“To Go Anywhere Without Fear”
An Interview with Kathy Bullock
ROWE CENTER: Your background includes being one of six children of a Baptist minister in Washington, D.C. What in that background helped shape your personal experience as an African-American woman during the past 40 years, and how does it shape your vision of what you hope can happen for African-Americans, and for race in the U.S., during the next 40 years?
KATHY BULLOCK: My father was active in the Civil Rights Movement, as the head of Baptist ministers in the D.C. area and a leader in the community in Washington, which was 80-to-90 percent African-American. Our church, which is now a historical landmark, was a headquarters when the March on Washington occurred in 1963, when I was eight years old, and was one of the stops for the Poor People’s Campaign. As black people migrated to D.C. from the Carolinas and Virginia they traditionally suffered racism and challenges outside the church, but within the church itself they were given titles of honor — that’s part of what the black church does — and they would get feedback for housing, day care, tutoring. Nurses might come. Members of the church might include black teachers as well as porters and those in government and those without much money. I grew up presuming that the life you live is not your own, that you try to make a better world, that you have not only an obligation — because of all those who came before you and gave their lives — but the potential to be an agent of change.
Coming from that background, my vision for the next 40 years would be that people feel valued for what they bring to the table, not in a sense where we don’t see differences and we’re all one cookie-cutter, but that we’re people who rejoice in each others gifts as well as share in each others tragedies.
My hope is also that 40 years from now we can honor our stories without fear. Because what happens now, if I was to tell my story of how people came to the U.S. and faced a lot of pain and cruelty, and the things they overcame and the wonderful things people accomplished — and really, that’s every culture’s story, every culture’s history — the media says, “Why do you want to bring that up?” or “That didn’t happen” or “You deserved it.” My hope is that in 40 years to come those voices will be silenced, so that fear is reduced or eradicated, so that the blessing and riches that come not only from sharing your own story but hearing others’ trumps the negativity.
Also, I see promise in couples who are mixed race or couples who adopt children to create interracial families. Fathers and mothers see and fully appreciate the journeys of their children, and children themselves carry both heritages and can move forward and say, “I choose to be me.”
Right now I have students in my class who, if I tell them that there was a time not so long ago in this country when blacks couldn’t go into restaurants, my white and black students look at each other in confusion, and it doesn’t compute, it seems crazy to them. I’d like to have that experience even more broadly 40 years from now, when people share their stories and can look back.
R.C.: In a Greenfield Recorder article from 2011, you said when you moved from Washington to Kentucky in 1991 your strongest wish was to see your son live to be 21. What is your wish for your son for 40 years from now, in 2054?
K.B.: My son did make it to 21 — he’s 29 now and an opera singer. My hope is that 40 years from now when he’s 69 he will be able to move anywhere in this United States and not be fearful that he’d be stopped, harassed, arrested — that anytime, going into a store anywhere in the U.S., he will not be stereotyped. My husband’s in his 50’s, he’s an older guy, and he went home to Missouri near Ferguson and was just going to a restaurant for Chinese takeout — the cops stopped him and asked for his I.D. My hope and prayer is that my son and his children and his children’s children can go anywhere without fear, as opposed to now, when a black man stopped by the police has to keep his hands on the steering wheel because he could get shot, or you go to a place and they follow you around like you’re a criminal.
R.C.: When President Obama was elected, there was discussion that America might be entering a post-racial society. Do you think Americans will live in a post-racial society in 2054?
K.B.: To me, post-racial means post-profiling, post-doing-things-in-a-negative-way because of somebody’s color or not giving them a job because their name is different. I imagine that in a post-racial society if we have people who are part Chinese, part Irish, and part African it would be okay and we wouldn’t feel a need to categorize them but would honor all those parts of them. I think we’ll be closer to it in 40 years. But post-racial doesn’t mean that we don’t see any differences — saying that I’m African -American means I honor my heritage and all those who died before me and what they’ve given. I want to articulate and appreciate my heritage while at the same time not being bound by it in negative ways.
R.C.: In 2054 you’ll be almost 100 years old. What would you say to people 40 years from now about your personal journey and your personal hopes regarding race in America?
K.B.: I would say my personal hope is that I can do everything humanly possible to make a positive difference in the world around me, and combat fear and think outside the box and help people. As a cheerleader at almost 100 I’ll just be going around the world blessing everybody and enjoying every minute of life as priceless, and have no regrets by that time, and give hope and inspiration and delight in every day! And I would see another person and delight in the possibilities they show. And pass my torch to others. And speak clearly what I see. And sing!
Kathy Bullock will offer her workshop “Singing in the Spirit: Rejoicing in African-American Gospel Music” January 30 — February 01.
KATHY BULLOCK has been a professor of music at Berea College in Kentucky for 18 years, where she teaches African-American sacred music and directs the Black Music Ensemble, a 70-voice choir that performs African-American sacred music. She has designed study-abroad programs for Berea in Zimbabwe, Jamaica, and Ghana, where she recently spent four months.
