Our Black Year (17 page)

All of this—the lack of business capital and its consequences—manifested itself in our older daughter's feet, which seemed to be expanding on a daily basis.

When we made the pledge on January 1, we knew we had a three- or four-month grace period until the girls started growing out of their clothing and before they needed new clothes for spring. We knew we'd find Black-owned stores where we could purchase what they needed. In fact, the beauty of spring's late arrival was that it gave us a few more weeks to locate those outlets. But by April we still hadn't found one in the Chicago metro area or online. The Dew felt like The Downs.

Shoes were only part of the problem. Our girls' clothing shortage had become obvious, at least to me. Cara's belly started peeking out from a few of her blouses. Two or three pairs of jeans were “flood pants” that looked even worse when she put on boots. Her panties, pajamas, and socks were too tight. Her only shoes were boots, dress shoes, and corduroy or suede shoes. Now that spring was approaching, she'd need new sandals and tennis shoes.

Cori's situation was a little less worrisome. She had become accustomed to—and, bless her heart, delighted by—wearing her big sister's hand-me-downs; it meant she was becoming a big girl as well. To me it was the source of mounting anxiety.

I kept thinking how easy it would be to plop the girls into their car seats, run over to the nearest Kmart, Target, Children's Place, or JC Penney, and take care of all our shopping in one trip.

But we didn't even discuss it. We were trying to stay upbeat, aware of our commitment and proud about making it. Those mass retailers? They didn't exist. What also didn't exist was a pair of shoes for the elongating feet of our three-year-old daughter. But we were cool with that.

Until David's christening.

David is our nephew, the son of John's brother, Alan, and his wife, Pam. All the cousins were close. Cara and our niece Ashley were born two weeks apart. They were a couple of princesses who delighted in wearing all the fancy, frilly adornments they could dig up or beg us for. On the morning of her brother David's christening, Ashley for sure was going to present the full princess package in all its extravagant ornamentation. Cori and, especially, Cara had to rise to the challenge, which meant I had to rise to the challenge.

“The Dew done good,” John joked when he pulled open the blinds to our bedroom the day of the christening. It was a bright May morning.

“Hi, Mommy,” Cara said, wandering into our bedroom. She kissed my nose and said, “I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetie.” I kissed back and squeezed her. One of those magical, little mommy moments. Then it hit me. I shot up in bed, my eyes wide.

“What the hell is she going to wear?” I asked John.

He gave me a slightly perturbed look and said, “Heck . . . what the
heck
is she going to wear. We'll figure something out.”

I jumped out of bed and started pacing, tugging at my hair. Cara's look went from soft and sweet to a little scared. John rolled his eyes. Sleepy Cori stumbled into the room and begged me to pick her up. Those big brown eyes melt my heart every time she looks at me the way she was looking at me that morning.

“Go to daddy, sweetie,” I said, rushing past her. I hustled out of the bedroom, through the kitchen, and out the back door. The day was sunny but chilly. Cara could wear one of her winter outfits, which allowed me to finesse our EE-induced shortcomings a bit. My mood brightened. I went back into our bedroom, apologized for my craziness, and played with my babies. John made coffee.

After a few minutes I started rummaging through Cori's closet, where I kept the girls' fancier dresses, and I felt pretty satisfied with my options.

I laid out their dresses and focused on tidying up the house, cooking up a light breakfast and getting some work done on EE. The day seemed to be rolling along nicely enough. Then it came off the tracks.

Cara's shoes did not fit.

They were a pair of basic black patent-leather shoes, which complemented the navy blue dress with a big white bow that I helped Cara put on, along with stockings and a matching hair clip. She slipped a purse onto her shoulder and then started putting on her shoes. We discovered they were about a size and a half too small.

“C'mon, honey,” I told her, trying to feign brightness. “You . . . can . . . ,” I grunted as I shoved her feet in the shoes, “ . . . do . . . this.” With them packed inside, I sighed.

“There. See? Perfect. Okay. All set everyone?”

“No mommy,” Cara said. I could see she was in pain. “They hurt.”

I glanced at the clock. We were going to be late. I could envision my mother-in-law's critical expression.

“Jeeesus, Cara,” I said. “Toughen up. They're a little tight. So what? You can still wear them.”

“But mommy . . . ” She was moving straight to whining, so I cut her off.

“You're going to wear them. Do you understand me? You are going to wear those shoes.”

“Mommy . . . no . . . ” She was starting to cry now.

“Please, Cara!” I shouted. Shrill Mommy, the beast, was emerging. “Just keep them on. You can take them off in the car and inside church. No one will see. Wear those shoes, girl. Do you hear me?”

John had heard enough.

“Maggie,” he said, his voice a little loud—and John's voice is almost never loud. “Calm down. She's not wearing those shoes. Period. We'll have to figure out something else. Come on now. It's not the end of the world. Put some other shoes on her or let's find another dress. Let's just get this taken care of and move on.”

Cara started wailing.

“No. Noooo . . . I want to wear
this
dress.”

And, just like that, I was ready to bail. I thought,
I'm not prepared to endure this scene again and again for the next eight months. I'm not ready to force a three-year-old girl and her two-year-old sister to “toughen up.” Ridiculous.

“John,” I half-whispered. “Let's cheat. We can stop at Kmart on the way and get her some shoes. Nobody has to know.”

“No way.”

John Anderson is many things—a detail guy; a man of composure; a deeply protective, loving father; a financial wizard entrusted with millions of dollars of people's life savings; a mentor; a weekend basketball warrior. He had thought long and hard about the commitment we'd made nearly five months earlier. I knew, in the distinct tone of that two-word response, the discussion between husband and wife was over.

I found a sundress that was too big for Cara last year but now fit perfectly. She looked adorable in it, but more like she was going to a neighbor's pizza party than a christening. I thought about her cousin Ashley, who I was certain would be wearing a long dress, accentuated by a shawl, purse, stockings, and closed-toe, shiny shoes, and Cori, who was wearing a Cara hand-me-down ensemble consisting of a white seersucker strapless dress with embroidered fuchsia-colored flowers and a white shawl, white pantyhose, and dark pink shoes. Lovely.

Cara was going to wear an informal dress with spaghetti-straps and open-toed sandals. No sweater. It was barely acceptable attire.

When my in-laws arrived at the house and saw Cara, they couldn't hide their confusion.

“Is that what she's wearing?” my mother-in-law, Debbie, said. “It's cold outside.”

“Really?” I said lightly, ignoring the obvious, trying to rush us all out the door. “I thought it was warm out.”

“No, no,” Debbie said, and she stopped me. “It's one of those Chicago May days, you know. Looks like June. Feels like February. Let's hurry and put something else on her, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, my voice flat, defeated. I took Cara into our bedroom as if I was about to change her outfit. John was there and knew what was coming.

“No,” he said again. I sensed he was a little torn up inside too. “We're not going to cheat over this. She looks fine.”

“John, she looks ridiculous.” My voice was a mixture of pleading and anger. “You know how your family is. They're all going to be dressed up and Cara looks like she's going to Chuck E. Cheese's. Everybody in church is going to stare.”

Cara was whimpering on the bed, trying to figure out which one of us was on her side so she could beat down the other with her calf eyes. We both stared at her. John waited a few moments. Then he turned to me and I could see the pain and resolve in his face.

“You really want to throw this away, Mags?” he said. “After everything we've talked about for all these years? After all the planning? After saying that folks aren't taking a stand? You're just going to toss all of it out the window over a few hours of discomfort?”

“It's not tossing it all out the window,” I said. “It's just this once.” But I knew as soon as I said the words that I couldn't justify cheating “just this once.”

John gave me the smallest of smiles and his eyes softened. He put his hands on my shoulders. His voice was low, comforting. “We're going to do this, baby.”

Look, we all know that having a little girl wear a sundress and open-toed sandals to a formal occasion isn't a scarred-for-life, “Mommy Dearest” episode. But at the time, it mattered, if for no other reason than I was the one imposing this pain on my three-year-old daughter for a reason that she couldn't understand and that plenty of rational adults thought was futile and foolish. I looked like some sort of whacked-out activist trying to make a senseless point.

Cara whimpered throughout the service. I buried my head in the Bible, dug my nails into my skin, and prayed the day would end. I kept wondering whether I had forsaken my sweet babies for a purpose to which they had no connection and from which they would never benefit.

Still, I learned something that day: My commitment to our experiment was not only as strong as the one to my family—they were one and the same. The Empowerment Experiment comes from the love I have
for my girls, a love anchored in the desire to cultivate their understanding that helping others—even if it hurts sometimes—is a core value of our family.

Sure, my girls—especially Cara—would have to feel the burn before I could fully explain fire. During our Black year we all would get hurt as we grappled with the issues we had tried to evade or examine from a distance. But someday, I kept telling myself, maybe my daughters will understand that taking a stand often creates collateral damage.

Chapter 7

S
LOGGING.

That's what the middle of the year felt like, even though we were getting attention from some of the largest Black and mainstream media outlets. We appeared on CNN (twice), MSNBC, and Fox News, and we were featured in comprehensive segments for
Time
magazine and BET News. Tom Joyner and Roland Martin, the two most venerated Black media personalities, interviewed us. We'd been on the front page of the
Chicago Tribune
and received coverage in the
Los Angeles Times
. People often told us that we'd brought more media attention to the plight of Black businesses than any previous effort. Our Facebook group, “Fans of The Empowerment Experiment,” earned over three thousand members between April and June—we hadn't passed the five or six hundred–membership mark in the first couple months of the group's existence. The overwhelming majority of daily e-mails I received came from supporters. We were working hard, and the results were energizing. But even with all that, there was huge anchor weighing down our high spirits.

One of our inspirations was Karriem Beyah. By this time he and his store were the spiritual and geographic center of our commitment—primarily because he was such a terrific guy and his wonderful place was on the South Side, near several other stores where we'd shop. Jordan's Closets was on 47th Street, just a mile and a half east of Farmers Best. A born
“mompreneur,” Joslyn and her mother, Jera, were equal partners in Jordan's Closets and Jordan's Mom's Closets, upscale resale-clothing boutiques in a still-dicey part of Bronzeville. They began planning their business in 2001 while they were working their day jobs, but they were unable to secure a bank loan—no surprise. After Joslyn's grandmother and an aunt and uncle offered financial assistance, the two women opened their first store in 2006. They named it after Joslyn's daughter, who was about five years old at the time.

“We wanted to be in a place where we could help our community,” Joslyn, who was born and raised on the South Side, told me. “I didn't necessarily think I was going to get rich by running Jordan's Closets, but I wanted to give something to the community. Children around here already have a lot stacked against them.”

She offered lovely, clean, low-priced clothes, but she had to educate potential customers about a resale-clothing boutique, which many people had never heard of. The community patronized the store, but the store was also burglarized three times—twice in one night—in the first couple years of its existence. Still, the business made a powerful statement: Counting Joslyn's daughter, Jordan, who helped out around the place, three generations of African American women were running a retail establishment. I wanted to support them.

As long as I was in the neighborhood, I'd drop in and visit with Milton Latrell at the swanky Agriculture Crop of Clothing. Right next door was my new favorite coffee shop, Bronzeville Coffee, which was also where I bought bagels, as I still hadn't found a Black bakery that sold them. If I had some time, I'd run four blocks east to see Nicole Jones at Sensual Steps Shoe Salon, whether or not I was in the market for shoes. She was the center of Bronzeville's small Black business community, and something interesting was always going on at her store.