Uncrowned Community Builders

JoAnn was born and raised in Buffalo, New York but spent summer and winter vacations in New York City. Her parents were born in Birmingham and Marion Alabama. Her mother was Ora Wrighter and she was an activist in the community. She was the manager of the Ellicott Community Action Organization Neighborhood Center. One of the streets in the Ellicott Town Center Complex is named after her mother. Her father was William Carlton and he worked at Buffalo Forge.

JoAnn was one of four children. Her sister Sandra Carlton is deceased. Her brothers are William and James Carlton. She graduated from Buffalo State College earning a degree in Secondary English Education. JoAnn currently works for the Board of Education and is assigned to the John F. Kennedy Recreation Center site. Here she works as a General Education Development (GED) Instructor for the Adult Learning Center.

JoAnn worked previously for the American Red Cross where she was in Emergency Management and was a National Trainer for Emergency Services. She traveled throughout the United States instructing Emergency Services staff and volunteers.

She is a lover of history, civic involvement, cultural preservation and the arts. She has been a volunteer for the annual Juneteenth Festival since 1983. She has served on both the Board of Directors and on committees where she was instrumental in establishing the annual Health Fair and Run for Health, the Underground Railroad Mini Tours, and the Book Sharing event.

JoAnn is a former student of yoga at the Himalayan Institute. She also attends adult drawing classes at the Locust Street Neighborhood Art Center. Her work has been shown at Jammin', the yearly art show and fundraiser for the art center. Jazz is a passion for JoAnn, especially traditional Jazz, and she is interested in creating paintings featuring jazz scenes. She works in acrylics and is interested in abstracts. JoAnn is trained as a docent for the Forest Lawn Cemetery Tours and plans to spearhead a committee to publicly acknowledge the burial of "colored" Civil War veterans interred at the cemetery. She is a former member of the YWCA's Racial Justice Committee and a current member of the Sunday @ Five Book Club. The book club began in response to Terry McMillan's book, Waiting to Exhale. Sandra Mobley Terry was the founder and she invited people to come and talk about the book. The book club is a women's reading collective, reading books by and about authors of African descent. The club meets the 4th Sunday at 5:00 at various homes. They also host reading projects. Some of the projects they hosted included receptions for Rita Dove and Tony Morrison. They also organized a joint discussion with male readers and the Phyllis Wheatley Book Club of Rochester.

JoAnn also conducts a monthly Book Club meeting with her 14-year old granddaughter, Jasmine, where they read books by people of African descent. She is also a member of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations at the national, regional and local levels. She has two sons, James and Jay. She is also a member of the African Consciousness Workshop, an eighteen-member group that meets on Mondays at the Jefferson Library to discuss issues related to being African.