#MyBlackHistory
Photo by Jojo Ward
There is a giant hole right in the middle of Black History Month, and I can no longer look at this hole without addressing it. Filling this void is the difference between February being a month of routine and February being a month of respect. We cannot look to the government or to social activists to fill it. This task is up to those reading this blog and those who will hear this message.
Black History Month—originally Negro History Week—is only six years from its 100th anniversary. That’s one hundred months of nationally celebrating African American achievements. That’s one hundred months of nationally honoring African American figures and their legacies. Shouldn’t I be ecstatic? Yes. And I am. However, I can’t help but think that there has to be more to this month than what we’ve made it. Why don’t I get excited like I did when I was a child? Why has Black History Month become an afterthought? What am I missing?
After wrestling with these thoughts for days, I realized that the problem had nothing to do with me or Black History Month and everything to do with how I’ve experienced Black History Month through the years. My experience has been that Black History Month is a month of U.S. celebration and education in honor of renowned African American figures—people who changed society forever, people with national or even global influence.
In my twenty-five years, I’ve studied the lives of Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Ruby Bridges, Barrack Obama, Ella Baker, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., etc. And please understand, I strongly believe that these world changers deserve the honor of being remembered. I will tell my children of their accomplishments, and I pray that my children do the same with my grandchildren one day. However, after I celebrate these figures, the questions I always come back to are: what about the African American men and women who will never receive a national award? What about the black men and women whose stories will never be read in textbooks or biographies? Don’t these people deserve to be celebrated as well?
Again, there is a giant hole in Black History Month. However, it is not a place of emptiness. It is a place of darkness, and that darkness—that shadow—spreads over the untold stories of incredible but lesser-known black men and women. Together, we can illuminate that darkness.
This blog is about my grandmother. Her name might not ever be honored on a national level, but my family will forever honor her for who she was and for the legacy she left behind.
This is my black history.
Singing for Grandmama
With microphone in hand, I slowly walk out to the center of the basketball court. Behind me, the Mercer University cheerleaders call out some count and assume a salutatory stance, puffing up their chests and clasping their hands behind their backs. The announcer introduces me, “All fans please rise in honor of the singing of our national anthem. The anthem will be sung today by Biochemistry major Justis Ward.”
The lights in the arena go out all at once, as if there is a power outage. My eyes attempt to adjust to the darkness, but before they can, I’m engulfed in the warmth of a spotlight. I can feel the tingle of expectations hot on my skin. The crowd is waiting. I’m nervous. My heart beats violently against the walls of my ribcage. It begs me to turn off the mic and to run off the floor. But I can’t. I can’t miss another opportunity to sing for my Grandmama.
————
She was my dad’s mother. Of my four biological grandparents, I remember her the most vividly. Her name: “Evelyn Sue Ward” or “Grandmama” to us children.
I remember one summer break, when my brother, my cousin, and I were too young to stay at home by ourselves, the three of us were dropped off to stay with her. It was awful! We loved Grandmama, but her apartment was deficient in anything and everything that three kids would need to entertain themselves for eight hours. Toys. None. Board games. Zero. Television. Staticky. And to make matters worse, her apartment complex was completely grassless—nothing but the concrete of walkways and the asphalt of parking lots. It. Was. Awful.
However, there was one saving grace to going to Grandmama’s house, and that was her endless supply of popsicles. No matter how many we ate, when we opened Grandmama’s freezer, another frozen treat was always waiting for us on the other side of that door. Needless to say, we ate popsicles all day, every day.
Grandmama didn’t mind. She said we could have as many popsicles as we wanted—at any time of day—so long as we didn’t eat any of the grape-flavored ones, because Grape was her favorite.
Upholding this expectation was easy, almost to the point of being unfair. What kid would choose “Grape” over “Berry Blast” or “Tropical Mango”? Certainly not me! Grape was too basic. Too simple. Still, regardless of our opinion, Grandmama favored Grape. It was her pick-me-up. It was her escape. It was her Heaven on earth. So naturally, when she received word that the Crohn’s disease she had lived with for years had developed into colon cancer, all that she wanted was a Grape popsicle.
Everyone believed that she would survive. She had lived through and overcome more troubles than any one soul should have to bear. At a young age, Grandmama had once been walking with her mother’s boyfriend when another man rushed them and sunk the blade of an axe into the boyfriend’s skull. She had been holding his hand when it happened. Later in life, while pregnant with my dad, Grandmama found her mother dead with “a hole the size of a fist” in the back of her head. The death was reported as a “train accident.”
My dad told me that as a result of these tragedies he, his siblings, and Grandmama were cared for by the community. They lived in a small house with no indoor plumbing, and at one point, he and his three siblings slept in one bed. Eventually, Grandmama found a job as a laborer in the West Point Pepperell textile mill in Valley, Alabama. However, she started routinely passing out on the job and was released when the cause of her condition could not be determined. Despite these hardships, Grandmama pressed on and raised her four children to the best of her ability—doing her best to give them a childhood that she herself never had.
Grandmama was strong, and whenever anyone asked how she was so strong, she made sure to let them know that it wasn’t her own strength. “The joy of the Lord is my strength,” she would say. And on some Sunday mornings, when she needed my dad to drive her to her church, I got to experience one of the many ways she received that joy.
Grandmama’s church, St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal, had a small congregation—maybe twenty-five regular attendees. Still, the sounds that filled that building were more beautiful than any I had ever heard. Those men and women “made a joyful noise unto the Lord,” singing a mixture of Negro spirituals, revamped hymns, and modern gospel. At Grandmama’s church, a person couldn’t help but smile as the choir sang and the congregation clapped and stomped along. Dress shoes and high heels thudded against the hardwood floor, sending vibrations rippling through the church like the joy that radiated within our beings. I loved songs like, “Battlefield,” “There’s a Leak in This Old Building,” and “This is the Day,” in which a lead singer would sing the first phrase and the rest of the church would follow after.
This is the day
(This is the day)
That the Lord has made
(That the Lord has made)
I will rejoice
(I will rejoice)
And be glad in it
(And be glad in it)…
I don’t remember Grandmama ever singing at church. In my memories, I just see her leaning back in her pew with her eyes closed, just listening and soaking in the joy of the Lord—the same way she would listen whenever she asked me to sing for her.
“Sing a song for me, baby,” she would say, and with eyes open in expectation, she would wait for me to begin. Then, when I started singing,
I get joy when I think about
(What He’s done for me)…
she would smile softly, close her eyes, and allow her body to relax into the back of whatever she was sitting. She didn’t move. She didn’t sing along. She didn’t open her eyes. She just sat there.
…I get joy when I think about
(What He’s done for me)
I get joy when I think about
(What He’s done for me)
What He’s done, what He’s done, what He’s done for me
Even after I finished, she remained motionless, not taking a single word for granted. She made sure that even the last “me” of the song was cherished just as tenderly as the ones that had come before. Not until the last note of the song dissolved into the atmosphere would she finally open her eyes—slowly, as if waking from the deepest, most-pleasant dream imaginable. Then, she would gaze deeply into my eyes and say “Thank you, baby. Your Grandmama needed that.”
That’s how it was. Every time Grandmama saw me, she would ask me to sing for her. “Sing for me, baby.” And after I sang, “Thank you, baby. Your Grandmama needed that.” It became somewhat of a ritual between us. I didn’t mind, though. I loved singing for her and truthfully only for her—outside of my two aunts and my parents.
Alone, I never stopped singing. I woke up singing. I went to bed singing. I sang while I played basketball. I sang while I did my homework. I sang when I went outside to play, and I sang when I did my chores. But if anyone other than the five people I just mentioned asked me to sing, I would shut down.
Standing before expectant strangers placed an incapacitating spell over my body. My eyes would dilate repeatedly. My heart would beat fast, and my armpits would sweat until the underarms of my shirt were discolored. I don’t know when my stage fright developed or why I allowed it to take such aggressive control over me. But it did. I should have fought back sooner. I should have taken back my voice. I should have pried the cold grip of fear from my vocal cords and sang for all to hear. However, I am ashamed to say that even in my last moments with my grandmother, I didn’t.
On that autumn weekend, my mom took me and my brother to see Grandmama in the hospital. I walked behind my mom into that white-everything room to find most of our immediate family already there. I knew Grandmama was sick, but I didn’t know she was dying until I saw her laying in that hospital bed. She was a marionette puppet strung up by an array of IV drips and tubes. Her skin, normally a rich milk chocolate, was now pale. She looked tired, exhausted. The cancer had consumed what little energy she had, leaving her in a hospital bed desperately wanting—but unable—to hug her loved ones who had come to visit.
Standing around her bed, my family formed a lopsided horseshoe. I stood near the door, yet somehow, Grandmama’s tired eyes still managed to find me amongst the many faces. “Sing for me, baby,” she said. I knew what that meant, but right as I was about to sing, a nurse walked into the room. She was a small white lady.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “I just need to check Ms. Evelyn Sue’s charts.” She then told us to pretend that she wasn’t there. But how was I supposed to do that? She was very much there, right in the middle of the room, and her presence made the melody clump up in my throat.
I tried with all my might to sing, but I couldn’t block the nurse out of my mind. So, instead, I blocked Grandmama out. “Did you hear your Grandmama?” my mom asked me. “She wants you to sing.” I heard her, but I couldn’t do it. Fear had already gripped my throat—squeezing tighter than ever. Out of the corner of my downcast eyes, I could see Grandmama gazing at me for as long as she could. But her eyelids were soon overcome by fatigue. Relief washed over me as her eyes closed. She could no longer see me. She could no longer ask me to sing for her, and I too easily, too readily, found comfort in that escape.
We stayed in the room for about an hour. Grandmama’s children, cousins, and friends went to her bedside to talk to her while nurses rotated in and out of the room—changing sheets, bringing food, etc. Eventually, the time came for us to go, and I left her room not realizing that, in that moment, Grandmama needed my voice more than ever. She desired nothing more than to lean back against the soft mattress pad, close her eyes, and fly peacefully—on the wings of my voice—to that dream world. Grandmama needed my song, but gripped by fear, I kept it from her. So, when I found out later that week—riding home from school—that she died without it, I quickly turned to tears, and my tears turned to hatred.
I didn’t hate God or Grandmama or anyone I could see. I hated myself. I hated the fact that I was coward, that I couldn’t just sing for Grandmama when she had asked. Why couldn’t I just sing for Grandmama when she had asked?
“You still can,” said my mom. “She’s up in Heaven right now, and she sees you. And if you sing for her right now, you best believe she can hear you.”
So, I sang. I didn’t care who was around, and I didn’t care who listened. I sang as loudly as I could through my tears and patchy breathing—hoping that maybe Grandmama could still hear me. Hoping that maybe she would forgive me.
My mom said that Grandmama was in heaven grinning and showing me off to the angels. “Look at my grandson, right there!’” she said in my grandmother’s voice. “Listen to him singing. Ain’t he something!”
She said that Grandmama was listening and would always be listening and that she forgave me for not singing in the hospital. I cried and I sang and I believed my mother’s words with everything in me. I clung to them, and I still do today.
————
So, with microphone in hand, I slowly walk out to the center of the basketball court. Behind me, the cheerleaders call out some count and assume a salutatory stance. The announcer introduces me, the lights go out, and I’m engulfed in the warmth of a spotlight. I’m nervous, and I can feel fear slinking through the shadows, coming to take hold of me. But I don’t let it. Not this time. I can’t miss another opportunity to sing for my Grandmama. So, I raise the microphone to my mouth and sing as proudly and as beautifully as I can.
The crowd listens intently as the words of the Star Spangled Banner resonate through the rafters of the gym. They hear what they expect: “O, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light…” But that’s not what I’m singing—not in my heart.
A minute later, I finish the national anthem. The crowd cheers—pleased with my rendition and ready for the basketball game. I turn off the mic and walk off the court. The pep band starts up the university’s “Fight Song,” and the crowd quickly forgets about me. However. up in heaven, sitting amongst the angels, my Grandmama is leaned back into the arms of God with her eyes closed. The song is over, but she sits motionlessly, not taking for granted even the last word of my song to her.
I get joy when I think about
(What He’s done for me)
I get joy when I think about
(What He’s done for me)
I get joy when I think about
(What He’s done for me)
What He’s done, what He’s done, what He’s done for me
Then she opens her eyes and smiles. “Thank you, baby,” I hear her say. “You needed that.”
I cherish each and every one of my posts. However, I can say confidently that this blog is special. I hope the story of my grandmother’s life legacy blesses you like it blesses me every day.
To those reading this blog: celebrating African American excellence is essential. In a nation where only one ethnicity was being celebrated for centuries, Black History Month broadened the spotlight. With that being said, this February, I aspire to broaden the spotlight even more!
Leave a comment detailing your black history, the untold story of you and/or your loved ones. If that story includes Dr. King or President Obama, then by all means, include them! However, to those whose black history tells the story of someone of lesser fame but of equal significance, then this is your stage. Today, we honor all of black history by first honoring yours!
#MyBlackHistory
Much love and thanks for reading,
Justis Ward
Learn More @
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month : read more about the origins of Black History Month and the theme of 2020’s Black History Month
