It’s a mandatory training session. On April 1 at 8:00 a.m.
in Fayetteville, which is more than three hours away. I know what mandatory
means, so I arrange lodging for the dog here and lodging for me there.
With my favorite Arlington activist |
After a night on what is arguably the world’s worst hotel
mattress (you’ve been warned, do not stay at Holiday Inn Express), I check in
early at the meeting facility. As a first-timer I am a little nervous, but
eager to hear Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II speak.
The moral voice of our time, Rev. Barber is the electrifying
leader of North Carolina’s Forward Together Movement, President of the NorthCarolina NAACP, educator, minister, and so much more.
I’ve heard him speak twice before – in 2014 at Asheville’s Moral
Monday in the Mountains and at a July 2015 march at the start of the federal
voting rights trial in Winston-Salem. But, I’m in Fayetteville for training,
not marching. I’m the recently elected secretary of the Catawba County NAACP
branch and Fayetteville is the site of the annual training.
Last summer, I’d gone to my first NAACP branch meeting after
seeing a notice in the newspaper. I kept going.
It felt right; I felt welcome. The branch president asked me to be on
the nominating committee. Okay. I can do that. Then, I raised my hand and
offered to be secretary. I’m a writer. A secretary takes minutes, how hard
could that be?
Fast forward to Fayettevile. I’m sitting at a table I’ve
staked out for our chapter in a cavernous room with about 300 other people.
After a press conference and introductions, the training begins. At my age,
I’ve been to a lot of training sessions. Who knew that learning bylaws could be
so lively and interesting? Our trainer-in-chief, the eloquent Rev. Barber, has
lots of stories that he uses to punctuate the bylaws discussion much as a
conductor uses percussion to punctuate a movement.
He goes through a portion of the bylaws, line by line, with a
voice that can move mountains. After another story, he gets to the role of branch
officers. President: Check. Not my problem. Secretary: Geesh, no mention of minutes, my strongpoint,
but a list of other duties and the importance of the position. Heck, Rosa Parks
was a branch secretary. No pressure or
big shoes to fill there.
I pull myself from hanging on every word of our
trainer-in-chief’s discussion of policies and politics (my favorite) and
retreat to the training for secretaries (um, not so favorite). There are lots
of us, and lots of questions. The ladies who run this training know their
stuff, inside and out. But, nothing is clear. I am so right-brained. The woman seated
next to me, from the neighboring county, looks at me as if to say, “There,
there, dear.” She gives me her name and number. Then, I remember that before
lunch my chapter mates told me they’d have my back. Whew. My breathing returns
to normal.
As I begin my drive home how I came to this new role reminds
me of how I became president of the Democratic Women of Catawba County. I showed up. At the early 2014 meeting to elect officers for the brand-new
chapter there were seven women in the room. No one wanted to be president. Okay,
I’ll do it. How hard can it be?
Driving north on U.S. 421, I muse on my retirement path.
None of this – president and now secretary – was planned. My involvement was a
byproduct of wanting to meet people, and people with whom I share values.
That’s why I went to the Catawba County Democratic Party meetings and the
meetings about the women’s group. I decide somewhere between Fuqay-Varina and
Winston-Salem that maybe I’m an accidental activist.
Yet, it’s my fourth year as president of our women’s group.
I kept showing up. I stood for reelection. Okay, it was not a coveted position.
Leading is getting a little easier, but offers new challenges because we’ve
grown from the founding few to more than 60.
Dem Women founders portraying legends |
The good news about the now-crowded meeting rooms is that
instead of a handful with their hands full, we have more people doing more.
We’ve got a strong issues group working to educate and advocate on our priority
issues -- public education, access to health care, and voting rights. We’ve got
a great group for events – with a signature fundraiser set for May 6. And,
we’ve got a team of communicators, including our youngest member, a teen-aged
Instagram and Snapchat maven.
The founding few cannot take all the credit for this
growth. Do you think there might be a
link between who got inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017, and 70 people showing up at
our meeting eight days later?
And, yes, that is a rhetorical question.
Timothy Egan, among others, points out the silver lining of
this era of orange-haired government, of having a national leader who has never
been in government at any level or in
any capacity. As Egan wrote in The New York Times, “… we may
be experiencing a great awakening for the humane values that are under siege by
a dark-side presidency. People are going inward, to find something bigger than
Trump, and outward, to limit the damage he inflicts on the country.”
Yes, we are waking up.
One hundred and ninety three miles later, I arrive home and retrieve
the newspaper. Turns out, I’m on page one,
pictured talking with one of the participants at the previous day’s
Transgender Day of Visibility.
Okay, perhaps my activism is not so accidental. Maybe it’s
accidentally on purpose.
There is purpose and a lot of work to be done. Our state and
nation need so much work – on justice, equality, education, and the
environment, to name just a few. And, I’ve already got something to show for my
involvement -- my picture with Rev. Barber.
Sweet.
Now to live up to it.
In Fayetteville with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II |