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One of the exercises in CLP is about identifying and clarifying our personal values. We each identify our top five values, writing one each on five index cards. Then we have to drop one, and another… until we are left holding the card with our number one, top value. What is your current One right now and why?
This one was a challenge for me; that process of having to sort values. But when it’s all said and done, the one thing that guides me in every path of my journey is commitment to my faith in God. I filter how I function in all areas through that.
Were you raised in a faith community?
I was raised in South Carolina, with a Christian world. It played heavily into how we met the struggles that came up in life, how we set our sense of excellence, our sense of joy in community and helping one another. It really means something.
It was interesting, when I first moved to Connecticut back in the late 80s, I found that some people were very skittish about overtly talking about faith in God. It seemed like it wasn’t a ‘thing.’ It almost surprised people; I got that reaction of, “Oh, I don’t talk about my faith… that’s personal.”
My faith is such an overriding umbrella of everything else I do; God is part of my daily conversation, my daily sense of who I am.
I can imagine it was challenging to arrive in a culture that felt that way.
It just seemed odd, strange to me. I know there are some spaces where faith is literally only a Saturday or a Sunday ritual. It was interesting to find that people were not willing to overtly thank God for whatever. For some people it was just a natural part of their life that they were privileged to have their needs met, to have a good job/career; it was assumed that they always had, so there was no point in thanking a God for what seemed just a natural part of their lives.
Would you like to say more about how faith showed up for you growing up?
It showed up in our everyday lives when I was a child, especially. It was just a natural thing to see my grandmother and other folks on their knees praying. Sundays were special; everything from Saturday preparation of our Sunday clothes to the jubilance of the worship at church. It just was there.
In my own life, I’ve seen things moved. When it appeared that things were totally against me, I felt very clearly that as I prayed and asked God for guidance and wisdom, there were times when I had wisdom or discernment beyond my education or experiences as a professional. There would just be wisdom that carried me. When a noted author tried to get me fired from my job, I remember sensing that I was being protected. It was difficult; but the bible verse ‘No weapon formed against me will prosper’ sustained me through that professional torment.
In my recent world, medical science has come so far and done so much. This past year and a half, my brother was very sick in Georgia. The doctors at a major hospital said he had very little time: “We can’t do anything else for you.” They slid in a palliative doctor and pretty much said we don’t know where he’s going, but he has to get up out of here.
In my spiritual understanding, I felt that God was saying life, not death. One year and eight months later, he’s ordering supplies to rebuild our porch. Someone who was emaciated, in my spirit I sensed this spiritual billboard, saying Life. The Lord used the Yale transplant and extended medical team to save his life and help him thrive, but in my heart of hearts, I know that it was the faith of many praying for him, and the many things that happened around his getting back to Connecticut, et cetera.
Day to day, I see people’s lives change and how they grow, it really says to me that faith does matter. I see people meet challenges – someone would have committed suicide, or just give up hope – but they meet the challenges because they believe that God is real and has given them the strength for the journey.
That’s how I see my life, that I have strength for the journey. I don’t know how anyone else does it, but that’s just what it takes for me.
Thank you for sharing that. I wonder, what is one big, burning leadership question you are wrestling with these days?
I’m retired now, and I’m clear about what it means: that you work harder than you did when you were getting paid! [laughing]
The challenge right now for me is, how do you create a synergistic, relevant and focused vison for a movement or an idea. There’s so much that grabs our attention, that moves us in so many different directions. We live in a world of sound bites, things appear to be so chaotic and so crazy.
When you’re trying to lead an organization or a job – I’m the president of the New Haven section of the National Council of Negro Women, NCNW – one of the things is trying to collaborate, help people see what are the things that are relevant that you can focus on and make a difference. There’s an unspoken lack of energy in a bureaucracy that says, “that’s just how it goes.” How do you get people to come together, filtering out their differences, and focusing on their oneness on a vision?
You can look at a certain topic – we want to end hunger, say – and see 20 organizations trying to do the same thing. Someone’s doing a little piece of hunger in a pocket over here, someone else is doing a little piece of hunger in a little pocket over there. How do you get the synergy to make it powerful, and end hunger; how do you create a relevant, focused vision to do it?
How is this showing up for you at NCNW currently?
NCNW is a national organization; we now have an amazing young woman who is the new national president, Rev. Shavon Arline-Bradley. She really understands this idea and is really trying to make this kind of thing happen. She’s calling us to broaden our perspective, connect, collaborate and “march” with purpose. There’s a serious push to reenergize the goal of coalition and collaboration on some vital issues such as civic justice, voter rights, Black women’s health, freedom to read books about Black history.
This idea of a focused vision or action – there are some specific things I’d like to see done. We talk about voter rights, and then we sound bite it and we’re not getting to the core of it. Why don’t certain people vote? What’s the core reason? Has to go beyond ‘DeSantis is being an idiot,’ Democrats are liars” or Mitch McConnell is treacherous or the Supreme Court is losing its autonomy. Those things influence, but what is the core reason and how do you get to that bottom piece of why people don’t do what we think is so important?
Do you mean things like lacking in hope, or apathy, things on the individual level?
Yeah, right. Or lacking in trust of the systems, or not seeing it as valuable because of their own circumstances, or not even understanding why it’s important. Or not understanding that no one tries to take from you what is not valuable. No one takes your pennies, they always take your dollars. The right to vote is American gold.
All around the world, women have their periods every single day, 24/7. And there are still women who can’t afford to get menstrual supplies. There are now tons of organizations trying to manage this issue – how do we synergize all that and say, here’s how we tackle this issue and end this thing?
Are there specific movements you’ve witnessed or worked in that inspire your thinking around what is possible?
In recent times, the election of the Biden/Harris presidential ticket was an inspiration. I believe strongly that the powerful influence of Black women’s organizations played a major role in insuring a victory. The synergy was undeniable.
In my small town in South Carolina, racism was so pervasive, it was just in the fabric of the town. I was young, and our parents protected us and kept us from a lot of it. But I do recall when my grandmother and others voted for the first time. I remember older people actually stepping into a line to go and vote, risking their jobs, knowing that the sheriff and other people were watching.
There were people doing that synergy at the time, churches that would rally together for a particular effort. White, Black, politicians – everyone understood that once those churches came together, they would have to make some changes, some adjustments.
There were men and women who led charges and could pull the community together – you go to a church and the church would be packed with everyone because people were on board. They knew it was scary, but they were taking the risk.
One of premises behind the founding of NCNW by Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune was to bring together the forces of the Black – “Negro” at the time – women’s organizations. To bring them all together so they could wield their socio-political power on issues that affected Black women and their families.
And some of the issues are still here: housing, hunger, giving birth, education, health care, all those things to bring better health to Black women.
What we’re trying to do locally in New Haven, is re-energize. And bring the call to action to bear in a real way, not just in tiny circles.
What inspires you, gives you hope these days?
I got this one, this is so easy. [laughing]
My faith. Every morning at 6am, we have morning prayer at my church. Usually there’s only 6 or 7 people, sometimes 15. I go every morning.
I don’t even know how to describe it. It is a joyful, peaceful, warming part of my day. It starts me in a space of spiritual warmth and assurance. It’s one hour, 6 to 7. I’m I’m not always there at 6. [laughing]
It’s not that it’s always happy-happy. You spend time physically on your knees praying, if you can, and then people get the opportunity to verbally share any particular requests they might want other people to pray with them on, or share what they feel is an answered prayer.
It gives time to adore God, confess your own sins, supplicate on others’ behalf, and testify about what God has done in your life. So, it just has this mixture of joy and watching people grow in their walk and how people are being blessed. Because we pray for people, then they come back and say, ‘the prayers were answered with this and that.’ Sometimes it looks like, ‘oh, this is really tough.’ Then they come back and say, ‘well this is how it was managed.’ It just feels good.
Sometimes it’s just people sharing a hard place. Sometimes we did pray, and the answer was no. Someone died, or something else occurred. But then people rally around one another to comfort and to help each other through those spaces and life questions.
For me, it’s just a really cool time. I always say to people, “God has given me the unction to rise and come to this space.” And I’m appreciative – it was something I did many, many years ago, but then my job and other stuff kept me from it. Then my brother was sick and needed 24/7 care, and I had to be available. When I had the opportunity to return to it, it’s just brought such… I guess it’s like a spiritual massage, if I can use that analogy. It readies me for the next thing.
I really admire – excuse the analogy – the Venn diagram overlap between individual deep faith and community faith, community building and connection. What a powerful combination.
That’s exactly it, the Venn diagram works. [laughing] It’s just wonderful. Warm and fuzzy, and sometimes it’s a real stretch of who I am, or who we are. It just stretches your faith, your hope, and you as a person, as a human being, to grow and trust outside of yourself.
As you reflected earlier, this work of transformational change is hard. Stepping in, stepping up, over time, can be draining – physically, intellectually, emotionally, psychically, spiritually. In addition to your faith and faith community, how do you recharge, restore, take care of yourself, rekindle your fire?
I have an amazing group of sister-friends who I can call and talk to, just pour and laugh and share. Friends are really important to me – my really good, loyal friends. I never feel that I’m at a space where I don’t have somebody I can connect to by a phone call or a text or a chat in the den.
And I know how to be by myself, I’m good with being alone. I know how to “come away,” as they say. Faith is a part of that too. Sometimes it’s a matter of getting away, and zeroing in on my individual relationship with God.
But again, it’s a challenge. From a Biblical perspective, in the Christian scriptures there’s a story about these two sisters Mary and Martha.
Martha is the worker bee, Mary is a restful, listening ear. Jesus comes to their house one day, and he’s teaching and sharing with them. Martha’s busy in the kitchen doing what she’s doing, and Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus, just listening and learning.
Martha’s like, “Jesus, tell Mary to come in here and help me.” And Jesus says, “listen, Martha, Mary’s chosen the good thing right now.” Not that he didn’t appreciate what Martha was doing, but for this moment, this is what’s needed.
Sometimes we need to recharge, and sometimes it just means getting away from the hustle and bustle of the day, or the hustle and bustle of whatever it is.
I do a lot of different things. It could mean literally turning my phone off, and just telling myself I’m not answering the phone, I’m not talking to anyone, it’s just got to go to voice mail. Not checking my email, just not going to the computer and responding to anything.
Breathing; I learned years ago about deep breathing, and meditating on the Word. Sometimes I make myself take the time to do my deep breathing exercises and allow my brain to get some fresh air and some fresh Word.
Good music; I love to listen to good music. Preferably something that I don’t know the lyrics to, so I’m not trying to make my mind do anything other than listen to the music. I love to listen to spa music and just chill. Just today, I was in my car and happened to turn on the radio, and there was Erykah Badu singing “Tyrone.” If you’re a woman and you’ve had a man who’s been really raggy… [laughing]
I love to walk, take myself outside. I haven’t done it recently because I’ve had some injuries, but I will take long walks in Edgewood Park. I love it. No matter how many times I walk the same path, it always feels like I’m finding something new. If I’m with someone else, I’ll try new paths. I might listen to a book while I’m walking, or just be.
I love hot air balloon rides! I have this thing in my family where I tell all the nieces & nephews, “If you want to go hot air balloon riding, Aunt Dottie will pay for you to take at least one hot air balloon ride.” I think it’s important in life to go ballooning.
Sometimes I just binge on old white men [laughing] – Matlock, the old Equalizer when I can find it, Columbo. And the original Mission Impossible TV show. I’m stuck in that era. I have the entire Columbo series and I’ve watched it over and over again. There’s something about that raggy raincoat and that amazing mind, and I love those little ways they solve the crime and the way he irritates the criminal. It’s fun, and funny. I love the sleuth thing going on, the thinking. Mission Impossible also has the sophisticated fashion!
So there are lots of things that I do, and sometimes I need people to tell, me, “ok, Dot, you’ve got to shut it down, and let everything go.” I can’t always do it on my own, I think I have to rescue the world.
I hear you. It’s so hard to know sometimes how to prioritize self-care when the world is on fire.
And I don’t have no water.
Right? That’s the thing. And we have to take good care, so that we can stay in the work, and be of use.
Right. And sometimes people decide, ‘this is not my fight,’ that’s another thing. Some of the old folks at my church have this saying, “You know, sweetie, just stay in your lane, stay in your lane.” You get upset because you want to do it all – just stay in your lane.
I remember years ago there was this white woman, Elisabeth Elliot, who had been a Christian missionary in Quito, Ecuador back in the day. I admired her writing and her work, the stories she would share. For me, they were not condescending, or any of those kinds of things.
The important piece in her writings was the idea of being committed to a cause and a purpose. There was a sensibility that I really enjoyed. I was struggling with something one time, and I decide to write her a letter. She wrote back and I went to visit her in Gloucester, Massachusetts. I remember sitting in her living room, I’m telling her about my job, and about all these things I was going to do, how much money I made, on and on.
She said, “If you really want to do this, you’re going to have to decide, do you really need to make that much money?” It was so simplistic, and so honest.
There are places that you recharge not so much by doing the same thing, sometimes you need to step out of something in order to get yourself back together.
It’s hard for us to do that, because in many of our minds, we think that when we step out, we’re failing. It’s not necessarily failure, it’s just wisdom saying the next person has to take the baton.
I appreciate you lifting that up. Speaking of others, would you introduce us to someone you are or were close with personally (e.g., family, teacher, friend, mentor), who shaped (or shapes) you and how you view leadership and possibility for a better community/world?
There are so many people who just made it their mission to care, and to be a role model. They lived that way. Lots of them, I could go through a number of them who made such a difference. Three of them come to mind.
My grandmother, Mrs. Essie McDonald was an entrepreneur back in the day. We grew up admiring her – you had to figure out how to live, what you needed to do to make that happen. During prohibition, a bootlegger was someone who sold illegal liquor. It was one of the things she did to survive.
She had a level of respect. When people were off the rails, my grandmother could speak and everything would shut down. She was a compassionate, caring person who always reached out to other people even though we didn’t have much. People looked out for her.
During the 50s and 60s, it was so difficult for Black people to get any kind of decent work, and there was the great migration. If you ever get the chance, read The 1619 Project and anything about the great migration. You couldn’t find work, then there was the big manufacturing boom in the north.
So there was enticement – come north, and things will be better for you as a Black person, you can make money. It was sort of like what immigrants come here looking for, Black people were treated as if we were non-citizens. You were hoping to come north and be treated with dignity and humanity. In reality, it was better than down there, but it wasn’t much better.
My parents had to come north to work, because they couldn’t find any work that would pay decently down there, it was just impossible. My grandmother took care of my siblings and me. That was such an honorable thing, such a sacrifice for her to do.
When she stopped doing the bootlegger thing, she had to become a maid for a white family. But she was always such a lady and pristine person, dressed to the nines, and expected the same from us. We were always expected to look our best. Again, part of being Black in America, you were seen as less-than, so you always had to do everything twice as good in order to be seen as almost-human.
She was always such a force, in terms of being able to make things happen and work for us. She had a second-grade education, but she and my mom had great goals and vision for us to succeed. They valued education and really wanted us to do well. If I didn’t go to school that day, I couldn’t go out and play – I could not suddenly be miraculously healed by 2:30 in the afternoon and play. If you were sick that day, you were sick until the next day, to go to school.
I started working one summer in a summer program, and the grant monies did not come through, so we ended up not getting paid. I was panic-stricken, because I needed that money to pay the deposit for my college room. I’m a high school graduate, my grandmother is second-grade educated, I’m thinking I knew everything. I was always telling her, don’t spend your money here, don’t do this. [laughing]
But when I was panic-stricken, on the porch crying, my grandmother wanted to know what was going on. I told her, she went in the house and walked back out with the 300 dollars I needed. Her only statement to me was, in her Gullah Geechee dialect: “See, Uh know whu do wid my’own sabe” (“See, I know what to do with my money”). It was a powerful lesson for me.
My grandmother has a place in my heart and my mind. She had such a wisdom. She’s our Shero.
And my mother, Jane Green. For going away and having to work, and the struggles she had to contend with in order to do what she needed to do to send money back home to my grandmother to take care of us. She had ‘hairdressing’ and tailoring skills, and yet she had to be a maid and a housekeeper for a rich family in Rochester, New York. The frustration of having some skills, but not being able to utilize them well because you were Black.
My mother had a keen sense of her children’s gifts. She knew that I was a smart child and that I would be a teacher, she did things to inspire that. She knew my brother was a carpenter by heart. When he was four years old, she bought him a true carpenter’s set. Not plastic, but real tools that were appropriate for a four-year-old boy. I don’t know where she found these things. That’s the only thing my brother ever wanted to be, to this day.
And my ninth grade English teacher, Miss Lily Jean Johnson. Until 9th grade, we had segregated schools. I learned Black history, a lot of things. But this woman introduced me to the literature of Black people. Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, all the greats.
And she introduced me to the regal-ness of being a Black woman. She had a short Afro and all this amazing clothing that was so Afro-centric. This was so unusual back then. I just absolutely admired her. She was meticulous in her use of the English language, expected excellence at all turns, and had this amazing joy about her that just radiated. She was the reason I became an English teacher.
These three women and so many others taught me self-worth. They taught me tenacity. They taught resilience. They instilled “I am Black and I am Beautiful!”
What do you recommend to us, in each of these categories:
- Reading – Read a Black history book that’s been banned. Dr. Dorothy Height wrote a book called Living With Purpose, and her memoir, Open Wide the Freedom Gates are books that inspired me. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.
- Listening – I like to listen to books, actually. I like listening to J. California Cooper read her books. I love her cadence in reading her material. I feel like I’m sitting on the back porch swing.
- Eating – Create a vegetarian sandwich. I’m not vegetarian, but I love to shred some vegetables, sauté them in olive oil, and put them on a nice bun, whatever your choice is. Enjoying it with a nice glass of apple juice. Maybe a little pepper, but I let the vegetables speak to my palette.
- Watching – Daughters of the Dust, written by Julia Dash back in 1991. I’m old school. It’s a cultural conflict kind of story, based in 1902 South Carolina on the Gullah Geechee coast where all of the traditions of Africa and their culture are held. They leave the island for the mainland, thus the conflicts of holding the culture amid all these outside influences.
- Laughing – The Carol Burnett Show, and one scene that’s a spoof of Gone with the Wind. The Cosby Show’s ‘Theo and the shirt’ episode.
- Wildcard – your choice – Hot air ballooning. Every person in the universe should go hot air ballooning at least one time. Over the Farmington River Valley in the fall is a spectacular experience. And if you really want a huge hot air balloon experience and to see 800 balloons at one time, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is the place to go.
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