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a cooperative association of Black farmers, landowners, and cooperatives

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Phylicia Rashad

to receive

Federation of Southern Cooperatives

Land Assistance Fund's

24th Estelle Witherspoon Lifetime Achievement Award

EAST POINT, GA. - July 18, 2025-

The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund (the Federation) proudly announces that Ms. Phylicia Rashad has been selected as its 24th Estelle Witherspoon Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient.

The award will be presented to Rashad during the Annual Estelle Witherspoon Lifetime Achievement Award Banquet on Thursday, August 14, 2025, at the Sheraton Birmingham Hotel, located at 2101 Richard Arrington Jr. Blvd. N, Birmingham, Alabama 35203. The program will begin promptly at 7:00 PM Central Time.

This special evening honors the life and legacy of Estelle Witherspoon, whose lifelong work uplifted her community and reflected the true meaning of cooperation and service. To learn more about the banquet or the Federation's work, visit www.federation.coop.

Honoring a Legacy of Cultural and Social Impact

As an accomplished actress and stage director, Ms. Rashad’s decades-long career reflects the same spirit of excellence, resilience, and community-focused service that defines the Federation. From her celebrated performances in works rooted in Black storytelling to her leadership as Dean of Howard University’s College of Fine Arts and her role as Brand Ambassador for the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, Ms. Rashad continues to champion the preservation of Black history, land, and legacy—ideals at the heart of the Federation’s work in civil rights, cooperative economic development and land retention across the rural South.

Rashad became a household name when she portrayed Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show, a character whose enduring appeal earned her numerous honors and awards. She has appeared in NBC’s This Is Us ( Emmy nominations), in the popular Fox TV series Empire, in Tarell Alvin McCraney's Peabody Award-winning series, David Makes Man, on the OWN Network, Diarra From Detroit, The Good Fight, Little America, and The Crossover.

While television was a catalyst in the rise of Ms. Rashad's career, she has also been a force on the stage, appearing both on and Off Broadway, often in projects that showcase her musical talent such as Jelly's Last Jam, Into the Woods, Dreamgirls and The Wiz.

In 2016, Ms. Rashad was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame and received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Play for her performance as Shelah in Tarell Alvin McCraney's Head of Passes at the Public Theater.

On Broadway, Ms. Rashad has performed in Dominique Morriseau’s Skeleton Crew (Tony and Drama Desk Awards), August: Osage County, Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (a role that she reprised on the London stage), August Wilson’s Gem of The Ocean (Tony Award nomination) and in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline at Lincoln Center. Ms. Rashad received both the Drama Desk and the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her riveting performance as Lena Younger in the 2004 Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in The Sun.

Among Ms. Rashad’s film credits are The Beekeeper, Creed, Creed II,Creed III, Just Wright, Tyler Perry's Good Deeds, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf, and A Fall From Grace. Other recent film projects include Black Box, Soul, and the Netflix holiday musical, Jingle Jangle.

Ms. Rashad made her critically acclaimed directorial debut at the Seattle Repertory Theater with August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean. In 2025 she directed Brandon-Jacobs-Jenkins’ Purpose on Broadway after a successful run at Steppenwolf. Rashad’s directing credits include Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st Street, The Roommate, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (2014 NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director), Immediate Family, Fences, A Raisin in the Sun, and Four Little Girls.

Highly respected in education and the arts, Ms. Rashad recently finished her time as Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. In February 2023, she was named the first person to hold the Toni Morrison Endowed Chair in Arts and Humanities at Howard.

Ms. Rashad has conducted Master Classes at many colleges, universities, and arts organizations including Howard University, New York University, Carnegie Mellon, The Black Arts Institute of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, and the prestigious Ten Chimney Foundation. Ms. Rashad also holds the distinction of being the first recipient of the Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre at Fordham University.

She serves on several important boards including Brainerd Institute Heritage (which is steering the restoration of Kumler Hall at the historic site of Brainerd Institute in Chester, South Carolina) and DADA, the Debbie Allen Dance Academy.

Phylicia Rashad graduated Magna Cum Laude from Howard University and is the mother of two adult children.

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The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund is a 58-year-old cooperative association of black farmers, landowners, and cooperatives.

Our mission is to be a catalyst for the development of self-supporting communities through cooperative economic development, land retention, and advocacy. We envision sustainable rural communities supported by a network of farmers, landowners, and cooperatives based on local control and ownership.