Hello Readers!

Happy Black History Month!
If you follow me on instagram, you may know in past years I like to take BHM to highlight little-known history, usually history I was taught growing up. This year I’ve uncharacteristically not been posting much. This Black History Month I took for myself. Given all the strife going on in the world I simply did not have the same energy as past years. So instead this year I wanted to highlight my own family history. It hurts typing that, honestly. I think anyone with ancestry or lineage that experienced chattel enslavement can identify with that feeling. A feeling of displacement, loss of “history” and overall isolated feelings. I started by talking to my Aunt on my father’s side, and we really are only able to go 1 generation past my grandparents. Even at that, I only get the snippets that my aunt remembers of her grandparents. I also feel hurt because my grandmother who I’ll be talking about has passed away. I never got the closure I needed. She passed away during a hectic time, and we never had the opportunity for a proper funeral. I’ve instead had to find my own working version of closure and grief as the years have gone by. I hope that this post, to an extent helps me along with that closure. I began this post because I thought it would be nice to honor her in some way. I also found writing this somewhat illuminating because I got to hear and learn more about my grandfather, someone who I did not get to know because he passed before I was born.

Clarence Williams was a great musician and music teacher. A writer in his spare time and a kind husband to my grandmother. I know he was also an artist because in high school I did a “collaborative” painting with him, finishing one of his unfinished pieces as a gift for my grandmother. My grandfather was a music teacher at Lehman HS in the Bronx. He earned both his Bachelors and Masters in Education. He also was a WW2 vet, in the US Navy band. He played alto saxophone, saxophone as well as the bassoon. During his lifetime, Clarence received some sort of grant to write songs about Black heroes: Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Benjamin Banneker, Matthew Henson and Admiral Perry were a few he wrote music about. I don’t know what became of this work, if his death short stopped it or if any of it was released. I’m definitely looking into it and would love to do a follow-up post with findings. He was a very traditional, realistic, person. My aunt said he was not a church man- going to weddings and funerals only, but was an avid bible reader. He went deep into his personal practice or relationship with spirit/God. Basing his moral compass on the bible, as he was raised in church. He would have loved to just play music and traveled, but instead put his family first to settle down and get a job. He died at 66, of a stroke, something Black men are pre-disposed to. If alive he would have been about 100 next year.

My grandparent’s parents knew each other before they married. My great-grandmother didn’t like Clarence. My aunt recalls that on occasional visits from my great-grandma could be tense, but my grandfather eventually won her over with time. My aunt described a sort of softening as my great-grandmother witnessed his commitment and care to her daughter and their family.

Suzanne Williams, whom I miss dearly was one of the few Black nurses at White Plains Hospital at the time. My grandmother always loved to help people, and I like to think I got that altruism from her. She also went on “night-rides” preparing food and other necessities in packets, and then with others in the community distributing them to people experiencing homelessness. Suzanne traveled in her lifetime and loved to garden. When my father decided to chase dreams instead of getting a 9-5, despite having a newly-wed wife and child (me), my grandmother allowed us to stay in her home. She was a voracious reader. As a young adult, she finished all the children’s and YA books in her local library, and got special permission to read the adult books. Suzanne was a good student and applied for a teacher’s college. She got in, and got a 2 yr degree in education. She left because she found working as a teacher simply was not her forte. My great-grandmother always wanted to be a nurse, but because of a previous tuberculosis diagnosis, she never became one. My grandmother decided to take nursing seriously in honor of her mother. She graduated in the 1950s from the Lincoln School for Nurses in the Bronx. My aunt highlighted an exhibit about the school, but I was only able to find NYPL’s digital artifact collection on the school. From my conversations and experiences with her growing up, she really shined in her career and deeply enjoyed the work. Grandma was also a church mother, going to church regularly as possible even towards the end of her time here. From my few experiences at her church she was well-loved and revered by many in her congregation. Grandma loved to knit and do other crafts. I have a pillow she made me from scraps of material as well as a scarf that I cherish. In her altruism she kept knitting things even as she developed arthritis. In retirement, she got to pour time into more reading, always staying sharp, even in her 90s, as well as doing art to her heart’s content. In my new apt I have one of the paintings she gifted me. She passed away in her 90s, having a full long life. I really truly miss her, just talking and getting to benefit from her well of experience and brilliant mind.


I have other family I would love to highlight, from former BPP members to other church mothers, but this month alone has been arduous, and I simply don’t have it in me. I hope to get back into writing more as the year goes on, and I hope this BHM you took time to learn something new and foster or continue your own anti-racist journeys. As always thank you for reading and again, Happy Black History Month.