by Tavis Smiley
Years before, while playing in a Liberty High School basketball game (serving as the vertically challenged point guard), I received the ball on a fast break after our opponents had missed a free throw. But everyone was able to pass me on the court and set up in the zone before I got down to the other end, even though I had had a head start. Though not the star player, I was not that slow. Coach called a time-out and benched me, yelling, “Dugat, what is wrong with you?” I didn’t go back into the game. Afterward, I was forced to divulge the news that I had found out earlier that day—I was pregnant! Paralyzed by confusion, shame, and fear, I plowed through the next months of my life in a daze. I knew my life had been forever altered. I had no idea what to expect or how to handle it.
Immediately the murmuring began. The “good girl” had been found to be “bad,” and the spotlight was turned on high beam! I was not met with much friendliness from family, friends, school administrators, or the community at first. “Look at her. And they thought she was going to be something. Ain’t gonna be nothin’.” “Might have had book sense, but didn’t have a lick of common sense to go get herself in that condition!” And the worst thing of all was the silent treatment. My mother was in shock—she had already been in and out of hospitals from a permanent, debilitating work injury. My father drank an extra bottle of Crown for sure when he heard—“You were my little princess. You were going to be my little Barbara Jordan. I should have had your sisters teach you some stuff. I really thought you would do something.”
The people who mattered to me most—my parents, grandmother, aunts, church family, and everyone else—were disappointed in me. And the pain I felt inside was excruciating! I had let everyone down—even God!
I understood how I had ended up in this situation, but it just didn’t seem fair. I was fifteen, lived in a single-parent household as an only child (I had nine siblings by my father but none in the household), had a sickly mom who was away a lot in hospitals, and was picked on by seemingly all my peers for being a geek or a Goody Two-shoes. I was lonely in my small east Texas town with no one to talk to and no one to show me that I mattered, except for the boy who became the father of my baby.
That summer when my son, Jamar, was born, I made a life-changing decision—to provide my son with the absolute best that I could. It didn’t seem like a big deal, but it became the driving force for me to do my best in whatever I pursued. I didn’t have material things to give him, but I could give him the best me that I could. This decision motivated me to excel in speech, debate, sports (I tried hard anyway), band, flag corps, and academics, which resulted in membership in the National Honor Society. Two years later I was the only Black honor student among the LHS graduating class of 1982. I enrolled in the University of Houston (with no help from the guidance counselor, who had obviously written me off the way so many others had) and majored in mechanical engineering.
During this time, I learned the meaning of the phrase “character-building experiences.” For example, in the second semester of my freshman year I was stranded, literally, without any transportation to school. School was fifty miles away, and we didn’t have a car. I made arrangements with four different people to get to and from school and prayed for God’s grace and mercy to get me through. I got a job at McDonald’s making $3.85 an hour, the minimum wage in 1983, and got an apartment in the fall of my sophomore year. With only a few pots, donated groceries, my clothes, and a borrowed kindergarten exercise mat to lie on, I proudly moved into my apartment. Between then and the spring of 1989, when I completed my bachelor’s degree, I commuted via Metro buses and Greyhound between Liberty and Houston to attend my son’s Christmas play, school field trips, and every activity I could when he wasn’t attending classes or school functions with me. I was determined to be a good mommy while making a better life for us.
We had a big fish fry hosted by my fiancé. However, the celebration was short-lived. Five days later my grandmother, who had helped to raise me and my son, was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. She died two months later. Although devastated, I didn’t have much time to mourn. I married Tony later that year. We were a family of not four or five but six. My mom lived with us, I gave birth to a second son, Raymond, and ten years after the birth of my oldest son, I gave birth to my youngest son, Cortlan. In only one year, I experienced graduation, loss of life, creation of life, a new job, a new husband, relocation to a new city, and growth in my family.
My husband, Tony, and I were just getting adjusted when my mother caught pneumonia and unexpectedly died. I don’t think my husband and I ever fully recovered; several years later we were divorced. We remained extremely good friends, however, so much so that we discussed a reconciliation and began to make plans.
I had completed a master’s degree and had just enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Texas A&M University after working in industry for nearly ten years. One Wednesday night I talked with Tony until approximately 11:45 P.M. We were planning a big date in New Orleans for the following Saturday after the concert given by the gospel choir that I sing with was over. Since it was late, we agreed to work out the particulars the next day.
Shortly after noon the next day, my officemate on campus informed me that I had missed a call. “Someone called to tell you that your ex-husband died. I’m so sorry!”
Tony had died of a heart attack in his sleep at age forty. This could have been the straw that broke me. But I refused to let it. I took things as best I could, one day at a time. And now, miraculously, I’d arrived at this important milestone, graduation day. Today I would receive my doctorate of philosophy in engineering.
Humbly, through tearstained eyes, I paused to reflect on the amazing journey that had begun a few decades before. My life had been full of challenging and tragic lyrics. The melody, however, resonated with faith and with God’s mercy, grace, and favor. I’ve come to truly understand that success, for me, has been and will continue to be measured by the people I touch and the positive difference I make in the lives of others.
RUBY LEE
Wylencia Monroe
This is a story of a woman who knows the meaning of persistence. Let’s call this woman Ruby Lee. Ruby Lee, as the name much suggests, was born in a small town in Alabama in 1939. She was raised by two parents, attended and excelled at the public schools available to her at that time, and went on to college. After college, she began her teaching career and later married. She had children a little later in life than usual and hoped that her children would have the opportunity to get an education as good as or even better than what she had received in the segregated public school system.
Although she was born and bred Baptist and had raised her children in that faith, in the mid-seventies she started sending her children to a Catholic school. She did this for approximately three years; then the costs became more than the family could bear. Ruby Lee decided to give the local school a try for one full school year, but the school didn’t quite measure up. Ruby Lee’s children were often bored at school; they often found themselves serving as office assistants, delivering messages, or tutoring other students.
The next approach was to look for a public school outside their community. One school offered special programs and had won awards, but the admission process was based on a lottery, and Ruby Lee’s luck had run out. The next school the children attended offered special programs and had won awards, and it appeared that Ruby Lee’s hopes for her children had been realized. But when the school learned that Ruby Lee and the kids lived outside the school’s area, it was necessary to find another school option.
With some experience in maneuvering within the public school system, Ruby Lee then found a magnet school. This time she used her parents’ address in order to make sure everything looked right on paper. After one and a half years at the magnet school, the ruse was discovered and the children were informed that they would be released because they did not live within the school’s area. By this time Ruby Lee had had about enough. She went to the city board of education
with her children and tried to enlighten the board about the difficulties she had encountered. She explained that she had been teaching for a little over twenty years now, that she valued education, and that she wanted only the best education for her children. She explained that the local school had not met her standards and that she did not have any other options for her children.
In parting, she made one demand: “If my children cannot finish out the school year and remain another year at their present school, then they will not attend school at all and I will not return to work. Now, you try to find someone who can come in during the middle of a school year and teach a hundred and fifty ninth and tenth graders. Try to find someone who enjoys teaching and has more than twenty years of experience doing it, and try to find someone who has a sincere interest in their students learning as if the children were their own. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”
Well, the first day Ruby Lee was at home with the kids she heard nothing. The children wondered, and Ruby Lee worried. But by the third day, the board called and said the children could return to school. Ruby Lee was relieved, and the children were thrilled! Although the children had moaned and griped about changing schools so many times, they later came to know the meaning of persistence and to value their mother’s efforts.
FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, AND HERITAGE
SASSING THE WHITE MAN
Tavis Smiley
My maternal grandmother, Daisy Mae Robinson, affectionately known to me as “Big Mama,” was the daughter of a sharecropper in Mississippi. I loved her so much that I often share with my radio audience some of the advice and words of wisdom that she imparted to me.
It was always fascinating to sit down and talk to Big Mama about our family, legacy, heritage, and culture. I learned so much from her during these moments. Every time I had the chance, I would say to her, “Big Mama, tell me about the story of what happened on such-and-such a day,” or “Tell me about that time when so-and-so happened.” Big Mama would always say, “Boy, I’ve told you that story a hundred times,” and I would say, “I know, but tell it to me again.” I used to love listening to her tell stories of what it was like to grow up as a sharecropper’s child, and what it was like growing up in the South during segregation. Just to hear her stories of struggle firsthand was enormously empowering.
I was able to gain a great sense of the historical contrast between the life and experiences she had growing up and those I had. As I listened to her talk, I was able to see the progress we had made as a country and as a people. There is a lot more to be done, of course. But when Big Mama talked, it became abundantly clear to me how grateful I should be for the opportunities that had come about in my life as a result of the struggles my ancestors, and Big Mama, had gone through.
Here is one example of the contrast between our lives. My grandmother had come to live with our family, and one day she was in the family room watching TV. All of a sudden, my mother, who was in the kitchen working, heard my grandmother scream out in the most wretched, awful, wailing voice she had ever heard. Big Mama was in tears, weeping, “Oh, Jesus, Oh, Jesus.” My mother dropped what she was doing and ran to the family room to see what could have happened to my grandmother. When she got there she discovered Big Mama watching a debate on television between a conservative white male commentator and me. We were both giving it everything we had, going back and forth and matching each other point for point in an ideological debate.
My grandmother, however, witnessing this, was fit to be tied. Here she sat watching me argue with, talk back to, and sass a white man. She said to my mother, “Has Tavis lost his mind? Girl, do you know what they’re going to do to that boy? Where is he? We’ve got to go and get him right now and bring him home.” Big Mama was scared to death that I would be thrown in jail or lynched for sassing a white man.
My mother burst out laughing. Once she caught her breath, she tried to calm my grandmother down. She explained to Big Mama that I was only doing my job, which entailed debating issues on television. She tried to explain to Big Mama that I had been asked to come on television by the white people who programmed the show to debate the white commentator in the way she was witnessing.
My grandmother, however, couldn’t understand it. How could I get away with sassing this white man on television? Because of her life experiences, it didn’t make any sense to her. “They ain’t gonna put Tavis in jail for this?” she asked. “They ain’t gonna beat or lynch him for this?” “No,” my mother said. “That’s what they want him to do on the show.”
My grandmother still couldn’t believe it, and her spirit could not rest. My mother ended up having to contact me and ask me to call my grandmother to assure her that I was all right. That evening I called Big Mama on the phone. It was only after assuring her that I wasn’t sassing a white man and that I wasn’t going to be lynched or go to jail for talking to the man in this way that she started to calm down. Then I hit her with the punch line—not only had the producers of the show wanted me to talk to the white man the way that I did, I told my grandmother, but the white man had actually paid me to do this. She literally laughed until she cried. “Lord,” she said, “I never thought I’d live to see the day when my grandchild could sass a white man anywhere, much less on television where people all over could see it happening.”
It was a fascinating example of how far my grandmother, and African Americans, had come, that the daughter of a sharecropper could witness her grandson on television sassing a white man. History had brought her, and us, a long way.
HERSTORY
Gigi Steele
When we speak of Black history we speak of adversity, strife, obstacles, helplessness, and hopelessness. We rarely acknowledge that the adversity generations of our people went through gave way to later generations of strong Black people.
My history begins with three generations of strong, educated Black women, three generations of Spelman women. The first of these women led the way in bringing the rest of us into being. My history, thus, begins with an account of HERstory.
My grandmother, a strong Black woman of eighty-three years, was able to instill hope, inspiration, and determination in her family. My grandmother loved her family and sacrificed tremendously to make her family walk the path of salvation and prosperity.
Being raised by Grandma offered me a shining example of what the future could be. Although it was hard to see while growing up, the reality of her sacrifice is so clear to me now. When I reflect on my history, all of my memories are linked to my grandmother. She devoted her life to raising her five grandchildren. When the burden of raising grandchildren was first thrust upon her, she carried that weight without ever showing us that it was a burden.
Back in the sixties, when owning a house was just a dream for most Black folks, I remember standing outside in the Georgia red clay watching our house being built. This became the house where we all grew up. My grandmother single-handedly kept a roof above our heads.
There were seven of us, and sometimes more, depending on when the older two daughters needed shelter. Although the girls had to share a room and the boys shared a room, we had food, clothing, and shoes on our feet. We even had a crystal chandelier in our dining room! I never understood why Grandma cried the day I broke one of the crystals on the chandelier. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized what a sacrifice that chandelier had been, earned through Grandma’s toil and hard work, brought into our midst to provide an example of the beauty of what could be, instead of the darkness of what surrounded us. I never understood why we had to take baths in less than a foot of water, or why we had to bathe together, until I realized that to make ends meet, we had to conserve water. Or why at night when the house was cold, rather than turning up the heat, she would always say, “Well, honey, if you’re cold, get a sweater.” She ran this household alone.
I still remember the day that we all dressed up and she put on a black robe with a red scarf draped around her neck; it was the day she was going to get
her master’s degree. At the time, I didn’t know what this master’s thing was. But, because of her efforts, I, too, could envision getting a college degree one day. Everything that I am today is because of her and who she was.
I was able to raise my own children with the same values and strength. I could show my children what could be instead of what was. Although my grandma is now old and sits in a well-deserved easy chair in that same house that we grew up in, each time I visit her, I try to let her know that she is the reason that I am who I am. And I can tell that she is proud of who I came to be. Even when she leaves this earth, her spirit will live on in all five of her grandchildren, who will pass that spirit to their own children and grandchildren.
As a people, we can all look at our generations and find a grandma somewhere who possessed the strength and courage to carve out a path for those coming behind her, someone wise enough and strong enough to instill in us the same strength and courage to look beyond adversity and forward into the future.
AGGIE
Bennis Blue
The other day was my sister’s sixty-eighth birthday, and for the first time that I can remember, we pulled one over on her—a surprise, that is. Agnes has cared for three generations of siblings and their offspring. This she has done despite having never completed high school and without having a spouse. She is known affectionately to nieces and nephews, grandnieces, cousins, and kin as simply “Aggie.”
My sister spent her days growing up in rural North Carolina working on our farm and tending us siblings. When our mother died in 1957, Agnes, at the age of twenty-three, set off for the city to seek employment. She spent most of her meager wages buying clothing and food to pass along to our maternal grandmother to help with the upkeep of two of my other sisters, my younger brother, and me. A kind cousin convinced her to find a place to rent in Raleigh, North Carolina, so that the rest of our family could stop being passed among relatives and settle down to someplace called home.
