3 minute read
A TOUR OF HISTORY AND DREAMS, CHANGING LIVES: CALEVENTS CEO BRENDA “DARCEL” LEE
By Cheryl D. Howard, Contributing Writer
Brenda “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.
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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 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
racism and that her experiences laid the foundation for her to build the right relationships to get where she is today.
Following high school, she earned several scholarships to colleges, but she bypassed college for love when she married at age 18. Unfortunately, her marriage was short-lived, so she returned to attend college. After graduation, she relocated to Nashville, TN, where she had a successful career in health care as a lobbyist. While working in the local hospital, she planned special events for doctors. Lee soon realized that there was a career demand and profession in event planning. Lee obtained a CMP (Certified Meeting Planner) certificate and landed contracts to plan the National Medical Association, National Baptist and Southern Baptist Conventions, each of which held upwards of 40,000 people. It was there she met President Bill Clinton.
She returned to California and, in 2015, was appointed CEO of the California Black Health Network (CBHN). Sadly, while there, she lost her husband to cancer. She left CBHN in 2016 and enrolled in courses at Meeting Professionals International in San Francisco, CA. Lee became a tour director then and went on to be a tour operator, which allowed her to hire tour guides. She loved and enjoyed her job so much that when an opportunity arose for her to purchase a tour company, she jumped at it, and thus CalEvents was born.
Her tours are well planned and have become an inspiration for many. Lee conducts tours that open the eyes of participants to the impacts of civil rights. She also looks for ways to give impoverished and underrepresented children the same opportunities that the children of the wealthy have access to.
“My goal is to raise money and create tours that allow African American children to have vision and to be able to plan for their future,” said Lee.
She recalls a civil rights tour to four cities, which included Memphis, TN, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The tour bus attendees were all white. Lee explained that half of the bus approached her, saying that they had no idea about the story of MLK; some didn’t even know how he had been killed. She said many were crying as they admitted to their ignorance and apparently their lack of care for our culture. Her tours awaken people, white and Black, to the rich history of African Americans as inventors, world changers, scientists, and more—the list is extensive. Lee knows that her tours inspire, and her tours are intended to change the minds and lives of people. Currently, with a fellow tour director, Leon Burnett, who owns the company Media Arts, they are recruiting Black tour guides to tell our stories. The training is offered remotely and for free!
In 2020, COVID devastated the tourism industry. However, tours are opening back up, and Brenda “Darcel” Lee is excited to be producing tours that inspire, educate and give hope for the future. n
