Big Mama used to say, “Baby, when one of us is in the valley, the rest of us better become the mountain.” Those weren’t just words — they were marching orders. And as my friend and fellow storyteller Norma Adams-Wade often reminds me, history repeats itself when we stop remembering what it took to stand.
When the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed in 1963 — when Addie Mae, Denise, Carole, and Cynthia were murdered in the house of God — we didn’t crumble. We mobilized. Churches became command posts, porches became planning rooms, and the grief of mothers became the rallying cry of a movement. We turned mourning into momentum.
When Emanuel AME in Charleston was attacked, we circled again — in prayer, in protest, in promise. When George Floyd was murdered, we took to the streets, holding up mirrors to America’s conscience. Because as Norma often says, our people never just endured — we organized. We have always risen from rubble, carrying both the scars and the assignment…