Bascom
Writing Group Prompt: Single experience you had that completely changed how you
thought or behaved about something. Was it a person you met? Something you
read? Something you were told? Something that happened? Reach down and try to
recall that single thing that changed something or everything for you.
“Why
don’t they do something … something!” “How can they just sit there all day? Why
don’t they work? Why do they walk out in front of my car every time I drive
through here? How can they live with trash all over their yards?”
I’m ashamed to admit that these were my thoughts for several
years as I passed by the Gonzales Gardens housing project in the heart of
Columbia, S.C. Originally built as temporary assistance housing for soldiers
returning from World War II, the dense development evolved into generational
housing for African Americans made complacent by public assistance.
In my world of juggling home, family, homeschooling, and
work, I couldn’t fathom an existence that seemed mired in meaningless muck. I
judged the book by its cover.
The city just needs to raise this place, I thought many
times.
But isn’t it what we try to ignore that convicts us most?
While teaching a literature class for a homeschool co-op, one of the mothers
spearheaded a service project. She decided that immediately after each weekly
class, we would take our teens to Gonzales Gardens and offer an after-school
snack and tutoring program. Really?
The first day we set up in an empty, trash-ridden lot across the street from
the last row of drab brick apartments. We set up some tables with snacks,
unfolded some chairs, unpacked some balls, and waited. Within minutes, no lie,
it was as if a colony of ants learned of a picnic feast. From every far corner
of Gonzales Gardens streamed children as young as toddlers – no parents
attached. These children, most uninhibited, played, and ate, and sat in the
laps of white mommas and their well-meaning teens. We colored with the younger
ones and asked older kids to pull homework out of book bags.
What developed quickly over weeks was an official program
called Prosperity Project. We set up in a dilapidated building next to the
vacant lot. Completely naïve with a learn-as-we-go mentality, a group of us
moms attempted a semblance of structure to virtual chaos. Nary any evidence of
parental interest or concern. So foreign a concept for us helicopter moms.
Yes, we did find hypodermic needles, condoms galore, and
bullet casings in the vacant field. Yes, the children cussed at us and ate
everything they got their hands on and demanded more – especially of our time
and attention.
But the experience began to open the aperture of my narrow
thoughts. Reading Uncle Sam’s Plantation,
by Starr Parker helped as well. Her extended essay went like this: The African
American culture is – generally – close knit, and although work and whole
families and church were central after the ending of the Civil War, the
Depression brought about government programs intended as temporary aids that
became long-term crutches. Generation after generation came to rely on Uncle
Sam as provider, and they dropped from the workforce, and settled into a rut of
cheap or free housing, food stamps, and Medicare. Parents had more children to
get more assistance. The family unit dissolved. The village raised – well, sort
of – the children. But the parents, without work and purpose, became despondent
to any real hope or meaning. Parker broke the generational poverty cycle in her
own circumstances, and her book was an attempt to preach it to others.
What my lens began to allow in, as I loved on the children
and tried to meet some of their needs, was the desperateness of humanity.
Empathy grew; frustration waned. Little by little relationships formed. The
children just needed to know there was more – and better – and maybe their
experiences would motivate their caretakers off their trash-laden perches and
strung-out sofas.
So for six years, we operated what became a thriving,
publicized, respected, and bursting at the seams after-school ministry. We
eventually took over an old church building and, at Christmas, even the
University of South Carolina basketball coaches showed up with new athletic
shoes for all the children.
It was one of the first Christmases with Prosperity Project
that opened my eyes for good. I needed to venture deep into the belly of that
dark place – made darker still by nightfall – in order to deliver some holiday
packages donated for one family. The director regularly strapped a 22 on her
hip, but I had no such protection. One of the boys, then 9, saw me drive up and
park. Dequantis came running out and asked me what I was doing there. “I need
to get these packages to someone in the C building,” I told him. “I’ll help you
Ms. Deena.” I grabbed the packages, but then stood there at the car looking at
the buildings. Was this smart? Was I
going to end up dead - one of those stupid, what-was-she-thinking middle-aged
white women – killed by a stray bullet intended for a rival gang member. It
happened all the time; why did I think I would be impervious?
“I got you, Miss Deena,” said Dequantis, reading my fretful
face.
He grabbed my hand and held it, all the way into the middle
of the dark place, made lighter by his concern and protection. He knocked on
the door, he presented the presents, and he walked me back to my car.
Gonzales Gardens was raised last year. I miss it – and the
people, especially the children, who lived there. Dequantis is 18 now and tells
me he loves me, as do many many others.
I’m glad I opened that book and stepped inside, instead of
leaving it closed minded on the shelf. It changed me, forever.
