The Power of of a Determined Woman's Dreams



Posted: 4/22/08

Seventy-five years ago, a woman was born in the Bayou Country of Southwest Louisiana. Her family was neither poor nor unhappy, but her prospects for true advancement were dim. Although her parents owned a farm, paid their taxes, and participated heavily in local church and community activities, her race and her gender and even to some extent her language skills meant that she would have to have a superhuman intellect or marry someone with many more social advantages than herself to have any chance of fully sharing in the American dream of prosperity.

Undaunted, she walked those proverbial miles down a dirt road to an ill-equipped, segregated school and then endured having her hands beaten because she spoke French at a time when speaking French was not “cool.”

In the 1940s, it simply was not a priority for little Negros and certainly not little Negro girls in Southwest Louisiana to have an education. She made the best of the situation and became a bride at eighteen years old and a mother at nineteen.

Despite her own lack of access to quality equation, she had an enduring determination that her children would have the best education and thus best chances in life that she could find for them.

No politician or other voice was there to tell her "Yes We Can", but she found a way. She first moved her family to Western New York and found the opportunities brighter there.Race mattered much less there than in her native Louisiana and her children could take advantage of the fine school system.

However, the strong pull of the Louisiana roots drove her back home and she took up her struggle there. During the turbulent 1960s, she helped remove unfair voting barriers by riding to the polls in the back of pick-up trucks. She deflected the insults hurled against her and her five sons as they integrated the Catholic schools in New Orleans.

Undoubtedly buoyed by the messages and examples of the Kennedys and Dr. King, she just kept pushing forward and advancing the prospects of her sons.

Along the way, she took advantage of every public and private program that she could find: Head Start, the YMCA, Boys Club, National Merit and National Achievement, etc.

She also worked hard to take advantage of the then integrated society and created opportunities for her sons in the process. She joined the Parents' Club, Altar Society, and any other organization that she could find to demonstrate that her family and she contributed and thus belonged to the community in which they lived.

Nevertheless, she was not without scars from her rural upbringing and lack of education and, as such, she retained a life-long inferiority complex.

But she never showed any sign of weakness to her sons or any one who stood in their way. Each time one of her sons reached a new obstacle, she told them with unwavering conviction that their hard work and natural abilities could overcome any obstacle.

Her mantra was “Yes We Can”

To this day, I am not sure whether she ever had any doubts about their ability to achieve the next steps, but I do know that they never could have graduated from top universities in the United States and then become officers in the Coast Guard, top local politicians, executives with global companies, or even proud fathers without the unconditional love, incredible faith and work ethic that she gave to them.

Along the way, people, even members of her family, ridiculed and questioned the wisdom of her dreaming so high and sacrificing life’s pleasures—a new car, a new television, or even a new dress. For the most part, she just smiled and then beamed inside when she thought of the real accomplishments of her first sons and envisioned the future accomplishments of her younger sons.

Today, as the proud son of this intensely strong and courageous woman who is no longer with us on earth, I am convinced that there is awesome power in adopting an attitude of “Yes We Can” and my brothers and I are living proof.

So while others question the ultimate viability of a political platform wrapped up in the shiny packaging of hope, I remember that special woman from Southwest Louisiana and respond: “Yes We Can.” As a result, I will cast my vote as I know that she would have cast her vote: for Barack Obama.