HAYWARD -- Her haunting memories of growing up in Alabama during the 1950s, a time when Jim Crow segregation laws prevented African Americans from achieving social justice and economic equality, have faded through the years.

These days, though, Sonjia Parker Redmond -- who will be inducted into the Alameda County Women's Hall of Fame today -- has reflected on her past, how she was raised by uneducated grandparents in the rural South -- but somehow overcame a culture that systematically blocked African Americans from getting an education.

"This award has brought back a lot of memories," said Redmond, vice president of student affairs at California State University, Hayward. "You begin to think about what your life has meant."

Redmond will be honored along with nine other women for their societal contributions during the 11th annual Alameda County Women's Hall of Fame award ceremony at the Oakland Marriott this afternoon.

Redmond was nominated by Norma Rees, president of Cal State Hayward, who praised Redmond for her "unwavering commitment" to support services that ensure students remain at the university through graduation.

"Dr. Redmond has used her more than 25 years of experience in higher education to create student support services ... that meet the needs of all students ... who come from educationally privileged environments as well as those whose socio-economic environments have failed them," Rees said.

Created in 1993, the Alameda County Women's Hall of Fame celebrates the outstanding achievements women in the county have made.

Other prominent female leaders who will be inducted are Nancy Schluntz, executive director of FESCO; Daria Stevens, executive director of CTV; Susan Muscarella, director of The Jazzschool; Sandy Ferreira, park ranger; Rebecca Deinson, founder of Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Diseases; Nancy E. O'Malley, chief assistant district attorney; Tammy Jerrigan, deputy director of physics and advanced technologies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; June A. Cook, golf and business director of LPGA-USGA; and Erin Nikole Gums, a senior honors student at Athenian School.

An unassuming person, Redmond said she was at first uncomfortable with the honor. She's never craved recognition or lofty plaudits, she said, explaining that she is fulfilling a calling that is rooted in her experiences growing up in rural Alabama in the years preceding the civil rights movement.

"It's a humbling experience," Redmond said. "Over the past few weeks, I have learned to be a little more comfortable with the recognition, and now I'm able to enjoy it a little bit."

The award is heady stuff for a person with Redmond's background. As a child, Redmond says she attended segregated schools, where the textbooks were old and tattered. A wooden stove was used to heat the three-room school, she recalled, and a rickety outhouse stood outside as the restroom.

It was an era defined by Rosa Parks, an African-American woman who defied Jim Crow -- laws that promoted racial segregation and were used to restrict the freedom of African Americans -- by refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Martin Luther King Jr. was emerging as the catalyst for the civil rights movement, and the Supreme Court had yet to issue its landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. That decision struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine and ordered the desegregation of public schools throughout the country.

Redmond later joined King as he marched through the streets of Montgomery as part of a peaceful demonstration to end segregation and call attention to the oppression and lynchings to which African Americans were subjected.

"I came of age during Martin Luther King's work in Montgomery," Redmond said. "I grew up in a house that was committed to equality and the civil rights movement."

Thus, it's only natural that Redmond would evolve into an educator who would spend a career fighting for educational equality for all students, regardless of race or socio-economic background.

"Wherever I am and whatever I do, issues of access and equality are at the top of my agenda," Redmond said. "I believe that every single student who comes to this university has a right to receive the very best student-support services we can give them.

"If they meet the requirements to get into this university, then we have an obligation that academic support services are made available to them and they have the opportunity to grow as much as they can to become leaders."