Why, As A Black Woman, I Finally Decided To Take To The Streets
There is something poignant about holding space, making people acknowledge you.
T o my knowledge, no one in my family has ever marched before — for anything. They tend to swallow injustice the way old people swallow castor oil — hell-bent on surviving the experience, believing they’ve done enough to ward off the bigger ailments that could haunt them. Over large Sunday dinners and holiday gatherings, recollections of our history during the Civil Rights Movement were notably absent.
I am a fifth-generation South Carolinian, so my elders’ silence on the matter was daunting to me, but now that I’m older I understand. Their silence was a knee-jerk reaction to the persistence of racial and political discrimination that has occurred for over 100 years — ever since the freed slaves in our area began to vote and hold land. During Reconstruction, white Southerners attempted to re-establish political and economic dominance through violence and intimidation, by burning down our homes, and whipping people so brutally that they were thought to be dead.
The silence of my elders meant: If they could whip you and cut off the ears of your children for such a private act as voting, what would they do for a making a large visible statement of unity and…
