by Tavis Smiley
I went to Atlanta for another law school forum and got as many brochures as I could get. Then I went home once again and began to fill out applications. This time I trusted God, not myself, and it worked!
I received my first acceptance letter in December 2001, about two years and three months after I nodded off at my desk. Having received thirty-seven rejection letters, countless negative advice, and an academic suspension in college (that’s another story altogether!), this kid from a single-parent home in rural South Carolina was finally accepted to law school. I had a school that was willing to give me a chance. I now fully understood the quote I had read earlier. Persistence definitely overrides resistance.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Regina Little-Durham, M.S., M.P.H.
One evening in May 1985, after parking my car near my co-op apartment in Jamaica, Queens, I was approached at knifepoint and robbed. The man then took my car keys out of my purse, opened my car door, choked me with a scarf, abducted me, took me to what I later found out was his mother’s home, and raped and sodomized me. I’m a twenty-six-year-old professional with a strong belief in God and a background in hospital administration and social work. I started to talk to the brother to try to save myself, because I believed I was going to die—I had seen his face. Although my throat was raw from being choked and I was in tremendous pain, I said to him, “I forgive you … I know you don’t mean to hurt me.” The brother said nothing. I said, “You must really be hurting inside to do something like this … how old are you, anyway?” I was shocked when he responded, “I’m twenty-eight.” “Oh,” I said, “and when is your birthday?” He said, “October.” We continued to talk, and I was able to get additional personal information out of him. Finally he said, “Let’s go.” He put a blindfold on me, took me back to my car, drove me about half a mile from where I live, and jumped out of the car. Shaky and bleeding, yet thankful to be alive, I drove back to my home and called an ambulance.
When the ambulance came to take me to the hospital, one of the emergency techs said, “You must be the fourth or fifth rape in this area in the last three months.” I was astounded! I had heard nothing on the news; nothing had been posted in my development. When I contacted the Rochdale Village administration, they admitted that they had “heard about alleged sexual assualts” but had elected not to say anything because they didn’t want to upset the residents unnecessarily. I was furious. But in a way this was a good thing, because it gave me a focus, a way to regain control, which is critical for a rape victim. I spent the next few weeks receiving counseling for post-truamatic shock and working with the police. Because I had seen my attacker’s face, they were able to draw a reasonable sketch of him. I went out with the police trying to approximate where he had taken me. Subsequently, he was caught. He turned out to be a former security guard for the complex where I lived! Several of his other victims and I testified in court, and he was sentenced to fifteen to twenty years. (I received notification recently that he was denied parole.)
I decided that I was going to take a stand. Security in Black neighborhoods, even in nice ones, is an issue. Why weren’t we notified of a possible attacker on the loose? In any predominantly Caucasian community, it would be all over the six o’clock news!
I hired an attorney and forced the development to hold a community meeting to alert residents to the situation. I then found out the names of three of the other victims. One of the victims had been stabbed, another left naked on the side of the road. It took some doing, but I was able to convince them to file a class-action lawsuit against the development. As sisters, we had a duty and responsibility not to let this go. The case was subsequently settled out of court for over $1 million. Management was forced to revise their security plan and develop a written policy about notifying residents of possibly dangerous situations.
And so with God’s help, something truly positive came out of an absolutely awful experience. I believe that God knew that I could handle the situation and help make a difference.
THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT CAN
Audra Washington
On Thursday, May 18, 2000, at 11:30 A.M., I was called into the human-resources department. Thinking we were going to discuss a contract with my employer, a music publisher, I was informed by my boss that I was being fired! The reasons he gave were personal use of the company’s messenger service and discrepancies in my expenses. They had already planned my exit. Termination papers were neatly typed and placed in front of me, awaiting my signature. A company car was waiting downstairs to take me home with my belongings, and security was waiting to escort me back to my office so I could pack up my things. As I sat there, I still could not process what was taking place. I had heard stories of how people in the music industry were let go, and now I was joining the ranks! Fired, terminated, and downsized.
After signing a waiver that I would not sue them, I walked away with severance, unemployment insurance, and a settlement that was heavily taxed, not to mention a year’s worth of medical insurance at their expense. But I kept thinking, How could this have happened? Where were the warnings? What had I done? How was I going to live? What now?
I had given birth to a beautiful baby girl the previous September. I was very much still in postpartum depression. I was the sole financial and emotional provider in my home, since my daughter’s father had lost his job ten months earlier. I considered myself to be an extraordinary sistah—a Bennett College graduate, a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, and a music industry executive with a salary and perks in the $100,000 range. I was well-spoken and articulate in the boardroom as well as on “Sony” avenue. I had worked in the music business for ten years and knew a lot of songwriters, producers, artists, executives, and the white men who controlled the music industry. How could this have happened to me?
I left my former employer in a state of humiliation. How was I going to explain this to my family? What would happen to my reputation in the business? Would I find a job to take care of my family? What would happen to me emotionally? I was already drained physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I had always been in control of my life, but now, for the first time, my situation controlled me. I had been fired! Downsized!
With the little pride I had left, I declined to take the company car home. I walked home from Fifty-second Street and Avenue of the Americas to Ninety-sixth and Columbus Avenue, just to clear my head. I broke the news to my family and friends, and they too could not believe what had happened, or why. I did not believe the company’s reasons for laying me off were justified. But what was done was done, and I had to move on. Later I discovered it was a setup to get rid of me. They had a contract under negotiation and they needed my salary to meet their numbers for the merger they were working on.
After a month, I was still in shock. The phone calls of “Hey, girl—what’s up?” and “You are on the guest list of …” stopped completely. Things had gotten so bad between my daughter’s father and me that I just wanted out, or so I thought.
I must admit that although my mother was with me physically in New York, it was actually my dad in Atlanta who held on to me emotionally. He suggested to me, “You need a change; why don’t you come to Atlanta? Whatever you decide to do, I will support you and your daughter, Sierra.” With that reassurance, I decided to pack up and move to Atlanta, Georgia, believing this would heal my pain internally. But it ended up only making matters worse—I hated Atlanta!
Nearly three months later, I moved back to New York City with more appreciation than before. I was happy to be back on concrete and not grass (if you can believe that), taking the train instead of driving everywhere, eating hot dogs and drinking vanilla egg creams.
My daughter’s father had left our apartment. I began to realize I was not only single, but a single mom.
The Christmas holidays were quickly approaching, and I was anxious to see them come and go. What did I have to be joyous about? I didn’t have a job, though I had looked everywhere—temp agencies, monster.com, a
nd hotjobs.com. I followed up on every lead. I reached out to old contacts and asked that they keep me in mind. I looked in every conceivable area where I thought my skills could apply—all to no avail. Then my unemployment ran out and I was denied any extensions. I couldn’t even get public assistance! The only person who kept me going on a daily basis was my daughter, Sierra. Through my tears, her presence in my life allowed me to continue smiling. I knew I would have to continue pressing on for her, and for us!
My savings completely exhausted, rent and every bill past due, I relied on my friends emotionally and financially to get me through 2001. My family and friends not only gave me money to pay my rent, but gave me something much more important. They gave me the encouragement to continue pressing on. They were able to convince me that I was good at what I did. By the grace of God, in March 2001 I started my own company. The Sable Group: A Music-Related Service Company is a boutique agency that handles music publishing, creative exploitation and expansion, special events, and corporate sponsorship.
My “aha” moment came when no one was willing to hire me. I felt I had no choice but to create my own opportunity—to use what I had learned in the music business and make it work for me instead of working for someone else.
Has it been easy? Absolutely not! But it has been fun and extremely challenging. And yes, it has been worth it! I am enjoying being a business owner, creating ideas and seeing them come to fruition in an industry I love and an area I am passionate about. I love Black music and feel I have been chosen to preserve and educate others about Black music in all its richness.
I must admit that I do get nervous when money is short and bills are due. But I am blessed to have a strong church family who have stood by me financially and spiritually and continue to pray with and for me. I am also blessed to have friends who refer me and my company for other projects and to other contacts they have. I have learned to live within my means and not get caught up in who is wearing what, driving what, and going where. I have learned to focus on the real me—the cliché “to thine own self be true” has taken on a new and deeper meaning in my life.
Most of all, I have learned to love my daughter more and to spend quality time with her each day. And I am learning to rely on God and His will. In my darkest hours, at those times when I cannot see the solution to a problem, and even when the smallest of blessings comes my way, God reminds me that He is the one who brought me through. I will forever be grateful to my friends and to Him for teaching me the true meaning of “keeping the faith.”
EDUCATION
MY SECOND-GRADE TEACHER
Tavis Smiley
Malcolm X once said, “Education is our passport to the future. For tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” When I think where I’ve come from and the life that I’ve been able to build, I am reminded of the impact that teachers have had on me. Whatever I am, and ever hope to be, I owe in part to my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Vera Graft. Mrs. Graft was the person who, early on in my life, inspired me to believe that I could achieve anything that I wanted. Thanks to her unyielding support, and the abiding interest she took in me, I was convinced that the only thing that could determine my altitude was my attitude.
I grew up in north-central Indiana, where I attended Nead Elementary School, a school that was overwhelmingly white. I don’t recall there being more than one or two other Black kids in my second-grade class. In the midst of this sea of whiteness, I was virtually alone, which made it difficult for me in many ways. In first grade, I did not distinguish myself as a particularly talented or gifted student, and when I reached the second grade, I wasn’t doing much better. The difference was that Mrs. Graft took an interest in making sure I didn’t become a lazy student or a student who slacked off from stretching toward his potential. She was able to see that I had the potential to do something special with my life.
I attended preschool in Gulfport, Mississippi, where we lived before moving to Indiana. All the students in my preschool class were Black, and my preschool teacher, Mrs. Warren, took the same interest in me that Mrs. Graft did. Mrs. Warren would not allow any of us in her preschool class to do anything less than our absolute best. A strict disciplinarian, she ran that preschool class as if it were a top-notch private academy, even though most of us came from a disadvantaged background. She always insisted that we do our work and that we apply ourselves. I quickly became accustomed to this kind of attention and level of expectation.
As a result of our move to Indiana, I was transplanted from a Black community in the South to a rural white community in the Midwest. All of a sudden, my whole world changed dramatically, and I had trouble adjusting at first. But Mrs. Graft was not going to let me sit in her classroom with my brain set on stall. At the beginning of the school year, whenever I was challenged by a problem that I wanted her to help me figure out, or one that I wanted her to give me the answer to, she would say to me, “You’ve got to quit quitting, Tavis. You have to develop the discipline to sit here and work through this problem. Tavis, think; think through this material. We have studied this and you know this. You cannot sit here and allow your brain to be set on stall. You’ve got to apply yourself and you’ve got to process this.”
What hinders extraordinary performance in our children is ordinary expectation. Mrs. Graft did not have ordinary expectations for me. She had extraordinary expectations for me. From her I learned not only the value of applying myself, but also what it meant for someone else to expect something of me. I went on to become, according to her, one of the most outstanding students she had ever taught.
Nowadays I often get asked the question, “Of all the issues facing Black America in particular and the nation in general, what primary issue should we focus on?” I never have to ponder that question, because the answer is always the same. The primary goal of our society ought to be the educational excellence of our children, because everything else flows from this. We live in the most multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic America ever, and yet in so many ways we are abrogating our responsibilities to educate, in a more excellent way, the least among us. We fail to recognize, sometimes, that many of those who are less privileged will be the ones who will inherit America and be expected to lead us triumphantly through this new millennium. I believe that it is child neglect on our part to not provide our children with a quality education as surely as it is child neglect for them to not have prenatal care, proper nutrition, food, clothing, and shelter.
When it comes to education, we have to do three things. First, we have to make it our number-one priority; second, we have to demand more of America’s schoolchildren; and last, we have to, as Malcolm X suggested, recognize the true value of a quality education. We have to see education as an investment in our future, which is exactly what it is.
When there are educators in the classrooms who care about those for whom they are responsible, so much can be accomplished. All of us can look back on our academic lives and recall the name of some teacher whom we admired and adored. I have never met a single person who succeeded at anything and didn’t acknowledge a teacher somewhere who inspired them, motivated them, empowered them, and enlightened them. Teachers can have such a long-term impact on the lives of their students. Somebody, somewhere put something into these students; demanded something of them; expected something from them; hoped something for them; and instilled something within them that to this very day has made a difference in their lives. Whether they are thirty or ninety, the fact remains that if they have been successful at anything, they can point directly back to a teacher who helped to shape their lives.
We need to appreciate the role that teachers play in our lives. I have often said that teachers are the most undervalued folks in American society. And if teachers are the most undervalued persons in our society, then parents are the most underutilized in our children’s educational process. I have traveled throughout this country and have spoken at all kinds of educational institutions—inner city and suburban; Black and
white; rich and poor; endowed and unendowed; public and private—and I have learned one thing of which I am certain. The schools that do best in this country are the schools where parents are involved. If we really want to empower our children and empower ourselves toward building a brighter future, then every parent of every child must involve himself or herself in their child’s pursuit of educational excellence. There is a role in this country for every parent to play, and the time is now for parents to step it up, to pick up the pace.
As I mentioned earlier in the book, I am one of ten children. Nonetheless, my parents never missed a PTA meeting, never missed a parent-teacher conference, and would not hesitate to come to our school to meet with our teacher, our principal, or when necessary, the school district superintendent. My mother and father loved each of us dearly, sacrificed for us, and would have done anything on earth to see us succeed. But they made it very clear that if we ever got into any trouble at school, and they had to come down to the school and meet with the teacher, principal, or whomever, that we had better be on the side of right. They let us know that if they learned that any of us had been cutting up in class, misbehaving, not turning in homework, talking too much in class, and not concentrating on what we were supposed to be doing, we would pay the price for such behavior later at home. I cannot tell you the numbers of times my siblings and I were punished for not behaving in the proper manner in the classroom. Even in a family as large as ours, my parents stressed the need for each one of us to get a quality education. Every Black person has heard the statement (as a parent points his or her index finger at your head) “What you put in here, no one can take away from you.” We have to prepare our children and give them the ammunition they will need to overcome the obstacles that life will present them. There is no better preparation for life than a quality education.