Copyright © 2015 by Leslye Joy Allen. All Rights Reserved.
I have lived over fifty years and I have never really met and never really dealt with a Black woman who was passive. My experience may not be the same as everyone else’s, but as a young Black girl growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, there simply was no such thing as an uneducated, passive and do-nothing Black woman; and my late Mama and her friends have been that example. Mama’s friends have been a blessing to me while she was alive and a boon to me in her absence…
I will only share a little bit about one of them here…
Her full name is Mrs. Bendolyn Handspike Ricks. Her nickname is “Peaches.” The house she has shared with her husband of more than forty years has always been one of the homes in the neighborhood where all the kids went to just hang out and be kids and clown around. Even though she insisted that I call her “Peaches” well over twenty years ago, I had to reach the age of fifty before I could call her anything other than “Mrs. Ricks.” Being raised to be extra respectful to adults, I simply could not call her by her nickname until after I passed the half century mark. But here is what I learned from “Peaches.”
Make your voice heard! Everyone at City Hall, the Mayor’s Office, and the local police department knows her. She will call them all day long if need be to get what she needs and what our community needs. I know….
because when a pipe from the street collapsed and created a plumbing problem for me, the City’s water department claimed that they could not arrive at my house for the next three weeks. So, I called Peaches…
and she told me the city council person I should call. So, I called them and the water department and crew arrived the next morning rather than the next three weeks…
When she is travelling out of town, she asks that our police department send extra police officers to cruise by and look after her house…
and this past week, while she and her husband were vacationing, I watched as one police car after another sat near her house…
I say this to make a point…
One need not be wealthy to get something done. One need only be persistent enough to demand what one needs and to fight for what one needs…
and one needs only to have the kind of Black women I know and grew up with…
On those occasions when I worry, I simply pause and remember my Mama and her cronies—some Baaaad Sisters who I can only hope to someday emulate…Àṣé!
Copyright © 2015 by Leslye Joy Allen. All Rights Reserved.
This Blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen and is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to this blog or any total or partial excerpt of this blog must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: http://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly and visibly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved.
Leslye Joy Allen 