When it comes to monumental people in Black culture, a few might come to mind. Mary Seacole inspired Florence Nightingale, Martin Luther King rocked the world with his “I heard a dream speech”, and Chadwick Boseman showed a younger generation of black boys what it would be like to see a King look like them. However, there is a Leicester born black woman who has paved her way through living on a council house estate all the way up to being the Director of Procurement at the University of Coventry. I had the honour of sitting down and telling the story of one of the most determined people that I’ve ever met, whose will and tenacity are unrivalled to anybody else, here is a hero whose story is too special for the history books…it’s the story of my mom.
Looking nervous at the beginning of the interview, my mom looks through the laptop camera as if she’s never been asked these questions before. “I was born in Leicester and moved around a lot. When I was two years old I moved to Smallheath and then to Sheldon” she explained after she very formally said her name and her occupation, she had a lot of conviction in her voice as she took the interview very seriously. I asked her what her childhood was like and she answered with a bit of hesitation, “I was brought up by a single parent. My childhood was very tough. There was a lot of food. There was also a lot of emphasis on academia but there was very little support,” she admitted. There was no glossing over the fact that she grew up on a poor estate, “People didn’t have a lot of money but they had a lot of pride where they lived,” making the start of her journey the sort of story that you’d hear at an inspirational conference, but she was exaggerating, you could see her mind whirring as her childhood was all coming back to her.
She then loosened up a bit and explained to me that the education system didn’t really care about the working class and that you really had to fend for yourself. “I had to teach my brother how to read when I had to look after him because my mom was at work,” she went on to say. As she let out a deep sigh, you could tell that her feelings towards her brother were complicated, “Looking back, I think he did have autism but back then education wasn’t accomodating like that, so the school would just think that he was misbehaving.
I then wanted to bring it to my childhood as we had suffered a great tragedy where she was widowed by my Dad committing suicide. My stomach went a little bit weak as it had always been a hard thing to talk about in her family, she started to tear up but took a deep breath. “Being widowed was the hardest thing I had to do. I remember just lying there and thinking ‘if I just go, I really want to be with him (my Dad) now’, but I couldn’t. I knew that I had to look after my two children”.
It’s hard to look back on those days, but I couldn’t help but feel a great deal of sadness as my mom made an effort to make my and my brother’s childhood the happiest. “You have to understand that I didn’t want to do myself in but I just wanted to give up. However, you can’t, you have to keep your head up”, she said, teaching a lesson even though she felt vulnerable. She let out a short smile and my happiness rushes back. “People will say that they helped, but they didn’t. However, the time that I had with my boy I wouldn’t take back”, she said whilst tearing up. Seeking from experience, it’s such a rollercoaster to go through, losing someone you love.
Still, with all the obstacles of being a black woman in the workplace, raising two kids on her own, and being widowed, here she sits, the Director of Procurement at the University of Coventry. “What would you say to young boys and girls who think they can’t do it, or are having a bad day?”, I finally ask her, wrapping up the short but intense interview. “Dig into your strengths. Absolutely utilise your support network, whether that be friends or family. Being a person of colour or not fitting in doesn’t make you different, it makes you unique”, she simply puts.
After, a journey through emotions, I simply tell my mom that I love her and she says it back. She then reminds me not to call her after 7 pm because she’s got a meal to go to, but I guarantee you now that I’ll forget and call her just after she finishes her starter.
