Beulah Mae Donald

Some walk quietly among us and yet make significant contributions to their family, community, and their country. They are often not well known. They do not claim great wealth, titles, degrees, or high office. They often live simply and humbly. Until a compelling event asked for something more from them.  And the task is extraordinary and often beyond what one might believe they can accomplish. I name them Inspirators. Because of their commitment, kindness, courage, and moral character their actions inspire us. Mrs. Beulah Mae Donald is an Inspirator.

I recently participated in a tour of Civil Rights sites in Alabama (Birmingham, Selma, Tuskegee, Montgomery), and Atlanta, Georgia. For the last few years, I felt pulled to visit these places. This pull felt like my soul’s call to witness my ancestral history as a white person. Though I wasn’t sure why, I knew that direct experience of the truth of the devastating impact of white supremacy on the enslaved, and facing personal accountability for the benefits of white privilege was important to me. I approached this trip as if it were a pilgrimage.

Given all that is happening around us it could seem like quietness is an elusive dream. There is war in the Middle East, and in Ukraine and there is seemingly unrelenting political chaos. We witness so much heart-wrenching human destruction visited upon helpless innocents that it takes us to our knees. At home, many of our political leaders seem incapable of making sound moral and ethical decisions that might deliver us from the pain and suffering we see.

Minty was born into slavery but she was determined to be free. When she was 13 a blow to the head delivered by her master would cause her to have seizures and blackouts for the rest of her life. But Minty was determined. When she grew up, she changed her name to Harriet and then she escaped to freedom. Harriet Tubman not only freed herself, she returned to free hundreds more. And she eventually became a spy for the Union Army fighting to save the Union. Harriet Tubman loved her people and her country.

Ajike Owens was a 34 y/o single mother of four who loved her children. So when her 10 y/o son reported that a neighbor had thrown a skate at him she wanted to know why. She knocked on the neighbor’s door hoping to have a conversation about the incident. The 58 y/o neighbor fired one shot through her closed door, killing Ms. Owens in the presence of her 10 yr. old son.  16 y/o Ralph Yari was shot after he mistakenly knocked at the wrong house while looking for his siblings.  34 y/o Heather Heyer was run down by a white supremacist who steered his car at high speed through a crowd of protesters in Charlottesville Va., killing Heyer and wounding dozens of others.

In 1619 twenty African slaves were brought to the colony of Jamestown, creating a racial caste system that established white people as the dominant group and Black people as subordinate. Laws were codified, rules made, and customs established. Slave masters had the right to kill and torture their slaves should they defy their authority.  The children of enslaved women kept their mother’s status even if their father was the white master. He could take the children and do with them as he chose, sending them to the fields as slaves or selling them on the auction block for profit. The colonists had internalized the wrong idea that some people are better than others. It again benefited those at the top of the human food chain because it granted power and privilege to those with white skin. Most white people came to believe that Black people were lazy, criminals, and mentally inferior. And that America belonged to white people. And those attitudes and perceptions remain with us into the 21st century.

The previous two wrong ideas force us into “them vs. us” relationships. It is a fear-based idea in which we feel insecure and deprived. I believe there is healthy competition that motivates us to achieve our best. But it seems we are often guided by the wrong idea that one person’s gain means another’s loss. And that kind of competition leads to conflict. There is a tendency to assume the worst in others, pointing out weaknesses and shortcomings. This is particularly true about those who do not look like us. When guided by the idea of scarcity (wrong idea 2), win any way you can, lest you lose your share is the rule. And those who win even when it harms others are elevated. Bullying, aggression, and intimidation are often praised as indicators of success. Cooperation and consensus are viewed as weaknesses. And in a “slash and burn” culture, we resent those whom we believe stand in the way of what we want.

In the richest country in the world, there are hungry children living among us. There are those dying of diseases and illnesses because they cannot get adequate health care. Many of our neighbors are unhoused. Because they cannot afford a place to live.  Many of us are anxious about becoming destitute, unable to provide for ourselves or our loved ones. We imagine being homeless, going bankrupt, and unable to pay medical bills or put food on the table. We lay in bed running the scenarios through our mind…sleepless nights worrying that there is not enough. And even when we see massive amounts of money literally being thrown away by those in power, much of it our money as taxpayers, we continue to believe that there is not enough. We have internalized a wrong idea. It is why many of us begrudge support offered to the poor. We believe they are living off public dollars taken from a “pool of not enough.”

We hear it all the time, don’t we? Our political system is corrupt, we are ruining our environment, there is too much violence. We lament the hunger and poverty that many of us are experiencing. We say we want to live in a prosperous and peaceful world. We want a world based on humane values…love thy neighbor.  And we ask how did it get this bad. Many say we are on the verge of destroying ourselves. I know I have been concerned about the state of our political system, race relations, the climate, the epidemic of violence, and the killing of innocent people by law enforcement. I hear us lament about how bad it is. And I, like many of us, am asking how can we get out of this situation.

Whoever you are, whatever your name or nationality, religion or politics, whatever your ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age or skin color, wherever you live on this planet and however you define your clan, your tribe or your people, I know something about you.

I know that if we could both trace our ancestry back far enough, we’d find that we are kin.

And if we went back a little further, we’d discover that there was a single woman who gave birth to the children from whom our respective ancestors began their long journeys across time.

In other words, I know that we are family.

And yet, here we are, still pretending that we don't know each other, pretending we don't owe each other, and pretending we needn't do better for each other.