A woman’s never too old for a role model. I was lucky to find two after I was 70! When I met them, I realized I already had two of their qualities, though not to their degree: belief in justice for all, and persistence. I just was calling them kindness and patience.
Anita Earls
In 2018, Anita Earls was a candidate for the NC Supreme Court and Sam (who was running for NC House), helped host a fundraiser for her in Brevard. Then on January 3, 2019, we were thrilled and honored to attend her Investiture ceremony in Raleigh.
In June of last year Earls was named Co-Chair along with Attorney General Josh Stein, of Governor Cooper’s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice. At the time, she said,
We can stop the use of excessive force by police and we know what is needed to achieve racial equity. Now is the time to put that knowledge to work.
Earlier this year she said she was inspired to act for a better world by the four students who began the 1960 civil rights movement at NC State A&T (Agricultural and Technical University):
It was inspirational to me to see that young people could stand up for what they think is right and can have a huge impact on changing our society.
Carter Heyward
The other day I took a book from my shelf and by chance opened it to a quote at the end of Chapter 4: The Female Mind. I was delighted to see it was made by a friend of ours, Carter Heyward, in 1993.
Her words are as encouraging to me now as they must have been to others then. Here they are.
I am assuming that therapy ought to be about the work of healing those of us who have thought we were crazy, and of liberating, or empowering all of us as active moral agents in the work of justice, near and far. … I am assuming that therapy ought to fan those flames in our hearts and souls.
Sam and I often gather with Carter Heyward and others on the Transylvania Courthouse lawn where she helps conduct peaceful Moral Monday demonstrations, weekly from 5 to 6 p.m., rain or shine.
The Transylvania NAACP public invitation says, “ This is our time to bring our community together, to stand and speak and sing with one voice our commitment to community with an emphasis on unity, to equity and justice for all and to love over hate.”
In 2014, Heyward heard on NPR that an epidemiologist, Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, was going to help with the Sierra Leone Ebola epidemic. When asked if she was afraid to go, Dr. Bhadelia said, “… Of course, I’m afraid, but I’m not too afraid to go.” In a 2014 talk, Heyward said,
[She goes, because] she knows she can help — she has skills — and because she hopes that her life will encourage others to go and do likewise.
I believe Dr. Heyward does the same.
Before ending my post, I’d like to share one more quote. It opens the American Women’s Almanac chapter that Carter Heyward’s quote closes. It was said by the early 19th century Reverend John Todd:
As for training young ladies through a long intellectual course, as we do young men, it can never be done. They will die in the process.
I don’t think so!