I was asked to share my opening message for an event that took place on March 7th, and since I haven’t created a blog post in a while…here are two on the same day! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Thank you so much for joining us this evening and please know we are honored to have you here. Four years (the length of a grant) is a little bit of time and, all things considered, $4 million isn’t as much money as many may think yet, we are going to work hard to do what we said we would do by, and for, the people of East Winston-Salem.
I stand as a member of Crossnore’s Center for Trauma Resilient Communities and will ask my colleagues to stand so you may see them. Action4Equity’s (A4E) team please stand, and Forsyth Future’s (FF) team please stand.
Get a good look at our faces as we are a team and we are working hard to do what we told the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, also known as SAMHSA, we would do with and for East Winston. Come to us to ask questions. While we may not have the answer right then, we will do our best to get you the answer.
Members of the People’s Research Council please stand. This is a portion of a group of community members who provide insight on a few initiatives. Raise your hand if you serve specifically on this initiative. This a requirement of SAMHSA…for this work to have a community voice and for the research to be community-led. They praised us because we entered the grant with this portion already started due to A4E’s and FF’s work with Forsyth Family Power (FFP).
Speaking of SAMHSA and the $4 million dollars…
That money is shared between the three organizations over 4 years. Does it go to salaries? Yes. Some of it goes to programming, and some of it goes to space such as this and the space downstairs where we not only partner and support organizations in the community, we will also be setting up a location for our youth to meet. And guess what? It’s still not enough. An example…Action4Equity would LOVE to use their portion of the funding solely for programming, however, funding was cut for work they were already successfully doing. Instead of telling the youth and families they were serving, “We know we started strong yet we’ve run out of funding and have to move on” they found a way to make it work until the grant was approved, and now they’re able to fund staff who use their relationships to partner with organizations who support and help fund the programming.
The federal government just ain’t louncing out funds without requesting receipts either. So Forsyth Futures is gaining many of those receipts by collecting data with the intent of causing little to NO HARM. That costs. Making sure the data collected is not just white people asking the questions. It’s Black and Brown people asking Black and Brown people questions WHILE offering mental health services from Black and Brown providers should the questions asked open up wounds. These people are members of the People’s Research Council. We want to make sure the people on the council are compensated, the mental health providers are compensated, and the people being asked the questions are compensated. That costs. Data shows that East Winston-Salem’s population that has experienced a lot of trauma and violence is just as Latinx as it is Black and if we’re talking about being equitable, that means our communication has to be in a language that is understood by both communities and THAT costs.
Are you enjoying your food? We appreciate Bendu Johnson and her team at Du’Licious Catering for providing the dinner and set up tonight. THAT costs. This is also why we asked you to register and for those who didn’t, we asked you to wait until those who did register got their food. Speaking of registration. If you’re coming to our 4.9 event, where Du’Licious is serving breakfast and you plan to eat it, we need you to register for that, too. So yes, this food costs and the money did NOT come from SAMHSA because they emphasized the money couldn’t be used for food. SAMHSA also had rules about hiring a project coordinator. It was to be a part-time role and I went to my Executive Director and said…this is too much work for part-time AND I don’t know too many people who ONLY need part-time compensation. She heard me and worked something out. Regarding the food that meant Crossnore and CTRC had to work something out, too. BOTH COST!
The DJ, the decorations, the gifts…came from business owners of color who love to be paid at full price…y’all get the picture. They all cost. I’m naming these things for a couple reasons.
1. This may or may not be my last time saying this, however, we’ve heard enough stories about people who, for whatever reason, don’t do right by grant dollars and end up in prison. I ain’t gon’ be her and I’ll tell you why in a minute. There are specific requirements of this grant we have no control over. One is the project coordinator position. That person must reside in Winston-Salem and have specific skills/background. That’s not a Micha thing or a Crossnore thing, it’s a SAMHSA thing that has to be approved by SAMHSA before Crossnore can even make an offer. Those are things we want to be transparent about to prevent assumptions and misunderstandings.
2. People have already begun to create narratives and while I understand everyone won’t be pleased and someone somewhere will always have something to say,…I’m going to provide you with MY perspective on the story tonight. I hope you’re able to hear the underlining of unaffordable housing, pay inequity, differences in healthcare for Black and brown people, etc.
Before I received my first check I was informed I was questionable for the position because they didn’t think I knew that much about Winston and definitely not EAST Winston! So let me share a little about how, in the words of Ms. Sophia from The Color Purple, “All my life I had to fight.” These are examples of MY fight, which may or may not be as tough as yours…these examples are mine and they helped me get here. I’ll also be sharing how my ancestors had to fight and most of the time the fight wasn’t to personally benefit them…it was them being advocates and voices for others who felt they either didn’t have a voice or didn’t have time to use it because they had to work and care for their families. Feel free to laugh if you feel moved because I wouldn’t be alive if I didn’t laugh at some of this sh…stuff.
My maternal great-grandmother could pass for white, so her time working in Old Salem was different than her darker-skinned sisters. They all knew they weren’t being paid equitably before fairness became known as such, so they found a way to get their just due. They stole the recipes and started making sugar cakes, Moravian cookies, and sugar cookies on their own. So much of what you USED TO taste at Dewey’s Bakery (they’ve changed their recipes) I grew up eating for free.
My maternal and paternal grandparents attended the original Atkins High School. My maternal grandparents lived in Happy Hill Gardens and off Waughtown Street before being able to purchase a home down the street in Northwood Estates. They lived into their 70s and 80s yet still couldn’t afford to pay the house off prior to their deaths. Mortgage loans and who writes them matters.
Speaking of Atkins…My maternal grandfather had to work multiple jobs AT THE SAME TIME to care for his family. He had his high school diploma and trained some white men who didn’t have one yet they made more money than him. He also taught me money management because we had to have our stuff in order before asking to BORROW money from him, and he always told us to not get a loan to pay off another loan. Yet, we witness payday loan places in Black/brown neighborhoods offering opportunities with very high-interest rates. Equitable Income Matters 💁🏾
My maternal grandmother was determined to do more than clean and care for white families while being underpaid. She was also my advocate in borrowing money from my grandfather 🤭. She helped me understand credit card financing. Not by talking to me, but by looking over her shoulder as she wrote the check for the bills. She worked and retired from Winston-Salem State University and later from Upward Bound. She walked through the snow from Carver Road to campus to make sure she relieved her colleagues, to be there and be a listening ear and support the ladies of Moore Hall, while also making sure no men got into dorms. Advocacy Matters 💁🏾
Speaking of men in dorms, she met my paternal grandfather before my parents met each other because, as she would say, “he was being fass” and trying to climb the fire escape to get in a girl’s room. This was well before there were coed dorms. That same grandfather retired from Nabisco and he and his wife still live off one end of 23rd Street while his parents had a house on the other end of 23rd Street.
My paternal grandmother, who had a 10th-grade education, yet could fluently cuss, also worked for RJR and taught me about the importance of relationships, not only with family but also with friends. She was so happy to show me this new dance after returning from Washington, DC on one of her many bus trips. She couldn’t wait to put the record on the turn table and count the steps. It was a song you may hear first at events before a string of line dances are played…The Electric Slide. She also lived in the closet and couldn’t be free to love women because of judgment from society about same-sex relationships AND it was during an era when AIDS was considered a “gay person’s disease.” Equality, Equity, and Freedom matter 💁🏾
My parents…
My dad continues to recover from a cocaine addiction he was hit by in the 80s. That addiction highlighted his mental illness yet he was incarcerated versus rehabilitated as we now see for meth and opioid addicts. That’s why I refuse to go to jail/prison because my visits with him were enough. Keeping your hands ON the table, putting change in a clear bag, no physical touch, the pat downs, the metal detectors (much of what our students and public now have to experience at school events)…I’ve already felt like I’ve been incarcerated. I learned our license plates early…BRW-5645 for the silver Chevrolet Spectrum, and EVX-4876 for the red Nissan Sentra. Why? Because my dad got paid on Fridays and would take the car to get high, so we would have to search for the car on Saturday mornings on our way to church. He taught me to cuss, too, he also taught me to write and is mad because I told him I’m retired from writing obituaries, so he wrote his own and mailed it to me. He called a couple of weeks ago wanting me to write in edits. He also added to my love for sports as he was a referee until about 5 years ago. Trauma and its response come in many forms, therefore, functioning addiction and Mental Health absolutely matter 💁🏾
We lived at 1636 Mansfield St. off of Sprague St. until I was 6. I went to a house ON Sprague to attend Mrs. Mamie Brown’s Daycare. Mrs. Brown always told me how smart I was. I didn’t know she told all the kids that…we all believed her, though. We entered kindergarten feeling we could conquer the world. She also taught me about always telling the truth. Not sure why I was always next to last to leave since my mother worked 3rd shift and I had a cousin there. Why couldn’t my aunt just drop me off? That’s another convo for another day. Equitable Pre-K Matters 💁🏾
Speaking of my mother, she was a member of the last graduating class of Anderson High School. One of the 4 original Black High Schools in Winston. She continues to do the best she can with what she has and will give her last to help someone else. My sister and I are trying to stop her from that. We tell her to give people a sleeve versus the WHOLE shirt off her back. She reminds me of how I started cursing early. I have no proof, however, THEY SAY I would say a particular word each time I dropped my pacifier, and that my stubbornness started early. Thankfully cell phones and social media weren’t around then. I’ll admit I still cuss…being housed in a church helps suppress it, yet I don’t think I’m stubborn…I call it fighting or ADVOCATING for what I think is right 🤷🏾…Freedom of Expression Matters 💁🏾
Her mobility issues are due to her work at RJR. Work she did to make sure my sister and I had our necessities and what we asked for on Christmas Day, versus the day after Christmas (which is when my son got gifts because that’s when things are half price). Was Jesus really born on the 25th anyway? We appreciate her and that’s why we go hard for her when she experiences age discrimination. Care for the Aging and the aging’s voices matter 💁🏾
My sister, who is 8 years OLDER. Please hear me. She is older! People would always say I looked and acted more mature than my biological age. That worked for me to be able to go places with my sister, and for me to be able to purchase, what we called, Mad Dog 20/20 from the Great American Store on Patterson Avenue before the age of 21. Now that I AM aging, I’m okay with just looking my age 😔. My sister stayed with my grandparents because she wanted to go to Carver High School instead of North Forsyth. We were raised Seventh-Day Adventists, meaning we observed the Sabbath from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday. So I couldn’t wait until she was 16 and could drive because she would stay with my mom and me on the weekends and we could go to the football games to see the band versus only hearing them from my grandparent’s house. Carver High School is more than what we read in the news and they matter 💁🏾
She, along with Nigel Alston, has encouraged me for years and is so instrumental in my doing this work. They encouraged me to write after reading what I would share on Facebook. I was a guest columnist for The Chronicle until I started saying some things they wouldn’t print, I then started my blog, so I could write what I wanted. When our mother tells me to tone it down a bit because she’s afraid of how I’ll be treated (based on the era she grew up in) my sister prays and supports me to show up just as I am. So much so, for someone who doesn’t believe is taking off work, she took a day off and drove here from Garner, NC, ON HER BIRTHDAY, to witness this!!!
My brother-in-law gets on my last nerve, yet his skill set obtained, from his time growing up in Plymouth, NC and the US Army, helps our family stay organized and in order. Thank you for taking off YOUR job. I mention his job because of the disability compensation he received from his time in the Army…that income isn’t enough to sustain life after retirement, so he has to keep working. Thanks for driving my sister here. Pay Equity and Healthcare will ALWAYS Matter 💁🏾
My son, who is also spending his Spring Break and one day off his $8.50/hr job (a pay rate that pushes him to the voting polls because when he learned about it he thought it was illegal. I told him many of us think it’s illegal and you should have heard him when I told him to Google the actual minimum wage rate 😳) to be here, still doesn’t quite understand all I do. I hope he knows I do it all so he and his generation will continue building. I joke that he’s already a college grad because the night I graduated is also the night I learned I was pregnant.
He’s more introverted than I am, yet I need him to see this work, the same way he saw the benefits of working at a Freedom School this past summer. I need him to listen to understand that it’s not as easy as I may have made it look. I also need him to understand why I yell for him or call him while he’s on campus at that University in Greensboro to ask for his help with technology. Generations before us worked and fought so I can proudly say I’m working in my city for people who reside on a side of town that holds so much of our family history yet doesn’t always get the amount of respect it deserves.
I met Kellie as she formed Action4Ashley and was with her until she started talking about a 10-year plan. That’s when I offered my church finger and excused myself because when organizations start talking about lengthy plans like that, they typically don’t stay around, due to fatigue and/or lack of funding, to see it through. Well, A4E is still here. She read some things I wrote, introduced me to the Trauma Resilient work where I met Beatriz Vides and team, and I saw where doing this work could make an impact. I’ve since been hired to do the work in this city and I stand before you tonight to say LET’S GOOOO!!! Winston-Salem, specifically EAST Winston-Salem residents MATTER 💁🏾
To all the guests on Our Kijiji, where Kijiji stands for Village in Swahili, family, friends, AND foes…thank you because you have helped to shape how I show up. Thank you all for spending this time with us this evening and, again, 4 years isn’t a long time so we are counting on you to continue to show up to vote, show up to support, and to offer accountability. I will be specific in my asks…if the accountability comes with criticism, PLEASE offer options for resolution, time to explain why the resolution may/may not work, and grace/time to actually implement plans/suggestions. Again…let’s WORK TOGETHER, so we can help each other HEAL TOGETHER!