Thoughts on Knowing Who You Are and How Far You Can Go (Leading An Activist Life Part 3)

I went home to Texas, to law school, to do something. In the early days as a student when I didn’t know enough law to be of legal help, I read through juror questionnaires in cases where there were claims of racial discrimination in jury selection to help identify the race of jurors. A 1973 graduate of the Booker T. Washington High School—black man. With my undergraduate degree and nearly PhD, I did basic secretarial work—answering phones, research, sorting mail. I did not have sufficient knowledge of the law at that time but I knew some things like a woman who went to the Franklin Beauty School in 1967 was a black woman and we should be sure to double check the transcripts for her voir dire with the prosecutor.

You also know useful things beyond the books you are studying.

I did not mind doing these things some thought beneath my credentials because I was being educated and educating myself. I was doing what needed to be done. I also worked with immigrants seeking asylum in the aftermath of September 11^th never knowing that 10 years later I would be teaching immigration at the University of Kentucky College of Law. I tutored students in after school programs. I did lots of things. I carried food for fundraisers. I assisted in the preparation of briefs, of court documents. I went to court. I went to death row.

The first time I went to death row, my mother said two things. The first was call me when you get back. I wasn’t sure if she thought I would need a shoulder to cry on or she thought they might keep me. The second thing my mother told me was don’t fall in love through the bars. "Men in prison have a lot of time their hands, you are not something for them to do," she said. So with my mother’s words I went. I went to death row and have since been back many times. The last time I went I was already pregnant with my son. Just like my mother before me, my child is a part of my life and therefore my life’s work. I have sat and looked into the eyes of men who know/knew the date and hour of their deaths because they were set by the Texas courts.

There is a gospel song that says, Oh taste and see that the Lord is good, My mother told me about it but I taught it for myself and found out he’s good.

Because I had been with my mother when she met with the sick and the shut-in, when we thought her youngest brother, the one who was just a baby when her mother died, had drawn his last breath (a sound that haunts me still), when we buried her beloved brother, James—for whom my son is named—in the foreign soil of Pennsylvania so far from our Texas homeland, I thought I knew what I was doing when I sat across from a man who said to the lead attorney that he would rather give up his valid legal claims that might spare his life and be executed rather than have go through the chemotherapy required to battle his recent diagnosis of cancer on death row. At that point, still a student, I was not ready. But watching my mother, I at least had a picture of her face in difficult times to mimic so that the horror of this young man’s life choice did not bleed through into my facial expression AND how to hold my tears because who am I to cry when it his life in the balance. I got to go home that night to my nice apartment and comfortable bed where I could not sleep but have woken up everyday since aware that I am free.

I kept working, but I also knew that I could not make this work I was so passionate about my daily work and maintain good mental health. I retreated after law school to the distanced world of legal scholarship. I finished the PhD I started. I became a member of the Texas Bar. I continued work with lawyers on special projects and some cases but I could not be on the front lines.

LESSON NUMBER 4 IN LIVING AN ACTIVIST LIFE: KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Know what you are capable of. Where you are willing and not willing to go. Know who your resources are and if they are capable of saving you when you fall. Too many good women have been crushed when they took a risk and jumped thinking someone would catch them. Know if you need someone to catch you. Not everyone does. Know if you are willing to free fall.