Chicken Soup for the African American Woman's Soul (9 page)

I began to read and research and network with other doll collectors and discovered that the dolls could retell history. Rag dolls, especially, have a story to tell. Their faces are unique and expressive. They speak to me, and their clothing tells a story, just by the workmanship and also the patterns and colors in the fabric. You can tell how old a doll is by close examination of the fabric. Knowing old patterns and colors is the key.

I determine where each doll belongs chronologically in the history of the United States—at times a dark history.

As a collector and an African American woman, I had to get past the negativity of the Jim Crow images of large lips, side-glancing eyes, pickaninny braids, and just plain mean characterizations. As I encounter these dolls, I remember that they represent an important time in our history, and I am so grateful that I can give them a home where they can tell their story, be heard and be loved— perhaps for the very first time.

To slaves and poor African Americans, dolls were a luxury item; therefore I looked for dolls made out of things such as nuts (nut head dolls), cornhusks, rags, fabric scraps and bottles. I even found a tiny, old doll made out of a baby bottle nipple and two graceful dolls made out of tobacco leaves carrying pocketbooks made from chestnuts.

More recent character dolls portray positive images to black children of our culture's many successful people. My collection includes dolls of Diana Ross, Louis Armstrong, Muhammad Ali, Dr. George Washington Carver, Colin Powell, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Michael Jackson and my favorites—the Tuskegee Airmen. I also collected many African American sports figures and dolls made by African American doll artists.

Before I knew it I was doing doll displays and lectures at libraries, schools and corporations. I used my dolls to profile the black experience in America from slavery to the present. I liked to encourage young collectors. I tell them to remember the two Rs, “reading and research,” and determine where you can place a doll in the history of the United States. I continue to share my collection and my stories about my dolls with young and old alike as I continue on this historic journey. Who would have ever thought that a simple visit to a tag sale would so completely change the course of my life?

As I sit in my grandmother's rocking chair holding my favorite one-hundred-year-old rag doll, I hear a voice that says, “Daughter, thank you for telling our story.”

Emma Ransom Hayward

Ninety-Pound Powerhouse

O
ur scientific power has outrun our spiritual
power. We have guided missiles and misguided
men.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

As a young African American female growing up in the 1920s, I knew my grandmother had experienced many difficulties being a minority. I never realized the impact those experiences had on her life, until the summer of 2001 when she shared with me the woman she truly was. For years her health had been on the decline, but at times when the family feared she had neared the end, her determination would abound all obstacles in her path. It was amazing to watch this happen time and time again.

During one of my visits to the nursing home in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, which she now called “home,” I had an opportunity to sit with her and talk about her life.

I had been born in a small town in Arkansas myself, but had been raised mostly in the city. Therefore, I was a city girl at heart. However, I found visiting the country relaxing, and the hospitality people showed was amazing.

Arkadelphia was sixteen miles north of my birth town, Gurdon. Driving down the interstate each day, toward the nursing home, I glanced around me looking at the homes and miles of greenery I passed along the way. The continual flow of hand waves reminded me I had departed the city.

Later that afternoon as I relaxed on the bed beside my grandmother, I asked her to tell me about life during her young years. I knew very little. She had dropped out of school at a young age to work in the cotton fields, so her brothers and sisters would have an opportunity to pursue their education. I admired this, and because of that, the years passed so quickly she never returned to school. Unable to read and write and being elderly now didn't hamper her lifestyle or spirit at all. She claims it has helped keep her stress level down throughout the years. I could only imagine what illiteracy was like considering the fierce competition in the city and the educational credentials required to reach particular advancement levels within corporate America. I listened to and learned amazing details of her journey.

At an age when most women prepared to raise families, she found her marriage crumbling. She and her husband soon parted ways. Granny was left alone with six children, uneducated, and determined to find a way to support them. Cotton fields became her savior. At home there was often a shortage of material items but never love. When the children needed clean undergarments they were hand washed the night before and remained damp in the morning. The children would slip into their damp garments the next morning and proceed toward the school grounds. Granny Martha never received a diploma, but she strove to ensure her children received their opportunities. The older children helped her with the younger ones.

There were times when work was available in the next town; the next towns in either direction were sixteen miles. Granny Martha had no car to help her reach her destination, but that didn't stop her.

“I had the best car around,” she told me as she patted her two feet. I glanced at her, shocked. It was unbelievable that she had walked to the towns of Prescott and Arkadelphia many times. She continued describing how people she knew driving to the same towns drove past her without once stopping to offer her a ride—quite a contrast to the friendly appearance I experienced driving that same route now. Her walks to town would start before the sun rose and end as it settled in its bed.

“Do you think they ever thought about stopping, Granny?” I eagerly asked.

“No,” she declared sans any resentment. “They thought they were better than me, but I knew different. I had the Lord on my side,” she continued. “That is the only friend I need.”

I nodded in agreement. Tears welled in my eyes, as I felt guilty about the anger bubbling in me.

“It would take me all day, honey, to walk up there and back, but I made it every time. Yes, ma'am, I made it. Do you want to know something?” she asked trying to conceal a little smirk.

“What's that?”

“I've outlived most of those folks,” she explained in her Southern accent. I smiled back at her listening attentively as the tales continued.

Sometimes she would carry my uncle to town because he was too young to go to school and she needed to work.

In the cotton fields, she would carry loads of cotton on her back and drag him around on a sack next to her while she worked, making any money she could. As the day continued I could do nothing but stare in amazement. This little ninety-pound woman was a powerhouse, and I had almost missed out on learning so much about her. I felt proud to call her granny, but I realized my feeling went much deeper than that. Granny Martha became a symbol of strength that African American females have always been known for since the beginning of time.

Swannee Rivers

2
IT TAKES A
VILLAGE OF
MOTHERS

N
ext to God we are indebted to women,
first for life itself, and then for making
it worth living.

Mary McLeod Bethune

My Womb's Butterfly

J
ust don't give up trying to do what you really
want to do. Where there's love and inspiration, I
don't think you can go wrong.

Ella Fitzgerald

Every time I went to the mall, I would end up in the baby store. What did I need from a baby store? The circle of kids in our family was too old for anything they offered, and there were no little buns in the oven.

As I stood admiring a lace dress, I felt a massive butterfly begin to flap in my belly. (You've heard the phrase, “I've got butterflies in my stomach”—well, that isn't the only place where mine were located.) Placing the dress back on the rack, I picked up a sailor's outfit and reflected on how cute it would look on my son. Then I corrected myself.
Surely, you mean your nephew
.
Maybe . . . girl, you need
to stop tripping
. The butterfly flapped its wings again. Not knowing why the gush of tears was building in the midst of the flapping butterfly, I exited the store quickly, finding refuge in my car four rows away from the mall entrance.

Come on, girl
, I encouraged myself,
get this foolishness
together. You know your motto: Kids should be like soda bottles—
returnable. Why are you about to lose your mind about this?
Where is this coming from?

Where was it coming from indeed? I had always wanted to be a mother. It's right there in my senior year memory book. What do you plan to be doing ten years from now? My response: sitting on the beach, writing my third novel with my four boys playing all around me. The desire to be a mother was in the stack of papers hidden beneath my car's passenger seat: piles of research on fertility clinics, weight-loss clinics—because one specialist told me I would never get pregnant as long as I was overweight—a list of possible donors that I needed to convince and study notes. I wanted to be somebody's mama. I said it over and over again, as the butterfly flapped its way from my stomach to the back of my throat. I cried.

Months turned into more months. I made a sizeable investment in pregnancy kits, ovulation kits and specialists— only to suffer from several “almosts.” I know, you cannot be
almost
pregnant, but I refused to tell myself,
No,
you're not pregnant
, AGAIN, and I refused to acknowledge that the pregnancy misdiagnosis really had anything to do with a “possibly more serious medical condition.” So I instead believed in
almost
and
maybe next time
. When the months finally became years, the trips to the baby store ended, and I tucked the desire to mother my own child away for the night. I convinced myself that it was not my role in life to be a mother, and the desire was no more than fantasy.

Then one spring day, I arrived back at my condo after dropping off my nephew from a weekend of breaking the “auntie bank.” Turning on the iron to knock wrinkles from the dress I'd chosen to wear to evening worship, I suddenly felt something that frightened me; my womb's butterfly was back and flapping with a vengeance.

Ignore it, girl. It's the Value Meal. You ate it too fast, that's all
. I was clearly trying to convince myself of something that was not true. The butterfly was back. But why? I was resolved. I had accepted what everyone told me—I would not be a mother.

I grabbed my exfoliating scrub and turned on the shower full blast, as hot as possible. Surely, I could scrub away the voice in my head.
It's time for you to be a mother.

Your son needs you.

I lathered. More voices. I exfoliated. More voices—and harder flapping wings. I let suds cover each strand of my natural kinks and felt my sharp nails move along my scalp. More voices. The hot water washed everything away from my body—except the butterfly in my womb.

Finally, knowing that this was not a battle I was going to win and knowing that I was not going to birth a child, I decided to ask God, “What are you doing? I've been celibate two years, so I can't be pregnant. I haven't given birth, so I have no ‘son needing me.' What are you doing?” Then I added, “Whatever it is, do it quickly, so I don't think I'm going crazy.”

The next evening, I found myself sitting in an adoption orientation class. Three months later, on a warm August evening as I rushed home, I got a phone call.

“We have a little one for you. He's just above the requested age range. Only thing is that he has nothing except what he's wearing.”

“What do you mean he has nothing? Where is he?”

“He's at our office in Miami Shores. The judge ordered him placed today. Your counselor called this morning and said she had a woman who had more love than any child could take, and your file was on my supervisor's desk. Do you want him?”

“I'm turning around now.”

By the time I reached the building I was trembling. That butterfly was all over the place—my womb, my throat, my heart. When I walked into the office the social worker met me at the door extending her hand. She pointed to a little, thick man asleep behind me. The flapping began to subside. I touched his De La Soul hairdo, and he woke up. Concerned that I had startled him, much as he had startled me, I stepped back. But he reached for me, so I reached for him. He settled, rather peaceably, into my arms, resting his head on my shoulder.

The first few nights I kept staring at him. He didn't seem out of place at all. His first little kiss on my cheek, his bear hugs, his amazing appetite—none of it seemed out of place. Since then we've had our share of tantrums and extreme stubbornness. Did you know a five-year-old could say the word “Mommy” at least a hundred times in a five-minute span? I sure didn't!