Twyla Booker.
My great aunt was born on a farm in Cumberland, Virginia in 1919. She was only 4’11 and weighed less than 100 pounds. I remember she wore face powder, earrings and skirts or dresses everyday unless she was working in her garden. Her nails were always painted and she even wore panty hose with sandals. I loved to see her wear her fox stole with the head and claws attached and her matching hat when we went to Church. That thing scared me so, but I thought she resembled the glamorous ladies in the old black and white movies I watched with her on cable TV on the weekends. I wonder if that was her goal to be admired as she walked by with fine clothes just like the women who did not share her same skin color. She spoiled me rotten with a trip Downtown to purchase new dresses and/or toys every week. We would end our shopping spree with lunch at the downtown G.C. Murphy’s. We would walk in the store restaurant area and she would tell the hostess, “We will sit at the counter near the window and we will have sweetened iced tea and BLT sandwiches with chips, please”. If someone was sitting at the end of the counter near the window, we would continue to browse the store or wait until they had finished and left. I knew the stools at the counter were uncomfortable for my great uncle because he was a big man at 6 feet and 220 pounds but he never said anything to the contrary. As a young child, I did not always want to sit at the counter. I wanted to sit at the booth with the wooden toys the restaurant left out for their guests. It was not until I was a teenager and curiosity overwhelmed methat I got the nerves to ask. I asked my great aunt why we just could not eat at an open booth or grab our food and eat in the car. I wanted to know why we had to sit at the counter by the window every time. She looked at me with tears and harsh memories of a different time in her eyes and she said, “We have fought for the right to sit wherever we want to sit and those walking by need to see it.” So no, I can not forget the past. Stop telling me to forget my past when I share with you examples of how I am given an equal chance or how I am held to different standards for the same job in the office because my ancestors, my great aunt, have fought for me to have the right to sit at your leadership table. “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
