Plainfield, New Jersey, is a moderately small town located south of New York City. Part of Union county, it has a population of 50,000 with a 70 million dollar operating budget. It’s the hometown of my soror and linesister, Annie McWilliams. A young Black woman who ran for the city council in 2008 at the […]
I sat in a room with ten other Black women retelling stories about the challenges of collective work with other women; the personal struggles to balance our needs with the demands of our families and friends; and the importance of support for our impending journey. This discussion, a teamwork activity, prepares us as Girl Exchange […]
Feature on ForHarriet.com Leaders at the Op-Ed Project asked me and thirteen other women to introduce ourselves with this statement: “I am an expert in…” The reactions of participants’ discomforts range from verbal resistance of the “patriarchal notion” of expertise to stammering over one’s words: “I am not going to brag; I am too young to […]
It was my fifth day lying in bed, my worse bout of depression yet. The movie reel of my life’s woes played on repeat. I transported back to my childhood experiences with a drug-addicted mother; I relived the pain of failed relationships. One horrible memory played after the other. As I wallowed in my self-pity, […]