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Activist Venita Benitez
Emerges From Her Royal Heritage To
Unify By Fighting For Freedom
Emerges From Her Royal Heritage To
Unify By Fighting For Freedom
Venita Benitez is a force to be reckoned with. Case in point. When geological research seemed to indicate she was a direct descendant of not only Kings Henry the II, John, and Henry III but Alexander the Great and William the Conqueror, Venita made it her personal mission to dig deeper into the research of her cousin, Dr. James Hamilton, and her proven lineage.
But she didn’t stop there. With her trademark tenacity, she wrote to the powers that be in England and didn’t yield until she’d received a family crest in acknowledgement of her family’s royal lineage.
But she didn’t stop there. With her trademark tenacity, she wrote to the powers that be in England and didn’t yield until she’d received a family crest in acknowledgement of her family’s royal lineage.
“In 2006, the Wingfield family invited me to witness the signing of the King James charter to America in recognition of my family raising a majority of the financial backing for the ships that eventually discovered America, ships named The God Speed, Susan Constant, and Discovery,” she said. Venita was invited to return to England in 2006 for a resigning of the charter on its 400th anniversary. (Only 150 invitations were issued and only to descendants of those who’d signed the original charter from all over the world.)
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| Venita Benitez |
MULTICULTURAL HERITAGE
Venita credits her unique and varied bloodline with giving her the courage to fight the good fight — wherever she finds it. “I grew up knowing these formidable men were my ancestors. But I was also raised by a Puerto Rican father and a mother who is black, white, and Native American. And I’m a descendant of Morton Deane, who was born into slavery and later served as one of the first out of five black nationally elected city councilmen, during the reconstruction era in Richmond, Virginia, and Edward Maria Wingfield, the first elected president of the Council of Virginia - Jamestown, on April 25th, 1607. This multicultural heritage helps me look at people with clear eyes and see the love in everyone.”
In homage to her family ’s tradition of military service, Venita joined the US Army in 1981. “I was r a i s e d to understand the importance of liberty and duty,” she said. Although she describes basic training as grueling, she learned a lot from serving in one of the first-ever co-ed battalions, Bravo 1-3, marching side-by-side with men.
“We were labeled ‘guinea pigs’ according to official congressional documents. The idea of co-ed troops was something new, and they just sort of threw us to the wolves.” That challenging time further developed her fortitude.
AFFECTING CHANGE
Venita went on to affect change not only in her 23-year career in diversity and inclusion (DEI) — including seats on Arlington Mayor ’s Black Advisory Council and more recently the Frisco Inclusion Committee by Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney. But she also worked to draw attention to National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month each January—proclamations she feels are issued by each succeeding United States presidents and then pretty much forgotten — and refocusing the nation’s attention on the very real problem of modern-day slavery/human trafficking through her website NationalFreedomDay.com.
She was even mentored weekly by Dr. Reverend Ronald Myers, the founder of the National Juneteenth movement, long before his passing. The desk in her home office is piled high with resolutions and proclamations she has affected and with correspondence from some of the most powerful men and women in Texas, the country, and the world. These documents acknowledge Venita’s unrelenting pursuit not only for recognition of those who suffered in the past but those who still suffer today.
She was even mentored weekly by Dr. Reverend Ronald Myers, the founder of the National Juneteenth movement, long before his passing. The desk in her home office is piled high with resolutions and proclamations she has affected and with correspondence from some of the most powerful men and women in Texas, the country, and the world. These documents acknowledge Venita’s unrelenting pursuit not only for recognition of those who suffered in the past but those who still suffer today.
