Evil Eyes

From Seko:

[Mi Madre holding her newest grand-daughter Domnique.]

This was my first trip with poppi(11/13/07). Dad needed to go to the conference office to teach a class for the newest ministers in the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ. While driving those sleepy country Suffolk Virginia roads dad began drifting into stories of Mama.

Pops met mom as he returned from ministering in Scotland. A minister supervising him shared to pops "when you return to the states and go to Atlanta I want you to meet a friend of mine who is in the administration at Columbia Theological Seminary. They took in their first female Negro student and they need help." (One of Mom's Ministers and mentors was the first Negro male to attend the school a few years prior). Pops then shared how Mom was that female Negro and she caught hell from the other students studying to be ministers. This administrator and the administration of the school were courageous..... they courted this negro after her Presbyterian church-college, Agnes Scott College, refused to take her (since they sent their negro-money to Stillman College to help thier Negro Presbyterians). Pops shared how mama would sometimes be the only student in her classes as others peers would drop the course as soon as they saw her. By providing support to this hard-headed girl catching death threats and harassment from her 'Christian' peers Dad fell in love. He was there as my grandmother lost jobs when they found out mom was marching in the civil rights marches and was going to their school. Mom took the pain, cried her tears, passed the tests, and graduated. Mom shared with me that she caught Hell from the 'Christian' professors and her 'Christian' peers because she was both a woman and Black. She shared how the only outright support came from the ladies who were attending the college as they were facing the evils of sexism. Some of the professors hated the fact that women were being trained in the ministry. Mom was leery of the women, but she accepted thier support. A female white-peer who supported Mom painted a masterpiece full of color with many pairs of wicked eyes looking forward. Those eyes were Mom's classmates. (Interestingly enough Mom's classmate painted the faces of the evil eye folks brown.) I remember seeing this painting hanging in the basement-closet of our home in New York. I always wondered why a painting would be hanging in a closet. I remember seeing this painting in our garage while living in Columbus, Ohio. I always wondered why Mom would look at this work of art and stiffen her bottom lip with tears welling in her sleep deprived eyes. I remember getting a beating for something and mom catching a glimpse of those brightly-wicked eyes. She fell to her knees and sobbed. Then I didn't care, my beating ceased. Mom hated that painting and gave it to an aunt who hung in prominently in her college dormitory. Mama's pain, Aunties' propeller. Today I am thankful for those eyes. Mom made history and opened doors for our people....Daddy fell in love. Thank the creator for evil eyes.