For my Grandma Hickman

Posted February 7, 2014

One of my biggest heroines is a woman I do not remember meeting.

My great grandmother Hickman, born less than 70 years after slavery was “officially abolished,” grew up as a servant but was treated as a slave. I am told she was a wise woman who loved with all her heart. I grew up hearing stories of her doing back breaking work in the plantation fields of Alabama. She died when I was barely walking but I have idolized her all my life.

Hearing those stories, I always have had a sense of pride in my roots; pride that my people have been struggling for a very long time but we have continued to survive and figure out ways to strive. When I am asked “why I do what I do”, it always has been about my family’s history of struggle for dignity. I constantly remind myself that I am not alone, that I stand on the shoulders of warriors in a long battle for justice.

My favorite Grandma Hickman story is of her time breast feeding the babies on the plantation. She told my mom that she would breast feed the babies of the white and black “servants.”… Continue reading »