I loved your article. There are and have been so many notable black women like Pauline Hopkins who have had the courage to fight for their space in a cruel society no matter the cost. I had the honor and pleasure to meet and get to know another such black woman in the early 1990’s by the name of Dr. Shirley Hutcherson. A woman who would help me find the courage to chart my own course into the unknown waters of the future as my mentor, my friend, and my staunchest supporter.
We had moved from Wichita, KS to Hutchinson, a very Conservative city of approximately 41,310 when my youngest daughter, now thirty-one— was one yr. old and my son was an infant. I was a Head Start parent trying to find some kind of definitive purpose in life beyond just that of being a mother and wife in my mid-thirties. Women were still largely ignored or looked down at, especially in the bible belt. Reno County, where Hutchinson is located, was also the home of the leader of the U.S. Nazi party until the early 2000’s and there had been trouble around the county and in town on occasion.
Dr. Shirly Hutcherson, a petite black woman in her late sixties with thinning hair, who acted with class and dignity, always dressed for business in tailored suits and who leaned heavily on a cane with a delicate fine veined hand that supported a weak knee was the Executive Director of both the Head Start program and the school district. Head Start funds were distributed through the School District Admin Office, therefore she was also on the Head Start parent policy council (PC) as one of three community representatives. I was a newly elected parent representative selected by other parents to fill an open position. (Parents can only sit on policy council three years or less and are elected yearly)
Perhaps it was fate — or a chance face to face encounter, but after a PC meeting Dr. Hutchinson and I ran into each other outside the Head Start Center that had been converted from an empty elementary school building a decade earlier and that supported her name. Knowing I had to practically be coerced by the Head Start parent stepping down from her seat and my family support worker to even run for the position Shirley invited me to have a seat and shared the story of her own life with me.
There was no animosity or bitterness in the telling of her struggles as both a young woman — and a woman of color growing up in the bible belt — to get into college, get her first teaching position, dealing with white parents and students who had no respect for a black woman, and to move up the professional ladder by going one step up and four steps back as she put it. Often women, both black and white, called her uppity and ridiculous thinking she was going to get even close to the top in a white man’s world.
As for me, being white I could never fully feel or comprehend the full depths of what Shirley had gone through. Her story, like that of so many other black women throughout history, was one of courage in the face of diversity and hate, of conviction and determination. When I asked if she was angry or bitter Shirley replied that she had put negative emotions aside many many years ago because they cloud ones judgement, make one weak, and interfere with creating change and becoming successful. That we, as God’s children and part of humanity, are better than that.
Through those decades of sweat and a river of tears Dr. Shirley Hutcherson and other black women had beat what everyone called insurmountable odds to become leaders. Now she, and they, faced the world with an enigmatic smile head held high when racism and sexism raised their ugly head, laughing silently at men who, blinded by their ego and attitudes, didn’t realize women, both black and white, Native American, Hispanic, from other cultural backgrounds were starting to rise in the ranks among them and were not going to be silenced. They proved that although change may come slowly at times — it does come.
Not through violence or animosity, but from the heart and soul, hard work, and joining other women to stand behind the standard bearers like Dr. Shirley Hutcherson and Pauline Hopkins along with all the others before her them and will come after. They walked among those right wing, deeply racist men across the U.S. We’ve all come a long way. I may not be where I am today if it were not for knowing what Shirley herself had to overcome and her determination to refuse to give in.
