Throughout history, Black mothers balanced their responsibilities at home with their obligations to community.
Oftentimes, as seen in the case of Ida B. Wells and other Black female professionals of the 19th and 20th centuries, those worlds often collided, which compelled colleagues and detractors alike to question whether women could in fact do it all.
Despite the hurdles, women of color, particularly those in the District, continue to carry on this tradition to this very day.
For many mothers, like Titania L. Best, there’s no choice to make between her children and her community. It’s just a matter of how to provide the best possible example of grassroots activism to her young ones.
“My children and I work together in our activism,” said Best, a 34-year-old Northwest mother of three who organizes District families around the accumulation of resources and their collective healing.
Earlier this year, she and her son Teron Jr. counted among those who stormed the Hospital for Sick Children Pediatric Center in Northeast in support of a mother fighting for reunification with her daughter and autonomy over her daughter’s long-term medical care.
Best told The Informer that the situation, among several, provides ample opportunity for Teron Jr., 12, and her other children, Taniyah, 15, and Taan, 7, to gain real-world experience and find their voice as activists.
Teron Jr., a student advocate and scholar-activist who attends the Social Justice School in Northeast, most recently came into his own as a young person speaking out against sexual abuse and assault.
As her family pursues justice and equity, Best explains how she puts systems in place to ensure that her children find their voice as young activists.
“In our household, we are a dynamic team and partners in a life journey,” Best said. “We go out as a team and do speaking engagements. If we can find a program that allows us to serve, then we will sign up and make ourselves available.”
For 15 years, Best has taken her children along on the ride as she traveled across the District, imparting wisdom and organizing with other parents around their healing and self-determination. That journey started at Training Grounds, Inc. in Southeast, where Best learned how to engage community members and serve as a liaison between residents and service providers.
These days, Best partners with the Social Justice School as a parent liaison and community engagement specialist. She will soon speak before the D.C. Public Charter School Board in support of the Social Justice School’s move to a new building. She’s also pursuing a partnership with the School of Harvest, an up-and-coming local Montessori school.
Within the greater D.C. community, Best hosts events about various topics, including motherhood, resource gaps, and bullying. She also conducts virtual empowerment sessions where mothers have candid conversations, and a monthly teen and adult open mic in collaboration with Lamond-RIggs/Lillian J. Huff Neighborhood Library in Northeast.
Another aspect of Best’s activism involves nature walks she goes on with men and children. During those walks, Best gets to spend time with her children while engaging participants in discussion about past trauma and how to make room for mental, spiritual and financial health.
Best said she relishes in spending time with Taniyah, who she said is coming into her own as a teenager and encountering problems similar to what Best experienced. She said that she does her best to forge a bond with Taniyah and provide experiences and resources that she didn’t receive as a child.
Despite a barrage of adverse childhood experiences, including sexual and physical abuse at the hands of men, Best continues to persevere with what she calls greater clarity about her life’s purpose. And she does so with her children by her side and at the forefront of her mind.
“My life was designed for activism,” Best said. “I tell mothers to be patient and kind with themselves, to make peace and always seek a greater understanding. … It’s not about what we’re going through but what we’re getting into. If you allow things to happen to you, then they do, but if you allow them to happen for you, then you can grow.”
Role Modeling Authenticity in the Fight for Food Sovereignty
When Jaren Hill Lockridge first moved to D.C., her son Stefan was four weeks old. Now he’s a high school sophomore and he has 5-year-old twin sisters, Jhene and Jheni.
“At the beginning of my career, it was really about being the best mom I could be for my son,” Hill Lockridge said. “Now, I’m also the mother of two beautiful Black identical twin girls in Ward 8.
She said she’s learned a lot about motherhood over the years.
“Being a mom, being a wife, being a daughter is always in relationship to somebody else. But being a woman, being myself — it’s about being who I am authentically. … And showing my daughters what it means for me to be a healthy, whole woman, not in relationship to someone else, but just as myself.”
Hill Lockridge leads the Ward 8 Health Council and works to advocate for and build “place-based” food justice and environmental wellness for Ward 8. Currently, she is working with Dreaming Out Loud on plans to start up a new market on Marion Barry Avenue.
“When we talk about food sovereignty and food justice, it’s not always about giving food away,” she explained. “It’s about the economics of food access, and what does it mean for us to be in control of our food system for real.”
All three of her children participate in the Ward 8 Water Watchers program, which provides outdoor education opportunities where kids learn from scientific experts about issues impacting local waterways like Oxon Run Creek. The family spends time outside together “hugging trees,” and planting them — Hill Lockridge envisions planting a forest close by.
“My kids have everything to do with the role of advocacy that I play,” she said. “I’m trying to be who I needed — while also trying to build who I know we’re going to need in the future.”
In the Headlines: Mothers at GWU‘s Palestinian Solidarity Encampment
On the fourth day of the student protest at George Washington University, alicia sanchez gill (who spells her name in all lowercase letters) joined the crowd of supporters outside of the encampment, alongside her wife and their 3-year-old. Currently she works as the executive director of the Emergent Fund, an organization that provides rapid-response grants for movement-building, and it’s important to her to pass on the value of activism and solidarity.
“What’s happening to children and families in Gaza is connected to what’s happening to children, particularly Black children, in the United States,” sanchez gill said. “Police violence, carceral violence, militarized violence in the U.S. is connected to what’s happening to children and families in Palestine, and it’s really important for our child to know that even at this age.”
Many parents with young children showed up to the protest that Sunday to support peace in Gaza and the cause of Palestinian liberation more broadly. The group DC/DMV Families for Ceasefire, which has mobilized a small but growing Instagram presence to encourage families to join protests on the issue since late last year.
Julie, a mother of two and one of the organizers behind DC/DMV Families for Ceasefire, who declined to share her last name, said that she wanted her elementary school-aged children to see themselves represented in the college students’ activism.
“It spoke a lot to me for these young adults to be out here and for our children to see these students activating at their schools — because that’s one of the environments that our children are in most of their day,” she said.
Parents and organizers came up with many creative ways to allow kids to be involved; Ward 8-based nonprofit Play & Thrive DC provided chalk, bubbles and snacks so that kids could participate. Sitting on the ground with a few grownup demonstrators, sanchez gill’s child, Kade, painted swirls with the colors of the Palestinian flag — black, white, green and red.
“Police violence, carceral violence [and] militarized violence in the U.S. is connected to what’s happening to children and families in Palestine, and it’s really important for our child to know that, even at this age — in an age-appropriate way,” sanchez gill said. “So they’re out here to show solidarity in ways that make sense for a toddler.”
Still, it’s not always easy protesting with a toddler in tow. Heedless of any conversation their mom might be having, Kade at one point tossed aside the paintbrushes and laid down, shirtless, on the ground.
“We’re here because Palestinians deserve freedom, they deserve autonomy and to make decisions about the next steps in their own futures without the — hang on,” sanchez gill said. “Kade, baby, off of the asphalt.”