A TOUR OF HISTORY AND DREAMS, CHANGING LIVES: CALEVENTS CEO BRENDA “DARCEL” LEE By Cheryl D. Howard, Contributing Writer
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renda “Darcel” Lee forges forward with unexpected purpose in a career that she has uniquely crafted and made her own. Lee is the Founder and CEO of CalEvents, the finest in California and national tours and convention planning. A significant number of her preferred tours are about African American history and civil rights. On a CalEvents Bus, they visit cities and museums that have important relevance to the plight and history of the civil rights movement. Lee was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. As a child, her parents moved the family to Inglewood, a suburb of Los Angeles, and at that time, a predominantly white community. Lee’s was one of the first African American families to move into that Inglewood
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neighborhood. She was also one of the few Blacks to help integrate Morningside High School. Initially, she was less than thrilled about attending an all-white school. On her first day, she came home disgruntled saying, “I don’t want to go to that school with all of those white people!” Her parents quickly changed her tune and told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was going to go, and she was going to be successful, so she might as well get used to it. Lee went on to say that it was one of the best things that could have happened to her. She was exposed to experiences that she would not otherwise have been exposed to if she had been in the inner-city school system. In hindsight, Lee believes she overcame IS S UU.C O M/ THEHUBMAG
