Black History Month: Modesto connects with Tulsa in healing journey
During this Black History Month, I reflect on this past year’s journey.
On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2021, I reconnected with my seventh-grade science teacher. Ms. Molina took me to a UCLA v. Cal Berkeley football game as a reward for doing well on a test in her class in Alameda. That game changed my life and put me on the path to college.
I shared with her that I’m virtually doing the same thing now as a professional in education. In 2019, I took 15 students on a Historical Black College or University tour, which included a homecoming game at Tuskegee University in Alabama, in partnership with Project Uplift.
Earlier this school year, former Black Student Union students took a group of BSU students to a Cal football game. They did this in their new roles within the upstart Stanislaus Youth Empowerment Program, in collaboration with Modesto City Schools.
This was on the heels of this same empowerment program exposing former BSU leaders, now college students, on an overseas trip to Barcelona. I was fortunate to attend as a chaperone.
Empowerment takes freedom and a nurturing environment to grow into your true self. Many of us have a myopic view of how life is, and can be. Being able to travel, once our society began to open again, really helped me understand the essence of empowerment. Ultimately, this would bring me closer to connecting with my true purpose which is still unfolding.
On the last day of school, May 27, bags packed, I was headed to Tulsa, Oklahoma for the Black Massacre Centennial. It was a long drive along Route 66, unaware of the significance.
Upon arriving in the Greenwood area of Tulsa, where the massacre took place, I read a banner stating “This is not a Celebration.” This was hanging on the minor league baseball field which now is a part of the former Black Wall Street area. It’s roughly 8 p.m. and a woman standing up on a motorized scooter says, “That’s cold how they put this here,” and buzzes by. I continue walking, beginning my experience on this sacred land.
From the words of Troy Millings of the Earn Your Leisure brand and podcast, “The level of commitment, sacrifice, unity, dedication, community, excellence can’t be fully fathomed until you step foot on the grounds, breathe the air and hear authentic stories and details from the people who grew up in this crime scene and the generations of people affected by the massacre of 1921.”
I had the honor to connect with Brother Troy, along with Brother Nehemiah Frank and Brother Manny Ortega. The latter two grew up in Tulsa and are serving their communities in different and uplifting ways. Nehemiah founded a media platform where he shares the voices connected to Black Wall Street through The BWS Times.
We first connected on Standpipe Hill where some survivors — Viola Fletcher, 107 and her brother Hughes Van Ellis, 100 — were wheeled up to the scene. We were all very touched and emotional. It was a blessing to be on this same soil, and to add soil to jars dedicated during this ceremony.
The next day, I would connect with Brother Manny, who founded the Flex Yo’ Smyle brand, through the Century Walk that his mother was leading in honor of their family’s survivors. Their event was upstaged by the unscheduled arrival of President Joe Biden. So many stories and connections, including me meeting and shaking the hand of Rev. Jesse Jackson.
This column will not do the experience justice, but it brought the beginning steps of justice for me, in year 42. My healing journey year, which led to a trip to Chicago, and connecting the significance of route 66. A trip to Kansas City would follow, connecting my love story with baseball at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
I look forward to expressing how grateful and challenging it is to be a thriving African American in today’s society using a gem I picked up in Kansas City. Langston Hughes’ poem said it best: “With eyes no longer blind” I look at the world.