Madame Ph.D.: Growing up Black in Dc and Beating the Odds: Nettie’s Dc Story of Perseverance, Hope, and Determination (Phd)

By Gwynette Ford Lacy Ph.D. MBA

Every Ph.D. has a story, and Gwynette Ford Lacy is no exception. As a young black girl struggling amid the trappings of inner-city Washington, DC to overcome a broken home, an attempted sexual assault, and relentless bullying, she became determined to survive and succeed despite her background, gender, and the color of her skin.

In an intimate retelling of her personal story, Lacy details how she emerged from a childhood full of challenges to beat the odds and achieve a series of “firsts,” to become the first African American female to earn a Ph.D. in her business field from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lacy discloses how she transformed into a math whiz, STEM trailblazer, high school cheerleader and activist. She received a tuition scholarship to the former all-male Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where she pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and graduated magna cum laude, in three years, earning her department’s Wall Street Journal Award. The great, great, great granddaughter of a female slave, Lacy provides an eye-opening glimpse into major events in American history in the 1960’s and 70’s, such as the Civil Rights Movement, assassinations and riots, and the Vietnam War. She also shares the triumphs she experienced along the way, including laughter, love, and joy, and how she created a life that matters through perseverance, hope and determination (PHD).

Madame Ph.D. shares the inspiring true story of an African American woman’s journey from inner-city Washington, DC, to achieve professional success as a college professor/administrator, international management consultant, and motivational speaker.

This title is now also available with color photographs. When ordering please make note of the softcover formats:
ISBN: 9781665713726 (color photos) ISBN: 9781665720427 (black and white photos)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Apr 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665713733

Gwynette Ford Lacy Ph.D. MBA

Gwynette Ford Lacy grew up in inner-city Washington, DC. After graduating magna cum laude from Lincoln University (PA), marrying, and working as an auditor for the federal government, she earned an MBA and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, eventually becoming the first African American female Ph.D. to earn tenure and serve as chair of the Department of Management of the School of Business at Howard University, and later as the Associate Provost, while raising two children. Today she is an international management consultant, trainer, and motivational speaker.

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Copyright © 2022 Gwynette Ford Lacy, Ph.D., MBA.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-6657-1372-6 (sc-color)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-2042-7 (sc-black/white)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-1374-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-1373-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021920775

Archway Publishing rev. date: 10/28/2022

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1The Early Years

Chapter 2Bullied for Being Smart

Chapter 3The Transition to Honors: River Terrace to Eliot

Chapter 4On McKinley, On McKinley, Victory Is Our Aim

Chapter 5Hail, Hail, Lincoln!

Chapter 6A New Beginning as Husband and Wife

Chapter 7Newly Wed and Working

Chapter 8On Wisconsin?

Chapter 9Two Affirmative Action Badgers

Chapter 10A Road Less Traveled

Chapter 11Home, Sweet Home and Baby Makes Three

Chapter 12New Baby, New Job, New House = Crazy!

Chapter 13Hell’s Kitchen vs. the Mecca

Chapter 14Sick or Crazy? My Defense

Chapter 15It’s Never Over, Until It’s Over

About the Author

This book is

dedicated:

To my family, friends and those on whom shoulders I stand

To my Great, Great, Great Grandmother:

Sookey Jubeter, a South Carolina Slave

To my Parents:

James Monroe Ford and Gloria Etta Wright Ford

To my Grandmothers:

Bellinger Golden Wright and Mabel Ford Chisley

To the Loves of my Life:

My Husband, George Corinth Lacy, Jr., Esq.,

My Children,

Gharun Stephen Lacy and Gayna Georgette Lacy

Grandchildren,

Juliana, Logan, and Lexington

and

Godchildren

To my Sister: Valeria

and the rest of my family

To my teachers, mentors, classmates and friends at:

DC Public Schools

Eliot Jr. High School

McKinley Tech High School

Lincoln University (PA)

George Washington University

University of Wisconsin – Madison

To Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Especially Epsilon Nu Chapter, Lincoln University

and the Divine Nine Greek Sororities and Fraternities

Especially Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

To my colleagues, students and mentees of:

Howard University

University of the District of Columbia

and to

All of my other past and future students and mentees

INTRODUCTION

Every Ph.D. has a story. This one’s mine. This is my story of how I beat the odds: how an underprivileged black girl from the inner city of Washington, DC, grew up to obtain a Ph.D. Some people don’t even know what a Ph.D. degree is. A Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.) is the highest academic degree one can obtain in one’s professional field. Historians, scientists (such as chemists, biologists, and pharmacists), and in my case, MBAs (those with a master’s in business administration degree) can all seek a higher degree in their field, called a Ph.D. Medical doctors, anthropologists, and sociologists can also seek a Ph.D.

The Ph.D. is considered a terminal/research degree and qualifies a person to teach at the college or university level. Ph.D. holders are usually graduates of large universities. Instead of standing up, getting applause, and sitting down, they are the ones called to the stage. Their names are called, they are given their degrees, and they are congratulated by the president of their university and others. That’s how important a Ph.D. is.

People are often curious about what would motivate a person to seek the highest academic degree that exists, the Ph.D. Some people think you have to be a genius, super-smart, or just plain crazy to put in all the hard work and time it takes to climb to the top of the food chain of educational attainment. Others believe you have to be from a high socioeconomic rank, super-rich, or well-off financially to even think about obtaining a Ph.D. because it is so expensive.

None of that applies to me. I believe that you have to be smart enough to do what it takes and crazy enough to put in the time and go through with it—what experts call an affinity for high achievement. The rest is all about perseverance, hope, and determination.

My case has been very different from most Ph.Ds. As I travel around the country, when people read my résumé or bio and see my first and last name, they often expect to meet a white Irish woman, or someone with a French background, my first name being French and my married name being Irish. When an African American woman shows up, they are often a little surprised. Or when people read that I am a native Washingtonian and attended DC public schools for my basic education, I am often asked what motivated a person of my background (or what gave me the gall) to seek the highest degree that is possible to obtain in the world. I don’t fit the profile. I don’t fit the mold.

So here is my story—the story of how the great-great-great-granddaughter of a female slave named Sookey Jubeter became the first and only African American female to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in her specialized business field of industrial relations. She goes on to become the first African American female Ph.D. to be tenured and become the chair of the Department of Management in the School of Business at Howard University. She also held several high administrative posts at Howard and is now a national/international consultant, trainer, and motivational speaker.

My story is about a young black girl who overcomes tough times, a broken home, bullying, and the mean streets of inner-city Washington, DC—who survives and thrives despite her background and gender. This is a story about a black girl growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with all the joys and pains of the times: the civil rights movement, government politics, the Vietnam War, protests and marches, assassinations, and riots. Yet it is also a story about the triumphs, music, and college life of those times, DC Go-Go, and a great love affair.

This is a story about finding oneself in the 1960s and ’70s; about Afros and dashikis; about studying and hard work, stress and strain, illness and pain; and about finding the answers to life and creating a life that matters. It is a story about race, the racial divide, and racial and gender inequality, yet it is also about racial pride and tolerance. It is a story about perseverance, hope, and determination—another kind of PHD.

ONE

THE EARLY YEARS

ARE GENIUSES BORN OR MADE?

THERE IS A long-running debate among researchers as to whether a child is born smart or whether intelligence can be taught. I believe that a little of both is true. In my case, I am told that I was a very smart, precocious child from the very beginning. Before the age of two, I could talk and spell quite well. One story is that in an attempt to break me from drinking from a bottle, my babysitter hid it on a windowsill under a shade. One sunny day, seeing the silhouette of the bottle under the shade and having heard others spell the word bottle, I said, I want my bottle, spelling out the word. So, are smart people born that way or can they be made? I believe a little of both is true.

Doctors and scientists agree that long-term memories begin to develop in early childhood, around three or four years old, and that although our short-term memory begins to wane as we age, our long-term memories tend to last. My earliest memories are just as the scientists say. I remember our small family, chasing the American dream.

To give credit to the theory that smartness is often inherited, the smartest person I knew at an early age was my father. His name was James Monroe Ford (yes, after the fifth president of the United States), and he was born and raised in La Plata, Maryland, in rural Charles County. It is believed that his family members were descendants of slaves who belonged to George Washington or to George Washington’s family, some of whom carried Washington as their last name. Therefore, a lot of the boys in Daddy’s family were named after presidents of the United States. After slavery, Daddy’s ancestors moved across the Potomac River to Southern Maryland and became sharecroppers. Daddy worked for one of those sharecroppers in his youth.

Daddy graduated from La Plata High School at the top of his class during a time when many black men never finished high school. He enlisted in the army and served for two years at the end of World War II. He was trained as a technical mechanic and worked on army jeeps and electrical equipment. He used to say that he didn’t like that man’s army, so he didn’t stay beyond the required two years.

After the service, he moved to Washington, DC; met my mother while she was still in high school; and got married. Together, they had two daughters—my older sister Valeria and me, Gwynette. My father named us after his ancestors. We were teased a lot as youngsters about our relatively unusual names. Therefore, like most kids from the hood, we adopted nicknames. Valeria became Vee, and I became Nettie. Valeria was born three years before me. She, too, is very smart and has a Ph.D. in her own right, which lends itself to the hereditary argument.

My mother was smart too, but in a different way: street smart. Part of the first generation in her family to be born in DC, my mother was the fifth child born to Fred and Bellinger Wright, who moved to DC from Jim Crow South Carolina in the mid-1920s for what they thought would be a better life for their children. My mother’s birth name was Gloria Etta Wright. She chose to get married right out of high school, to her mother’s displeasure, as a large percentage of black kids did during those days, especially in DC, when people said that you could get a good government job without a college degree. She bought into that.

That was also an era when men were the breadwinners, so that’s where she placed her bet: on finding a good man and getting married, although she always said that she planned to work, too, and she did. She thought that a two-income household would get her where she wanted to go in life, so that’s the road she took. She married James Monroe Ford and had two girls.

I remember my father being very smart in math, which may be the reason my sister and I later tested near the genius level in math. The truth is, given his race and the lack of opportunities for black men during the Jim Crow era, like many smart black men of his time, he was relegated to getting a job at the post office—a good government job. However, having served in the army as a technical mechanic, he was entrepreneurial enough to do mechanical and electrical odd jobs as a side hustle, such as fixing cars and TVs and small electrical appliances for neighbors, family, and referrals, to make a pretty good second income. By most accounts, our little family was better off financially than many in our neighborhood. As a family, we were on our way to achieving the American dream.

I was my daddy’s tomboy and little helper. At about three years old or so, because I had undiagnosed juvenile arthritis and couldn’t stand for long periods of time, I would sit on the curb next to Daddy’s toolbox and hand off small tools and screws, as requested. Daddy’s favorite beverage (and mine) was beer, and I was known to say, I can drink a whole can of beer. If you don’t believe me, just ask my daddy, or better yet, just watch me. Then I would chugalug on a can. Daddy taught me my numbers and how to add them, and I would practice counting and adding while helping him.

TIME CHANGES THINGS

But time passes and things change, and so do our dreams. My parents’ marriage began to crumble. I remember Daddy being home less often and both parents staying out and coming home late. I remember phone calls where people would hang up immediately when I would answer the phone. Hello, hello. Who is this? And then there were arguments—loud arguments and tough-to-hear arguments.

One day, I was on the wrong end of a beer can. My dad came home late, after dinner was over. He asked my mother to fix him a plate. She did. To him, his dinner seemed cold, so he said to her, This is cold. Can you heat this up?

I often got bloody noses as a child, and no one knew why. Mom and Dad would often place cold beer cans on my forehead to get the nosebleed to stop. With me on her hip and Daddy treating one of my bloody noses, my mother dumped the plate onto his lap. Having a can of cold beer in his hand, Daddy hurled its contents toward her. But it missed her and got me, getting beer all over me.

That incident and others that followed were turning points in my life that I attribute to my theory that high achievement often depends on how motivated a person is to achieve against all odds, good and bad. That incident contributed to the end of the Ford marriage and the beginning of some difficult days and years for my mother.

My mom and dad separated in 1956, when I was five years old and just about to start kindergarten. I had just returned from a trip with my maternal grandmother to South Carolina. I guess all the drama took place while the two of us were gone. Because my granddad worked on the railroad and my grandma was his widow, she received two free passes to go anywhere on the train once a year. She would take one of her thirteen grandchildren on a trip with her to visit her half-brother, Sankie, in South Carolina, just before we started school. That year, it was my turn.

That trip was my first up-close-and-personal encounter with Mr. Jim Crow. Jim Crow was the name given to a group of laws passed in the Southern states, designed to keep blacks separated from whites—a segregation tactic. At one of the train stops was the first time I had to drink from a colored drinking fountain and use a colored toilet. When I attempted to play with a little white girl my age on the train, her mother took great offense and pulled her away from me. My grandmother pulled me back closer to her and set me down, as if I had done something wrong. I didn’t know what I had done wrong!

I didn’t think much about the incident, for I was only five years old. But that was all my grandmother talked about when we got back to DC: Nettie’s encounter with Mr. Jim Crow. The story my grandmother told seemed odd to me, because I didn’t remember meeting a man by the name of Jim Crow. To me, discrimination and bigotry in DC wasn’t as overt and blatant as it was in the Deep South. It was more subtle and undercover, so I didn’t have a clue what was going on. I was only five years old!

When I returned from that trip with my grandmother, my mother announced that we were moving and that my father was not coming with us, and that was that. No explanation, no discussion. Although I missed him, I got over it quickly. I didn’t miss the arguments and the fighting.

My dad came to visit us about once a month, paid his child support, and checked our homework. He was happy that his daughters were smart and always told us that we could be anything we wanted to be. He never told us that there would be limitations placed on us because we were female, or black for that matter. He loved his two daughters dearly. We meant the world to him, and he was so proud of us.

We weren’t allowed to discuss anything about our parents’ marital status at school. Mama didn’t want anyone at school in our business. She didn’t check separated on any of the forms that came in from school, either. I often wondered why not. Now that I think about it, I think she was right, because back then there was still a stigma about broken homes, and teachers and administrators often treated children from broken homes differently, as if they were less than. At least, that’s how it seemed to me.

Mama moved the three of us into a large one-bedroom apartment in Northeast Washington, on 20th Street. The apartment was two blocks from where the Washington Stadium (the future home of the Washington Redskins) would be built, which eventually became RFK (Robert F. Kennedy) Stadium after his assassination. The bedroom was big enough to fit a large bed that my mother and I shared, a twin bed that my sister slept in alone, and two dresser drawers, plus closet space. It was a bit cramped for three females. The three of us shared one bathroom, with very few of the arguments that you would normally attribute to three females sharing one bathroom. My mother saw to that. My sister and I had an allotted time in the bathroom, as we weren’t teenagers yet.

My mother was a tough cookie who believed in tough love. She made it very clear that she needed to work in order to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. Times were hard, but Mama made a way out of no way, as she had learned from her mother. She worked hard so we could have. We didn’t have much (as Stevie Wonder sings about), but she taught us to be grateful for the things we did have.

LATCHKEY KIDS IN THE 1960S

My sister and I were latchkey kids long before there was a name for it. We didn’t have formal babysitters, but we had each other, our immediate and extended families, our neighbors, our school family (with teachers and administrators who really cared back then), and our church family, all of whom really looked out for the Ford girls. We were on our own until Mama got home, so we made the best of it.

The kids in our neighborhood walked to Henry T. Blow Elementary School together, literally a mile, from 20th and C to 19th and Benning Road, NE, in a section that is now called Capitol Hill Extended but was far from what it is today in the late 1950s and early ’60s. I guess you would call us free-range kids today, as were most of the kids in our neighborhood. We walked around alone or in small groups to and from school, to the movies, or to the one recreation center that existed in our neighborhood.

Mama worked full-time as a currency examiner at the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the agency within the Treasury Department that prints US currency and postage stamps. Over her thirty-five years of employment there, she worked in both divisions (currency and stamps) and on every major shift: the day shift (7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.), the evening shift (3:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.), and the graveyard shift (11 p.m. to 7 a.m.). She also worked a lot of overtime, whenever she could get it, especially when new currency and stamps would come out. She did that so she could do the best by her girls.

The three of us looked out for each other, although Mama often reminded us that she was the boss. Mama looked out for her girls, and we looked out for Mama. And literally, sometimes we were her lookouts.

My sister and I didn’t need an alarm clock. When Mama worked the day shift and we heard the door shut at 6:15 a.m., we knew it was time to get up to get ready for school. But first, we would run to our bedroom window and watch Mama cross the street and walk to the corner of 21st and C Streets, most of the time in the dark, to catch her ride with her coworker Johnny—carpooling, as it was later called. It was a nice ride, too, a Deuce and a Quarter (a Buick Electra 225), up-to-date and very, very clean. We would watch out for Johnny’s car to turn onto C Street and pick Mama up for the ride through Capitol Hill to the Bureau. Then we knew she was safe, and on her way to work. There was no subway back then. My mother was chauffeured to work in a nice clean ride, with two lookouts or wing-girls. We could give the Secret Service a run for their money.

Then it was time to get ready for school. With a combination of some new clothes that Mama got from working overtime, after getting them out of the layaway (pay as you go) from Morton’s and Lerner’s Specialty Stores (those would be equivalent to Target and JCPenney today); hand-me-downs from family members and friends; and finds from the swop meet, we were the best-dressed kids and the envy of our neighborhood—which often got us into trouble with the bullies in the hood. Sometimes my mother dressed us alike, often buying us the same dress in our different sizes. Since we weren’t twins, eventually she stopped that practice.

On weekends, Mama would wash, starch, and iron our pretty little dresses for the week and line them up one by one on the doorknobs and doorframes. All we had to do was pick out a dress to wear for the day and, after bathing, put it on. We were not allowed to wear slacks, jeans, or tennis shoes to school back then.

One day, one of my teachers pulled me aside and asked me, Who does your mother’s laundry? You’re always so nice and clean.

I answered with a puzzled look, "My mother does her own laundry."

Then the teacher said, I sure wish I could get your mother to do my laundry!

I gave her that look that says, In your dreams!

The same thing was true on Sunday for Sunday school. The night before, Mama would wash our hair, straighten it with a straightening comb heated over the stove in the kitchen, and curl it in Shirley Temple curls for the next day. We wore black patent leather shoes (Mary Janes, they were called) that Mama would polish with Vaseline (yes, Vaseline). We wore them with snow-white ankle socks with lace around them. What a sight to see—starched dresses that stood out about three feet, with little skinny legs coming out of them, with white ankle socks.

Like many black families in the South, we spent Sundays in Sunday school and church services, often followed by a trip to my Aunt Bernice’s house, by streetcar, where my grandma lived. Grandma prepared, for all of us, a soul food dinner of fried chicken, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, homemade hot rolls, and sweet potato pie or chocolate cake for dessert. When money was tight, our aunt Bernice, who was in charge (superintendent) of our Sunday school, would make her famous Jell-O mold with fruit cocktail in it. But when money was good, she would send us to the Highs store or the DGS to get vanilla ice cream to go with Grandma’s cakes and/or pies.

During the week, Vee and I obeyed Mama’s rules so that we could enjoy the freedoms she gave us. Some kids weren’t even able to do what we could do. We came straight home from school and did our homework plus all of our chores.

Sometimes, when Mama would work overtime, on weekends, she would give us money to catch the bus, free-range, to see the Motown Revue and other shows at the now-infamous Howard Theatre—but we were only allowed to go to the matinee. Mama occasionally went to the evening or midnight shows on a hot date, so that was definitely out for us. I particularly enjoyed going to the Saturday matinees to see the Motown Revue, featuring such stars as the Temptations, the Supremes, Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and the Commodores, who were all under the Motown label. Sometimes we would also catch James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and other famous stars of the 1960s at the Howard.

The ticket prices were three to five dollars for the matinee—not bad compared to concert ticket prices today. And what a concert you got! To see my absolute favorite, the Motown Revue, with all those stars, all at the same time, for five dollars, was like dying and going to Motown Heaven.

When Mama would come home tired from working all that overtime, we would cheer her up by giving her our own version of the Motown Revue. She would sit in a chair in the living room or dining room, and Vee and I would sing and mimic such tunes as Stop! In the Name of Love and Where Did Our Love Go, by the Supremes. We knew all the words and all of their moves. We even had our own little singing group called the Valettes, with two of our cousins, and we would sing outside of our aunt’s house on Benning Road, trying to get discovered. I had lead roles on two of my favorite songs: I Met Him on Sunday, and Mama Said, both sung by the Shirelles. People walking by must have thought we were crazy or something!

When the Howard Theatre was dark, we were allowed to go roller-skating Uptown to Kalorama Road, in an area of town that is now called Adams Morgan. We were also allowed to stop off at the famous black eateries of the time, such as Ben’s Chili Bowl, Eddie Leonard’s, or Florida Avenue Grill on the way home for a bite to eat. What we didn’t eat, we took home as a snack for later.

My mother ran a tight ship, though. We weren’t allowed to hang out in the street after dark and had to be in the house before the streetlights came on. And we were not allowed to act like groupies and hang around the stage door at the Howard Theatre to meet the stars and ask for autographs or do other forbidden things, such as going out with or going off with any of the stars. A lot of girls did that, and that’s how some of them got knocked up (pregnant).

I literally watched the Washington Stadium being built and could see the lights from our bedroom window. It was originally the home of the Washington Senators baseball team. My friends and I were issued something called a knothole card, which allowed the neighborhood kids to enter the stadium after the sixth inning to see the end of the baseball games. Five to six of us (both boys and girls) from my neighborhood would occasionally go and check out the Senators. It was something to do during Washington’s hot summer evenings.

We formed a little club called the Knothole Card Club. That was the first social organization I belonged to, and I was one of the ringleaders, even though I was a girl. I even made outfits for us to wear to the games and other outings. I guess you could say that our club was our little gang—a gang about fun, not violence. It certainly beat the other kind of gangs we knew about.

We eventually extended our club activities outside of baseball games and were bold enough to venture out of our neighborhood to engage in other activities, such as going to a movie, on a boat ride, to a local beach, or to an amusement park. We actually organized a trip where we took public transportation (a two-hour bus ride) from the inner city to the rural suburbs of Maryland to go to a newly desegregated amusement park named Glen Echo, where blacks had once been banned. Some nerve!

We were totally oblivious to the fact that we were engaging in a civil rights activity. We were all of about nine or ten years old. White folk stared us down, but we didn’t care. All we knew was that we wanted to do what other children in our region did to have fun during the summer. The long bus ride was worth it, and we had a lot of fun.

In 1961, the Washington Redskins (now the Washington Commanders) moved into the stadium during the fall and early winter months. You could hear the roar of the crowd when the Redskins made a touchdown, and we would have to guess or ask fans leaving the stadium who won the game, because the home games were blacked out on TV during those days.

Hey, lady, did the Skins win? What was the score? Sometimes we got an answer and sometimes we didn’t. Some people were stuck up and snooty, and some people weren’t. I do remember that most of the patrons were white. Some of the women even wore fur coats to the games.

Washington and its surrounding Redskins Territory loved their Skins, and the Ford girls—all three of us, Mama included—grew to love the team too, though we called them the Burgundy and Gold. On game days, our neighborhood was full of cars, some parked illegally on our block and in the alley. We didn’t care. We didn’t have a car to have to worry about a parking space.

Mama, Vee, and I were as close to being a team as three females could get. As with any team, there were disagreements and arguments (three females living under the same roof, LOL), but our objective was always the same: to win at this thing called Life. Mama was the quarterback, and we were her rookies. You talk about Beast Mode! Mama was Beast Mode and Survivor Mode. She was a survivor long before Beyonce was even born.

Mama, the quarterback, made it quite clear that we’d better not drop or fumble the ball, if you get my drift. She didn’t push too hard, like some parents, about school, however. She knew that could be a turnoff. I think we did well in school just to please her, not wanting to disappoint her.

My sister and I had chores, and lots of them. We had to work for what we wanted by running errands, babysitting, and doing odd jobs. Mama, the quarterback, told us what to do. My sister, being the oldest, was the wide receiver; she caught all of the responsibilities of being a big sister. Her number-one job was to look out for her little sister, a job that she sometimes found difficult. Who wants a little sister always tagging along everywhere? However, she did that job and did it well.

My sister made sure I got to and from school, that I did my homework, and that I didn’t look at too much television. That last one was the hardest. I loved staying up late looking at TV. My favorite shows were the doctor shows: Ben Casey and Marcus Welby, MD. Early on, I wanted to be a medical doctor.

On our all-female family team, I was the running back. I ran to the store for my mother, my sister, and a lot of the neighbors, sometimes up to three times in one day. The closest grocery store was about six blocks away, and I knew all the shortcuts. It was on one of my runs to the store that darkness caught me one evening. I was almost raped.

A teenage boy I had never seen before, who was much older and stronger than I was, grabbed me from behind, putting me in a headlock around the throat with one hand and putting his other hand over my mouth. He said, Don’t you know better than being out after dark? Bad things can happen. He pulled me backward closer to him and started to drag me toward some bushes. When he took his hand off of my mouth, while pulling me backward to do God knows what, petrified and shaking, I said, I was just going to the store for my mother. Please don’t hurt me. I started to pray out loud. Help me, Jesus!

That strange boy must have felt sorry for me or something. He pushed me forward and let me go. As he ran away into the darkness, he said, Don’t get caught out here after dark, or something bad can happen to you!

I must have talked or prayed my way out of that one. Holding my throat, I ran all the way home. I told my family and neighbors about the incident, and I never went to the store after dark again. We chalked it up that I had dodged a bullet that night, and that was that: no big deal. Although I didn’t get a good look at the guy, when out with family and friends, I was always on the lookout for him, hoping we could get some street justice, especially my mother, who said if we ever saw him, she would ring his neck. I never saw him again. However, even to this day, I rarely go out at night alone, especially to the grocery store.

A TURNING POINT: THE INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

Just as 1956 was the year that changed my family’s composition forever with the separation of my mom and dad, the one year in the 1960s that had the greatest impact on me and my little family was probably 1961. That was the year John F. Kennedy was inaugurated and became president of the United States. Although it took her a while, that inauguration helped my mother move from very tough times, barely making ends meet, toward the lower middle class and closer to achieving her and my American dream.

Living in DC, adults and children are exposed to national politics daily. Unlike most Americans, especially those in the Deep South or on the West Coast, we get a daily dose of national news and politics. Often, in DC, our local news is national news. National figures and politicians are household names and feel like members of the family. The date in 1961 that I hold near and dear to my heart is January 19, 1961, the day before the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.

It is a custom that the DC public school system, the DC government, and the federal government are closed on Inauguration Day every four years, as our city hosts the festivities. The day before, in 1961, DC was abuzz with the upcoming inauguration of young John F. Kennedy and the hope that he would bring change to our nation and to our city. Frank Sinatra and his buddies were throwing a fabulous pre-inauguration party for the Kennedys at the DC Armory, which was located just two blocks from where we lived, directly across the street from the new DC stadium. Everyone in our neighborhood was talking about that party, wishing they had an invitation. But something else happened on January 19, 1961. A nor’easter snowstorm hit Washington, DC that morning, dropping eight inches of snow on the nation’s capital and threatening the cancelation of President Kennedy’s inauguration parade and other festivities. That is a lot of snow for DC, given its narrow streets and public transit system, which was without a subway at that time.

A task force was put in place to clear the snow from the streets and get the parade route ready for after the inauguration the next day. DC public schools were closed (we got the news by TV not to report to school), and the federal government closed early. That meant that my mother, who worked at the Bureau of Engraving, which is located at 14th and C Streets, SW, near the parade route, was let go early, around noon. It was snowing like crazy at the time, about one to two inches an hour—known as a whiteout. For some reason, she did not have her ride that day. When she got outside, she knew a bus would be long in coming, and she wanted to get home to her girls. So, she hailed a cab. Taxi, taxi!

Mama jumped into a cab, and it headed down Independence Avenue for the short ride to our apartment. Traffic was heavy with cars and buses, since all the Feds were let out at the same time, yet the snow was still coming down at a heavy clip. All of a sudden, the cab began to skid and—bam!—collided into the back of a bus. The cab door that