Journey — Rev. Alethea: Barrier Breaker, Survivor, Bridge Builder

By Rev Dr. Alethea “Roz” Smith-Withers

Idon’t remember the names or recognize the faces of those I went to school with from 8th grade through 12th grade. You see, my memory loss is directly connected to my experiences from integrating my junior high school and my high school. I remained the only Black student in my school until I graduated…

Let me offer a little background for my story. During the years when I was in junior high and high school, my family was the first and the only Black family in Wantagh, a town in Long Island, NY. My parents chose to move from Brooklyn, NY to Wantagh (only 21 miles from Manhattan) because they wanted to live in the suburbs. My mother, Mary Jo — a registered nurse, was born and raised in Cynthiana, a small town in Kentucky. My father, George — a physician, was an immigrant from Spanish Town in Jamaica, WI [West Indies]. Their goals were simple — education and better opportunities for my younger sister, DeBorah, and me. They weren’t trying to break barriers or to be “pioneers.”

On the surface, Wantagh was a dream come true — manicured lawns, low crime rates, and schools with high rankings. They didn’t suspect that de facto segregation was behind every shadow. Neither did they know that Nassau County, the county where we lived, boasted staggering Ku Klux Klan membership.

Even though I don’t remember the names of fellow students, I’ll never forget that my first encounter with the subtle but painful impact of racism was on my first day at school in Wantagh. After homeroom, I went to my science class. The science teacher announced he was giving a test. I was terrified Not knowing what the test was about, I said a silent prayer and then answered each question to the best of my ability.

When the teacher handed back my completed test, he asked incredulously, “How did you get all the correct answers?” At 12 years old, I didn’t understand the purpose of his question. I was secretly waiting for a congratulatory “Good job!” or a similar expression of encouragement. Instead, my teacher’s suspicion was confusing and demoralizing, to say the least

In 9th grade, I recall how my American History teacher would pause and gaze at me whenever he uttered the word “slaves.” No doubt, he was suggesting that the legacy of slavery negatively defined who I was. But at 13, the teacher’s behavior left me feeling uncomfortable and marginalized. When I told my father how the teacher looked at me, the teacher’s motives were glaringly obvious to him. My Jamaican father was irate. He instructed me to go to class and confront the teacher’s ignorance with facts. My father said, “You must stand up and educate the teacher!” So, the next day I literally stood and gave a recitation naming 10 prominent African Americans beginning with Marcus Garvey. My dramatic classroom performance was met with stark silence. My teacher didn’t proffer a question or a comment. The following day, the lesson about slavery ended without explanation.

Perhaps, the memory that stands out the most for me is when my home was vandalized. The large picture window in the front of my home was shattered while my sister and I were home alone. Miraculously, we remained asleep through the entire episode (my father was out of the country and my mother worked the night shift at a local hospital). A few days after the vandalism, my mother convened a community meeting in our home. Members of the school board, police officers, and neighbors filled our living room and dining room — my mother wanted these people to see the damage to our home and reckon with the jeopardy her children were in. My sister and I peeked from the hallway as our 5-foot 2-inch mother made her case. For days thereafter, a police car was stationed in front of our home.

All too often, when Black children are in the minority in their school, they are too young and emotionally ill equipped to identify or adequately convey the types of discrimination and bias they encounter. It’s amazing that so many Black children even survive the challenges they face in biased academic settings! It is imperative that the educational goal for Black children must be for them to thrive — and not just survive Though none of my white classmates or teachers ever hurled racial epithets, I still suffered academic and social marginalization and faced incalculable psychological violence.

In his 1952 literary classic, Invisible Man, the iconic Black novelist Ralph Ellison gave voice to the disillusionment of many Black Americans. Ellison describes what it’s like living in a white-dominated world when he wrote, “Oh, I am an invisible man, simply because people refuse to see me….To be unaware of one’s form is to live a death.”

For me, Ellison’s words help to explain why I forgot most of my high school classmates. I wasn’t seen in Wantagh schools! I’ve learned that my amnesia was an adolescent coping mechanism, a subconscious choice to forget the scorn that reduced me to an Invisible Girl. Thankfully, my friends who didn’t attend my school and my loving family were a divine hedge-ofprotection. I was visible and seen by them.

Jesus saw children and welcomed all of them. He didn’t render them invisible; he knew they came bearing gifts. The Gospel of

Mark 10:13-16 says: And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, ‘Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these’….And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.

Yes! That’s what the Bible says, and what the Bible means to me is that ALL children are to be protected from doors being shut in their faces, or being devalued, or rendered invisible! In Wantagh schools, I should have been seen as a child of God and recognized as worthy of the kingdom of God and I should have been valued!

The bottom line is that parents and educators must remain alert vis-à-vis racially motivated behaviors that impact the lives of Black children and Black adolescents.

Given the challenges I experienced when I was a vulnerable adolescent, I’m enormously blessed that the perils of racism didn’t hold me back. In fact, I believe that God used my circumstance of being the only Black student in Wantagh upper schools for 5 years and being the first Black graduate from Wantagh High School to prepare me to be a barrier-breaker and bridge-builder in my adult life. I was the premier clergywoman to serve as an Associate Minister at the historic Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. With the congregation’s encouragement, I became one of the first women to be the founder of a Baptist church in Washington, D.C., that has thrived more than 20 years and is affiliated with the DC Baptist Convention. I was also the first Black woman to be the chair of the board of directors of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), a national interfaith reproductive justice organization. In short, God’s Word has been a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.

Above all, I thank God that I embrace a theology of liberation. Knowing Jesus as liberator anchors my soul to the truth that justice is more than a social mandate: justice is a divine imperative. Indeed, I believe there are divine whispers in the wind that alert all of us to a collective assignment to create equity and embrace justice in every generation.

Black lives mattered in the 60s and Black lives must matter, today, particularly the lives of Black children — they are our future.

Dr. Smith-Withers is the founder and pastor of the Pavilion of God Baptist Church in Washington, D C., www.PavilionofGodDC.org She is also a pastoral counselor trained in Imago therapy. She has earned the Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry degrees from Howard University School of Divinity and was a Pew Foundation Urban Ministry Fellow. Dr. SmithWithers serves as the National Chaplain for Alpha Pi Chi National Sorority, Inc. In addition, this woman of God is a wife, mother, and grandmother.