the award means to you, but then sort of talk about what brings you to this moment, the things that lead you to the work that you're doing that's being honored.

- Absolutely.

I appreciate that.

So for me, two years ago, I was Michigan Chronicle's 40 Under 40.

Yeah, So I took that as a challenge.

This is a preview.

So I took that as a challenge.

I said, I'm not done, I'm going to keep going.

And then here we are as a Woman of Excellence.

I know that I have a continued work to do and I am honored and privileged to even be in this seat to be able to say that I can be a driving force of what young girls see, young women coming up behind me.

So I have the opportunity of being able to forge that through financial literacy with Bank of America.

So I repair the relationship between the financial institutions and the community, and I give them a new insight of what we can do to be able to support them, be able to build communities, build families through financial literacy.

So I love what I do, and it's making traction not only for me, but people who need it, absolutely.

- I mean, you can't overstate how critical that work is, especially in our city when you think about the number of people who are completely disconnected from financial institutions and don't really understand the things that they need to about how to manage your money and keep your money and grow your money and all those things, that is everything.

- Those are the big keys.

And it's really building financial wealth.

And I love the fact to be able to see the fruits of my labor through people starting businesses and growing their credit and doing these things.

So I am committed to the cause.

And that's why I'm here.

That's why I can say I'm a Woman of Excellence.

So I love it.

- It's excellent.

- It is, it is, it's beautiful.

- Yeah.

Regina, how about you?

What does this award mean for you?

- You know, the fact that it's coming from the Michigan Chronicle and the historical significance at this time in our history means even more to me.

Because historically, I'm a transplant to Michigan.

I grew up in the Cleveland area.

And my dad was a middle school math teacher.

And my parents came up from Birmingham, Alabama in the great migration from my dad's teaching job.

And one of the things that has always been really important to my father, he used to talk about this all the time, was getting what he called the paper.

The Black news, not just the news of the day from growing up in Cleveland, it was the plain deal.

- The plain deal.

- Right, then it was the Call and Post that was similar to the Michigan Chronicle in that.

So that history of Black media focused on our messaging is so critical.

So that excites me.

I wish my dad was here to see it.

But it is really an honor and a humbling honor because I'm one of those folks who just, head down, do the work.

I'm the environmental justice public advocate for the state.

And Governor Whitmer created that role when she took office to really focus on environmental justice, which is under attack right now on the federal level.

And so we are really continuing to work on the state level.

And so I'm honored to have both an opportunity and a platform through this honor to remind people that equity still matters and diversity still matters, and we're still doing the work.

- And you don't have to look far in our community here in Detroit to the effects of environmental injustice.

The imbalances in terms of where people live.

How close is that to industry?

What effect does that industry have on them?

Talk about clean water in the state of Michigan.

The largest public disaster ever is the Flint water crisis.

We have a lot of work to do to make sure that people, and especially people of color and African-Americans are not subject to injustice.

- Absolutely, historical inequities, government practices, a lot of things put us where we are today.

But people are still experiencing all of that.

And I feel honored to be in a role, to be able to make a difference and work to advocate externally and internally within government to try to change things, to try to make things better for folks.

And so for that to be recognized among this amazing group of women doing such diverse things, it's such an honor.

It is one of those things where I, you know, when I think about why I do the work, and I was asked yesterday in a different setting, talking to some students, what am I the most proud of?

And there's so much of the work that I am proud of.

But I also wanna recognize the people I work with, the people in the trenches, in communities, the water warriors, the advocates fighting for clean air.

Those are the people and working with them, that's the reason that I'm here, is because I have tried to do things through this office to really elevate both their voices, give them voice, and make change.

And that to me is the most important part of this honor.

- Yeah, yeah.

I want both of you to talk about sort of how you got to the place that you are and the people who helped you get there because I think that's part of this too is singling out people who are helping young people now to get where they are.

Regina, I'll start with you this time.

- So one of the things, first, it's the foundation you get from your family.

My mom worked at a hospital.

I mentioned my dad was a teacher and I grew up in the '70s and I grew up at a time of a lot of dishevel and advocacy.

And I was the little red, black, and green wearing afro.

I had my hoop earrings like Angela Davis and I was gonna save the world even as a kid.

So I grew up to work in corporate America.

I started in corporate communications and journalism and I thought that would be my path.

But when I really got into the mission-driven part of the work, I felt like the advocacy was my path.

And there are many people who helped along the way.

I worked with a woman, Pamela Martin Turner when I was working in housing advocacy, who always said to me, "Nothing beats a failure but a try."

So we were always trying things, we were always doing things.

We were working in communities.

And then fast forward to my environmental work, I would say I've never been as inspired in my life to work with people like Rhonda Anderson, who I worked with at the Sierra Club, who taught me so much about environmental justice and the Jemez Principles of Democratic Organizing where you really look at letting communities speak for themselves.

Everybody wants to represent the voice of the community, but she would impress upon me over and over again that the community can speak.

The community can tell you what it was.

And so you have to listen and you have to act and you have to be ready to deal with that.

So I think Rhonda played a key role.

Theresa Landrum, who's also an advocate in 4217 in Detroit, taught me a lot about advocacy as well as Dr. Dolores Leonard and Vicki Dobbins and Monica Lewis Patrick, who is a water warrior, and also on our Michigan Advisory Council for Environmental Justice, as is Theresa, have really helped me get to the point where I understand what it takes to help communities not just survive, but thrive.

Because it's not just about getting through the injustice, it's about what happens next.

And so those folks really motivated me to be the kinda outspoken, passionate advocate that I am on their behalf.

- Wow, wow, that's a great story.

What about you, Megan?

- So for me, I will first and foremost give everything to my parents, my mother and father who have been married over 30 years.

They saw something in me and they continued to support me through everything.

Then I would go to my high school.

I graduated from Winans Academy of Performing Arts.

And one thing in our mission statement that we will always say is discipline and capable, willing to love, learn, and lead my generation.

So I keep that.

That echoes in my ear every single day of my life.

And then coming into Bank of America, I was 20 years old when I was working in finance.

I didn't know what I was doing.

I didn't, I didn't.

But there were a lot of people.

There were the Star Crawfords, the Tiffany Douglas', even people outside of Bank of America, Krista McKinney King and Norma Hutt.

I just have a lot of people that saw possibility, and I was able to act on my passion and get to a place where I am now.

And now I am the person that can return that favor to someone else and say, "I see something in you.

I'm gonna help you get to where you need to be."

So I'm grateful and my faith keeps me grounded.

I am a youth pastor of a church, Higher Ground Ministries, and I deal with kids all the time, and they keep me grounded, keep me where I need to be.

And they keep me praying.

So I'm excited about it and what it does for me.

It keeps me where I need to be.

- Well, it was great to have both of you here.

And again, congratulations on the awards.

- Thanks so much, so much.