Keeping the Faith
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Tavis Smiley
KEEPING the FAITH
Tavis Smiley is the host of NPR’s The Tavis Smiley Show, as well as a twice-weekly commentator on ABC radio’s popular Tom Joyner Morning Show. He is also a contributor for CNN and a contributing correspondent on ABC’s Prime Time. His bimonthly newsletter, “The Smiley Report,” reaches 300,000 readers. He is the author of How to Make Black America Better, Doing What’s Right, and Hard Left. He lives in Los Angeles.
Also by Tavis Smiley
Just a Thought
Hard Left
On Air
Doing What’s Right
How to Make Black America Better
The greatest love of all … God’s love.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
BLACK LOVE
What Black Love Is TAVIS SMILEY
Love Lifted Me DR. CORNEL WEST
Wednesdays and Sundays ELWODOD L. ROBINSON
The Women of Minende ERICA JOHNSON
My Baby Brother ROSLYN PERRY
My Pillow of Strength RAYETTA JOHNSON
The Power of Black Love TINA MARSHALL-BRADLEY
Tribute to My Husband DONNA M. JOHNSON-THOMAS
The Perfect Wife DALE S. JOHNSON
Lessons from a Three-Year Old NIKITTA A. FOSTON
What I Never Knew I Always Needed EBUNI MCFALL-ROBERTS, M.A., L.P.C.
These Three Words CHERRYL FLOYD-MILLER
A Support Group Based on Black Love GAY WHEELER-SMITH
INSPIRATION
Brother Hogan TAVIS SMILEY
Unselfish Love TAVIS SMILEY
Run On Anyhow R. LEE GAMBLE
The Life and Spirit of Nathaniel Briscoe DONNELLA L. RUCKER
We Have What It Takes MARSHA KELLEY-SUTTON
Biography of a Scar KAREN WILLIAMS
Daddy’s Hands DONNA M. WOODARD
Bad Boy on Board BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
Repayment RONALD R. LAWSON
FAITH
The Substance of Things Hoped For TAVIS SMILEY
Detour of Faith CYNTHIA GARY
The Kind Asian Man JOHN PETTIFORD
Having the Courage to Dream VONDA PAIGE
From Welfare to Farewell KEN BROWN
Not Hiring DAWNE J. HARRIS
With the Grace of God, I Survived DENISE BRIDE-FRAZIER
What If God Said No? LASHANNA R. PRICE
When Faith Is Tested JUDGE TRUDY M. WHITE
The Mouths of Babes CARMEN LASHLEY
When It Is So SHEILA J. GRANT
“Your Child Has Leukemia” KEISHA M. BROWN
Ambay’s Gift MICHAEL W. CATLEDGE
GRIEF AND HEALING
Healing TAVIS SMILEY
A Dream, Not Deferred, but Fulfilled MARILYN SMITH
On a Rainy Night: A Christmas Blessing KAYE BARROW ZIGLAR
Challenges, Not Obstacles NORMA GAINES-HANKS, ED.D.
Dealing with Dementia KATHY DAVIS
A Mother’s Story PAULA PENN-BRADLEY
Gaining from Our Loss RAY THOMASON
Getting over Granddaddy TAMELA HANDIE-TILFORD
Not Just a Statistic BEVERLY JOAN HUGHLEY
The Rebirth of William CELESTE BATEMAN
The Accident ELNORA MASSEY
The Gift of Life SUSIE M. PAIGE
The Last Down TORIAN COLON
Matthew GILDA MACK BENTON
Miracles Do Happen DIANE TRIGGS
My Miracle MARC LITTLE
HOPE AND OVERCOMING
Hope TAVIS SMILEY
Overcoming Adversity IYANLA VANZANT
Overcoming Dyslexia DANNY GLOVER
Courage LINDA SPRUILL
Dragged Through the Mud SANDRA R. BELL
Hams and Turkeys BILLY MITCHELL
Love and Self-Love EDITH ROSS GRAY
You Don’t Know Like I Know SONIA CLARK
Dream a Little Dream GERMAINE SIBLEY GORDON
Addiction SHARON EWELL FOSTER
Getting Off Welfare SHARON BLESSMAN
A Dream Come True SONDRA SIMMONS
Leaving the Front Porch LAMONT JACKSON
Overcoming Obstacles TRACY ANDRUS
Persistence Overrides Resistance JOYLYN WRIGHT
Making a Difference REGINA LITTLE-DURHAM, M.S., M.P.H.
The Little Engine That Can AUDRA WASHINGTON
EDUCATION
My Second-Grade Teacher TAVIS SMILEY
Never Give Up! G. JEAN THOMAS
Just Get the Knowledge SANDRA J. EASTERLING
A Well-Educated Black LANA RUCKS
Education Is a Ticket Out VIRGINIA D. BANKS-BRIGHT, M.D.
From Pregnant Teen to Ph.D. TANYA DUGAT WICKLIFF, PH.D., M.B.A.
Ruby Lee WYLENCIA MONROE
FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, AND HERITAGE
Sassing the White Man TAVIS SMILEY
HERstory GIGI STEELE
Aggie BENNIS BLUE
A Special Identity LINDA ROBERTSON
My Boss’s Wife ANGELA PEA STROBLE
With a Little Help from My Friends JUDY WILLIAMS
The Gift BENJAMIN A. DASHIELL
What If? K. M. FORD
Being Blessed KY’A JACKSON
Honor YOLANDA ZANDERS-BARR
Ma Josie’s Gal RHONDA THOMPSON MADDOX
On Good Ground LATORIAL FAISON
The Rev … RHONDA Y. C. JOHNSON
Sacrifice JOYCE SMILEY
Biographies
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Keeping the Faith makes book number six for me. I’m proud of that. I am more proud of the fact that the folk who were with me for the early titles are still with me today. Their abiding friendship, wise counsel, and unwavering support have made my life—personally and professionally—rich and rewarding.
Thank you, Denise Pines, Harold W. Patrick, Errol Collier, Ken Browning, and Wendi Chavis. To the only editor I have ever known and hope to know, Roger Scholl, and his able assistant Sarah Rainone, my admiration and appreciation.
To Karen Young, thanks for being on time, on task, and on target. Couldn’t have done it without you.
To my personal assistants, Dana Clark and Raymond Ross, and the staffs of The Smiley Group, Inc., the Tavis Smiley Foundation, and The Tavis Smiley Show from NPR, I value your sacrifice and support.
Finally, to the two groups of people I cherish most—my family and friends—thank you for keeping the faith in me and in my dreams.
INTRODUCTION
One of my favorite gospel hymns is an old Negro spiritual titled “Love Lifted Me.” The verses tell the story of someone—battered and bruised by life—who was “sinking to rise no more.” But the joyful chorus triumphantly cries that “when nothing else could help, love lifted me!” I thought I knew a little something about love—and I did. Precious little. Until, that is, I found myself enduring the most excruciating personal and professional pain I could imagine. In one calendar year, I lost a love relationship with a woman about whom I cared deeply, and then I lost, quite publicly, the centerpiece of my air advocacy, my television talk show that allowed me to enlighten, encourage, and empower viewers nightly. I don’t know what’s worse, private or public pain. I do know that they both hurt and that if you live long enough, you will experience both.
Taken together, these ordeals taught me a few things. One, that bad things do happen to good people. Two, that love is the infrastructure of everything and anything worthwhile. And three, that in the end, through love we can turn pain into power. The power to heal ourselves. The power to help others. The power to hope for better days. The power of possibility.
It is my hope that the stories of love, courage, healing, and hope from Black America that you’re about to read in this book will inspire you to keep the faith
no matter what you’re going through. Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, but faith looks up.
Keeping the Faith is about character, conduct, and courage. Courage is the greatest virtue, says my friend Maya Angelou, because without it, you can’t practice the other virtues. I urge you to summon the courage, conviction, and commitment to meet life’s challenges with uncommon vigor and zest. For it will see you through. And no matter what comes your way, you keep the faith!
Tavis Smiley
Los Angeles, CA
24 June 2002
BLACK LOVE
WHAT BLACK LOVE IS …
Tavis Smiley
The concept of Black love is how this book came to be. Yes, so many of the stories are about overcoming and succeeding against the odds. But the real and true theme underlying the book is Black love.
I came up with the idea of putting together this book after I was fired from Black Entertainment Television (BET). Prior to being fired, I thought I knew something about Black love. But after I lost my job, the outpouring of Black love shown to me, from California to the Carolinas, was phenomenal. It was Black love that lifted me during the darkest moment of my professional career. It was Black love that lifted me out of my despair. I discovered that, outside of God’s love, nothing is more powerful.
One of the greatest challenges we face as Black people is whether or not we can take the notion of Black love and use it proactively, as opposed to reactively. Black love is a powerful force. The Black community has a way of coming together and rescuing each other and lifting each other up when someone has been attacked, undermined, or otherwise disenfranchised. But the challenge for us as African Americans is to act proactively with regard to the important issues in our community. If we could harness this notion of Black love and demonstrate it on the front end of our life experiences, as opposed to the back end of our struggles, we would become an awesome force to be reckoned with.
Using Black love, we could eradicate Black-on-Black crime, Black nihilism, and Black powerlessness, all of which exist in our communities because of a lack of self-love. We could even strengthen Black male-female relationships.
For me, what was so uplifting and rewarding about my discovery of the genuine meaning of Black love was the relationship between one’s “value” and love. Value, I learned, is not what you think of yourself, but rather what other people think of you. The outpouring of Black love that was shown to me across this country after I was fired from BET made a clear statement about my value to African Americans—who I was, what I was about, and the way that Black America perceived me. I learned that my real value wasn’t what BET thought of me or even what I thought of myself. It had more to do with what other Black folks thought of me. I didn’t realize the powerful force of Black love that I became the beneficiary of. I was completely overwhelmed.
Of course, I knew that people watched my show, that they would buy my books, and that they would come to hear me if I was speaking somewhere. So I was aware that I had some followers. But when I got fired, it became clear to me that Black people saw me as someone they cared about, someone who tried to represent their best interests, someone who was genuinely concerned about the plight of Black America. Their immediate response was “We’re not going to stand for this.” That’s what I love about being Black: when our backs are to the wall, we come together as a people. When one of us is targeted unfairly or unduly, we go to bat for one another.
Consider the reelection of Marion Barry as mayor of Washington, D.C. Here was a man who had been caught on videotape smoking crack and trying to bed a woman who was not his wife, attempting to run for another term as mayor of a major U.S. city. And he won! Many said the reason he won was that Black folks were crazy—how dare they vote Marion Barry back into office. The more sophisticated, however, realized that Black folk in the D.C. area saw the government create an elaborate sting operation to nail Marion Barry—and use their taxpayer dollars to pay for it. And they suspected he was nailed because he is Black. So their vote became their voice and they reelected Marion Barry.
Black love is Black citizens reelecting Marion Barry as mayor of Washington, D.C., when he didn’t necessarily deserve their votes. Black love is Black people cheering and rejoicing the day that O.J. Simpson was found not guilty, even though O.J. hadn’t done much of anything for Black people. Black love, in its essence, is the awesome capacity and the uncanny ability to love someone in spite of themselves—in spite of their shortcomings, in spite of their mistakes, in spite of their lapses in judgment, in spite of their deserting their community and not giving back to it once they leave. Black love is forgiving.
When I say that Black people have a tremendous capacity for loving others in spite of, I’m not just talking about their ability to love their own, but also the ability to love others in spite of. One can make the case, given the historical relationship between Blacks and whites in America, that Black people love white people in spite of all the things that have been done to us. Think about how Black folks had to love America, in spite of the fact we were considered three-fifths of a person, when we fought alongside whites in the Civil War to help America resolve the issue of slavery, even though many of the soldiers were enslaved themselves. We fought in both world wars as well as the Vietnam War; sometimes we came home missing leg and limb, only to be treated like second-class citizens. Yet we learned to love this country in spite of this. To this day, we are still, through amendment, through protests, through boycotts, and through the ballot, trying to make America live up to her truest ideals. We love this country, we love our people, in spite of and not because of. That’s what Black love is.
Although so many Black folks in America detest the programming offered by BET, they have shown their love and support for founder Bob Johnson because he was the only one out there attempting to bring certain issues about Black people to the forefront through the use of mainstream media. So they loved him in spite of and not because of.
When your back is to the wall, there is nothing like the power of Black love to pull you through. And that’s why I believe that beyond God’s love, Black love is the most powerful force in the universe.
The fact that we can love under such dire circumstances—in spite of and not because of—is, I believe, what makes us special. For all the torture, pain, and disenfranchisement that we have had to endure—when we are racially profiled, when we can’t get a home loan, when we are the victims of insurance redlining and predatory lending, when we are the last hired and first fired, when circumstances are created to make it more difficult for us to get into college in order to receive a quality education—Black people find a way to love this place called America. That’s what Black love is. Other races might have said, “To hell with all this confusion and pain and heartache.” We kept right on loving, trying to make America a better nation.
This book represents the very best of what Black love has to offer. To love in spite of and not because of.
LOVE LIFTED ME
Dr. Cornel West
The fundamental theme of Black life and history is freedom, a freedom that is rooted in a deep courage to love. The power of Black love not only sustains our struggle for freedom; it is the prerequisite of our sanity and dignity. If you examine Black literature, you will find that our greatest text is Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Her book reminds us in many ways of Berry Gordy’s autobiography, To Be Loved. In many of the Black texts we find a kind of Black ontology that puts a high premium on love, in part because we have been such a hated, haunted, and hunted people.
This same theme is represented in Black music, particularly when we look at the talented and gifted artist John Coltrane. In one of his greatest Black musical texts, “A Love Supreme,” he wrestles with pain and anguish as well as joy and ecstasy. Even though love is very much about ecstasy, Frankie Beverly of the popular recording group Maze also reminds us that Black love includes the dimensions of joy and pain, “sunshine and rain.” This Black love has been forged in the f
ace of American barbarism (slavery) and American terrorism (Jim Crow, lynching)—over against violence and death.
I experienced the power of Black love in a fundamental way when I confronted three recent crises in my life. This past year I experienced a physical crisis when the doctor told me that my body was nearly incurably infected with cancer. Because of the magnificent and successful surgery performed by Dr. Peter Scardino, all of the cancer has been removed. Looking back, there is no doubt in my mind that what lifted me and what sustained me was the power of Black love. The power of Black love was demonstrated to me in a very deep way by my family, including my mother, my two sisters, my brother, and my close friends (including loyal, non-Black people). My mother and my friend Leslie waited on me hand and foot every day for seven weeks. It was the overwhelming demonstration of Black love, including the prayers of supporters around the world, that constituted the pillar upon which I stood. It became my rock and my foundation as I struggled against the deadly disease that threatened my body. It is hard to put in words the kind of love I felt. It went far beyond any kind of glib formulation of mere family, friendship, and companionship. It was, in fact, a love that was supernatural and translunar and, I contend, unexplainable through mere words. To take it a step further, I believe that all forms of love are unmistakable and indefinable at the same time and this love is clearly what I experienced and what lifted me. Within the history of the Black church, as well as in the history of Black mosques and Black synagogues, there is, at the center of their teaching, the fundamental need to dignify Black people by making us view ourselves as worthy of love. This love can be God’s love, the love of significant others, the love of children, or the love of our friends.