Black Women and Police: One Day on My Way to Agnes Scott College

Posted on April 13, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

This essay is a revisit and an edit to a memory I wrote about 10 years ago, but a memory I hope might help someone else, particularly a Black or Brown woman.

Most of my encounters with police have been rare and routine. Most of the police officers I have dealt with have been courteous and helpful. I have made the occasional phone call about the neighbor whose dog has been running around the neighborhood terrorizing a few people. The police come out, speak with the offender, and the matter is resolved. Yet, I remember this incident…

A police officer discovered I had a “First Insurance Cancellation Suspension” on my driver’s license. For those of you born late in the 20th century, let me explain. An insurance cancellation suspension was common if you changed cars or changed insurance companies. You used to get a form in the mail from the Department of Motor Vehicles instructing you to record your new insurance or your new car. Occasionally, however, you might not receive the form by mail, and you could easily forget about it.

If your new car/new insurance data had not arrived at the Department of Motor Vehicles when you bought a new car or changed your car insurance, you could end up with this particular type of suspension. You typically had to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles, show them your new purchase, along with your new insurance card.

In what appeared to be a routine road check for driver’s license and insurance, the Decatur, Georgia Police held me for three hours only a few months after I purchased a car from my elderly uncle. This happened in the spring of 1998 when I was back in college to complete my Bachelor’s degree at Agnes Scott College.

After checking my Driver’s License number the officer stated that I had a “First Insurance Cancellation Suspension” on the car I previously owned. I showed him my new insurance card on the car I was driving. I knew I would have to straighten out the suspension before I drove any car again. Since I was about a mile from the campus, I asked him if he could radio the Agnes Scott College Police and have someone from that police department drive down the street, and pick me (and the car) up.

I explained that I would have my Mama come pick me up at Agnes Scott and we would go to the Department of Motor Vehicles and get the suspension problem cleared up.

“I’m not calling anybody,” he yelled. I pulled out my student ID. He said, “I don’t need that. Girl, get out of the car.” I was a grown woman then in my thirties; and while I might not have looked as old as my birth certificate said I was, I was nobody’s “girl.” I kept my mouth closed, but I am sure he sensed my displeasure.

I got out of the car and he instructed me to lie down in the street. When I asked why are you doing this? He told me to shut up. While I lay down in the street for over 30 minutes, he and another two officers pulled the back seat out of my car. They searched the trunk. If it had not been for the little old man that came out of his house to watch, I do not know what else might have happened. I was terrified, but I suffer from something my Mama used to call, “Your Daddy’s Disease.”

She said my father never showed fear when under pressure. I don’t show it either. Daddy always looked fearless, even menacing, when some horrible event was going on. Then later when everything was all over, he would fall apart, shaking and reaching for a good stiff drink. “That kind of thing can get you killed, Joy,” Mama said, “When someone expects you to be afraid, sometimes the worst thing you can do is look like you have no fear.”

This event was before everyone had a cellphone. A female police officer appeared and asked me if I wanted to call my Mama using her phone. The first police officer decided to write me a simple ticket for driving with a suspended license and he left me standing there in the street. He drove off.

That sweet little old man stood there and talked with me until Mama arrived. He told me he thought the Decatur police were doing some kind of sweep. “They’re looking for somebody that’s up to no good, and they’re tryin’ to find ‘em in these road blocks,” he said. Mama arrived in about 30 minutes and picked me up. My new best friend—that sweet observant little old Black man told me to leave my car where it was until the suspension problem was straightened out.

“Them SOBs are probably waiting somewhere watching and waiting for you to drive off so they can give you another ticket or take you to jail. I’ll watch your car until you get back,” he said.

Mama asked me how my clothes got so dirty. I lied and told her I slipped and fell. She would have had a heart attack if I told her what really happened to her only child. We headed to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The clerk handed me a simple form that I filled out citing that I no longer owned the previous vehicle and therefore had no insurance on that vehicle.

I had to write down the serial number and model of my current car and provide my proof of insurance. The clerk recorded my data and lifted my “First Insurance Cancellation Suspension.” All of this took about 20 minutes.

I did argue my case in traffic court. The police officer rolled his eyes at me as I explained in detail his refusal to call the Agnes Scott College police even after I showed him my student ID. I told the judge every detail and showed him my insurance card, the purchase of my car, and the statement from the Department of Motor Vehicles that lifted my insurance cancellation suspension.

To add as much injury as I could, I said, “I missed my Latin Class because of this!” The judge dismissed my case. I paid no fine. I was lucky. Yet, I sensed that what happened to me was not rare. This kind of treatment happens to women, and particularly Black women and women of color, with a frequency that many people do not want to admit.

Black women encounter more than our share of rudeness and physical intimidation from male police. This offending officer was Black. It’s easy to talk about racist cops, but it is not so easy to talk about SEXIST ones. And for the record, I don’t like Black men who are cops anymore than I like White men who are cops. Here’s the rub…

I consider myself to be an average size woman. By the time I was 50 years old, I managed to gain enough weight to make it to a whopping 135 pounds at 5 feet, 5 inches tall. At the time of this incident, I weighed only about 115 pounds. That police officer was at least 6’ 2” tall and weighed well over 200 pounds. He called me a girl. He told me to shut up. He did not throw me to the ground, Thank God. Yet, just imagine how easy it would have been for him to do so.

©️Leslye Joy Allen

I am an Independent Historian, Oral Historian and Dramaturge. Please consider supporting my work with a few bucks for Coffee and Eggs via my CashApp.

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Rebuilding from Scratch

Posted on April 4, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

The other day I told a friend about the year I got a chance to watch a Brown Thrasher build a nest in a tall shrub near my carport. I watched her pick up pine needles and leaves, and craft them together until a nest was in place.

I watched her sit on her eggs. Then later still, I heard the sound of chicks; and finally I saw her nudge them out of the nest. Her babies were gone. She left the nest as well. That nest stayed intact, however, for several years.

Then I remember when the late Dr. Sadye Young told me about her father who built whole houses without any floor plans. Although she was then a retired college professor, Dr. Young knew her way around a house. She had learned certain aspects of building because when she was a child, she often accompanied her father when he was building a home. My eyes brightened because my late maternal Uncle Frank could do the same thing.

Both of these men built foundations, installed plumbing, wiring, and etcetera without any floor plans. Neither of these men had college degrees. Both had been apprentices of carpenters, plumbers, and electricians. But neither of them set foot in a college classroom and majored in architectural engineering. Yet, the homes they built stood the test of time.

Dr. Young’s father and my uncle had something in common with each other and with that Brown Thrasher. They built homes from scratch. They relied on their observations, practice, and their skills, not on architectural drawings. That Brown Thrasher relied on her instincts.

The current state of affairs in this country is going to require all of us to go back to some basics that many of us have lost. We all have instincts, yet we no longer use them. My late maternal grandmother (born in 1886) could predict when it was going to snow simply by observing whole flocks of birds gathering.

We now rely quite heavily on gadgets and technology and self-appointed pundits to tell us everything. But real knowledge comes from reading, research, study, practice, listening, and observation. It is only when we do all of the above that we can trust our gut instincts again.

As Felon 47 attempts to destroy one institution after another, we better ready ourselves to rebuild from his wreckage. Depending on how bad the damage is, we need to prepare to rebuild from scratch which is made more difficult by a population accustomed to having everything done with the press of a button. It is not going to work like that this time.

©️Leslye Joy Allen

I am an Independent Historian, Oral Historian and Dramaturge. Please consider supporting my work with a few bucks for Coffee and Eggs via my CashApp.

Threading Grandma’s Needles, and Kamala Harris

Posted on March 18, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by ©️ Leslye Joy Allen

When I was a small girl around the age of 4 or 5, my maternal grandmother would often ask me to thread her needle. I was a late born baby to my parents and Grandma was well into her seventies when I was born.

Grandma was a scholar who read a couple of books a week. I knew instinctively that the reason why she asked me to thread her needle was because the eye of a sewing needle is narrow and often hard to see. The best pair of eyes could have trouble getting that thread through that tiny eye. By the time I was around 4 or 5, Grandma was in her eighties, and I enjoyed doing what I could for my Grandma.

(Stock photo of an elderly woman’s hands threading a needle, Alamy)

Grandma’s eyes were not as steady as they once were; and neither were her hands. But once that needle was threaded, she could sew up a storm. As I have now passed the age of 60, it now takes me damned near 15 minutes to thread a needle. But you do what you can and what you have to do. This brings me to another observation.

For several months this year, after I rolled my herbie-curbie (that’s the name for our garbage cans on wheels in Atlanta) to the curb of my driveway, I arrived back home and instead of my herbie-curbie being left at the curb of my driveway as is customary, someone had rolled it all the way up to the gate to my backyard so I wouldn’t have to retrieve it.

Last week, I was home when the sanitation workers were out. Before I exited my door to retrieve my herbie-curbie, I saw my 20-something neighbor who is autistic grab its handle and roll it up to my gate. He went from house-to-house doing the same thing—saving his older neighbors the trip to the end of the curb.

I bring this up because when I finally saw who was doing this favor on his own, it dawned on me that he was doing what he could do to assist his neighbors.

Then I thought about all of these folks barking about where is Kamala Harris? During the first wave of complaints, she was actually in fire-ravaged California assessing damage, talking with the mayor and governor and firefighters, and assisting her neighbors who had lost their homes.

The second wave of complaints came recently. Now, I have already said that Harris is a private citizen and has done her duty while so many others fail to do so much as contact their representatives and complain.

What is most annoying is the manner in which folks have complained. I watched Harris lose weight on the campaign trail after being given a near-impossible task of organizing a campaign in just over 100 days after a stubborn Joe Biden took his sweet time stepping aside when so many of his colleagues begged him to do so.

I have also been around white women who felt like I was their property and who felt like I was obligated to do whatever they requested, and were insulted when I said “No” even when my work or school schedule and obligations would not permit me to accommodate them.

I have been around men (black and white) who treated me the same way. That is an unfortunate experience that Black women have endured ever since we have been here in this country. We are not supposed to have own lives, but we are supposed to stand ready to salvage somebody else’s. Wedged between battling racism and sexism and misogynoir simultaneously, we are often left hanging when we are having problems.

Instead of these complainers interrogating the majority of white women and men who voted for Felon 47, they want Harris out there speaking for them. And if she did, you know good and damned well Felon 47 and his minions, along with his bought-and-paid-for news rooms would paint her as a “Sore Loser” while his dumb-as-cat-shit voters nodded in agreement while he continued to pick their pockets and threaten their livelihoods. Unlike my sweet autistic neighbor, they do not do what they can but they expect someone else to do it.

Instead of bothering to contact Kamala Harris’ office or website or her page on IG to ask her a question, they went on a rampage of demands. They don’t even know what she might be doing behind the scenes.

So, let me share this bit of my history. I represent only the third generation of my families not born into slavery. I will leave you with what my paternal Great Grandmother said to her mistress who just couldn’t believe Great Grandma would want to leave her mistress and be free. With a nap sack on her shoulder, and right before she went searching for her other siblings who had been sold to other slave owners, she said the following:

“You can do your own work and you can pick your own cotton.”

©️ Leslye Joy Allen

I am an Independent Historian, Oral Historian and Dramaturge. Please consider supporting my work with a few bucks for Coffee and Eggs via my CashApp.

The Hungry Constituents

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

If you blow up the photo below you will see a letter written to me from the late Congressman John Lewis from 2008. If you look in the lower right corner of this photo you will see a photo insert of a red file folder about an inch thick. These are all the letters I have received from my representatives over about 4 decades. This was when you received their responses via snail mail.

Letter from Congressman John Lewis and File folder of letters

These days, your representatives respond to you by email. I urge you to call them, contact them, and then print their email responses.

I miss my phone and letter debates with the late John Lewis. I still remember one of our debates that descended into a full fledged argument in a grocery store parking lot in our town of Atlanta. That’s the beauty of being in Atlanta. Many of your elected officials live and shop where you do. So, you can give them your opinion while you check out your groceries.

I bring this scenario up because there is something very different when you receive a physical letter as opposed to an email. The letter has a real signature. Each one of these letters are a personal piece of history. Politics today is quite impersonal—and it is messing everyone up.

We are now confronted with politics as only spectacle—the pithy quote on social media, the doctored video that creates a sense of urgency when there is no need for urgency, or the edited video that creates a fictional persona instead of showing the real person behind the title.

I’m glad Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are hitting the road and going on tour to talk to people all across the United States to find out what real people are thinking.

Communication from a distance is fine. Technology has made it possible for us to share an idea with thousands of strangers. Yet…

No matter how easy posting on social media, text messaging and sending emails are, there is no replacement for speaking to someone face-to-face or listening to a live voice or reading a real letter with a real signature. That personal touch is sorely lacking in both the Democratic and Republican Parties, and it is destroying democracy with almost the same degree of swiftness as Felon 47’s cruel policies.

It is one thing to put your finger up in the wind and assume what you need to do to be re-elected. It is quite another to look a constituent in the eye and answer a tough question or admit you don’t have the answers. Democratic voters are starving for that attention; and I pray our elected officials figure this out before it is too late.

I am an Independent Historian, Oral Historian and Dramaturge. Please consider supporting my work with a few bucks for Coffee and Eggs via my CashApp.

Walk With a Book

Posted on January 25, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

I remember the first time I heard someone say, “If you want to hide something, hide it in a book.” The comment depressed me.

When you are a historian, you have books everywhere. You have to read all the time. I have not seen the top of my dining room table in nearly 15 years as it is covered with stacks of books. Books occupy every nook and cranny of my home.

With the United States ranking 36th in the world for literacy, with a 79% literacy rate, with only 25% of literate adults reading above the 6th grade level, we are already dumb. We can expect to see more decline in literacy with Felon 47 living on Pennsylvania Avenue.

So, I have a proposal. It might not change anything, but it is worth a try. Walk out of your door with a book in your hand or tucked under your arm everyday for at least a month.

Let kids and other adults see you walk with that book. And don’t say you can’t do this. You have carried books before when you were in grade school.

Make your book/s visible at your job, on a trip to a store. Hell, go for a walk with your book until someone asks you why you always have a book in your hand or under your arm. And then have the audacity to tell them why.

Leslye Joy Allen

Social Commentary, History, Theatre, Jazz, and the Environment

Tag Archives: Black women