I shivered backstage. I could hear the crowd screaming just beyond the curtain. I gulped. I’ve spoken in front of crowds before. But 250,000? That was a little more than I’d bargained for. It was certainly more than my friend Jackie had told me to expect.
Jackie had called me shortly after the 2016 presidential election, when groups across the country were scrambling to organize women’s marches not just in Washington, DC, but everywhere. I’d heard Chicago was hosting one, too, and Jackie was one of the cofounders.
“How would you like to speak at the Women’s March?” she asked me.
By now, I was speaking anywhere and everywhere that would let me in front of a microphone. I wanted to spread my message about helping young people and encourage everybody to care about them and invest in their futures. The first time I ever spoke at the African American Legacy Initiative in 2004, I was terrified. It was only a few dozen people, but it might as well have been a few thousand. My knees were knocking the whole time, I was stammering and sweating. But the Lord got me through. And He kept bringing me more opportunities. Every time, I felt a little more confident. Eventually, I forgot to be nervous.
At first, I’d write out every single word before I gave a speech. But every time, without fail, my heart told me to say something else. I spoke what the Lord brought to my mind. As I spoke, I could see people nodding and leaning forward, hanging on every word. So from then on, I spoke from my heart. I didn’t try to impress anyone. I just spoke my truth, with no regrets. And the speaking invitations kept coming. I even spoke before the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership World Leadership Congress at the Superdome.
So when Jackie had told me to expect 25,000 people at the Chicago Women’s March, I didn’t give it a second thought. She told me I could speak about what I did with kids in Chicago and encourage other people to step up and help. The day came, and I was hopped up with energy. I couldn’t wait to jump onstage and speak to thousands of women hungry for change, ready to make a difference.
James drove me downtown to Grant Park, and I lined up backstage with what felt like a gazillion other speakers. Over the course of three hours, each of us would get a few minutes to speak. I could tell the organizers were going out-of-their-minds crazy. It turned out their estimation of 25,000 people was a little off. By their count, about 250,000 people had braved the freezing temperatures and nightmarish traffic to stand through three hours of speeches. There were so many people that there wasn’t even room to march. This was bigger than the Superdome. Probably bigger than any crowd I’d ever see in my lifetime. And now, all these people were about to hear about KOB.
When the emcee announced my name, she accidentally called me the lead singer of Kids Off the Block, but I was too consumed by the crowd to notice. I walked onstage and took in the sea of people stretching before me. I couldn’t see the end of it. Old women and young girls. Mamas and babies in strollers. Black, white, Latina, and Asian. Well-to-do and poor. Everybody was scrunched together in their coats and pink hats. They held up signs and cheered. I drank it in, a lump forming in my throat. These people really care, I thought. No way they’d be out here in the middle of this crowd if they didn’t. If I could get this many people to care about helping young people, what could we do?
I have never experienced the kind of high I did that day, shouting into the microphone as the crowd screamed and hollered.
“You might not know who I am, but I’m gonna tell you who I am.” I could barely hear my own voice over the constant roar of the giant crowd. “I’m one of the thousands of women across this country who came out of their house and opened their door to the young people in their community to stop the violence.” I told them my story of opening my home to gang members, troubled youth, and kids nobody else wanted to help and how I did it with no money or help, just a passion for the community.
The more they cheered, the more pumped up I got. My voice rose and I lifted my arms, my long, black peacoat flapping in the wind behind me. “I want you to care!” I shouted as the audience’s cheers grew louder. “Don’t forget about our young people in these neighborhoods! They need you!”
That high didn’t fade as I walked off the stage and down the steps in the back. I wanted to jump in the air, pump my fist, and scream, “Yes!” I only came back to earth when I realized I had to get home somehow. James was supposed to meet me downtown, but one look at that crowd and I knew that wasn’t happening. I called him and told him to meet me four blocks away, where traffic would be at least a little more manageable. Getting there, however, would be no easy task. One step at a time, I had to cross that crowd.
There was no politely sidestepping people without bumping into anybody or saying “excuse me” every time I had to squeeze past somebody. Not when everybody was standing shoulder-to-shoulder, facing the opposite direction. This was taking forever. I imagined James sitting in the car, fussing to himself as he looked at the clock.
As I walked by, a look of recognition crossed women’s faces. They realized I was the same woman they’d just seen shouting at the crowd on the stage. And over and over again, they grabbed my arm to stop me. They were all the colors of the rainbow with just one thing in common—they were older women.
“I want to do something too,” women said over and over. “I’m tired of being mad behind my computer. I want to do more.”
They were all repeating the same refrain. One woman literally wouldn’t let go of my arm.
After I finally made it out of the crowd and was back in the car with James, their words echoed in my memory. I barely answered him when he asked me how it went. My mind was in another place. I couldn’t stop thinking about all these women, desperate to do something, with no idea how to break out of their everyday lives and do it.
For the last thirteen years, I had been laser-focused on young people. I woke up thinking about what somebody needed or what I could do to help them that day. I stayed up at night looking up articles on my iPad and researching ways I could run the best program. I learned their raps, ate their food, spoke their slang. I’d never looked around and thought about anybody else who could use my help. For the first time, my mind was on women my age. Women like me. Women who felt like I had thirteen years ago. They were supposed to do something, but they had no idea how to do it.
Those women at the march that day were strangers, but somehow I knew them. I was them. I knew what it was like to feel stuck in the everyday routine of dinner and dishes, house chores and homework help. As women, we put our husbands, children, even our houses before ourselves. To step out, to add one more thing to your plate, to inconvenience your family, to change the routine—it all seems scary.
Once you hit forty, it’s easy to feel like your best days are over. Your kids grow up and move on, your once-crazy house is suddenly quiet and empty. You think you’re too old to dream anymore, that your days stretch out before you with no excitement, no variety. If your career isn’t what you’d wanted, it feels too late to make a change.
Back when my mom first told me to do something about these kids, I was so angry about the violence and hopelessness in my neighborhood. But, while I was standing by my living room window, I heard God speak so clearly it was like He was standing in the room with me. He wanted me to walk outside and bring those kids into my home. I had nothing more than my living room and an itty-bitty laptop to research after-school programs. I had no experience. I wasn’t qualified. I had to learn and make mistakes along the way. Now I have a life because of KOB. I still have my family. I still love taking care of them, and being a wife and mother is still my top priority. But I have a life that doesn’t depend on them. And that makes me jump out of bed in the morning ready to go. I don’t live with regrets. I don’t lie in bed thinking I should have or I could have. I did. Because the Lord called me to do it.
Would I have had the courage to follow the Lord’s call if my mom hadn’t pushed and prodded me along? She called out the Lord’s anointing on me. She brought it up every chance she got and wouldn’t let me off the hook. If I hadn’t listened to God, I would have had to face my mama.
What if these women had somebody mentoring them? I thought. What if somebody helped them figure out their passion? What if someone just pushed them in the right direction? What if they understood they could get going with no degree or special training and that nobody was holding them back but themselves? If I could do it, then surely they could too.
I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. I lay in bed that night, trying to go to sleep. This new idea was there when I dragged myself out of bed the next morning and planned what the kids and I would do that evening. I felt just like I had back when I was first starting KOB. And I’d learned enough by then to know that when a thought won’t leave my head, it’s from the Lord. And if it’s from the Lord, I’d better listen.
Suddenly, it came to me. I picked up the phone and called Jackie and Lehia. “We gotta do something to help women get involved. I want to call it Fierce Over 40.”
The vision was so clear now. I saw us creating a mentoring program for women in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and beyond. We’d set up a website, send out newsletters, and host events to help encourage women to stop writing angry posts on Facebook, get out from behind their computers, and go do something. Wherever they may be, with whatever tools or abilities they may have, we’d encourage them to go do something.
Jackie and Lehia sat down with me and helped me write out a plan for this new undertaking. Then, when I told one of my friends about the idea, she had the idea to launch it at the Black Women’s Expo. She brought me straight to the founder, and, oh boy, we were off and running.
Dozens of women stopped by our booth to sign up for our newsletter and mentoring events. Just like at the Women’s March, I heard again and again about how they desperately wanted to do something but didn’t know how to get started. I told them I wasn’t just offering them a website and an email address. I gave them my home address. I told them to stop by anytime and I’d help them face-to-face.
It was just like KOB. When you open up your door with the Lord’s blessing, the people will come. People like Denise Richards—not the actress. She was a nurse who worked in a hospital taking care of babies. She sat in my living room one day crying her eyes out.
“I just want to do something,” she said. “I love babies, and they’re dying.”
She told me she was sick of seeing babies writhing in pain from diseases that were completely preventable. She hated watching mothers deliver unhealthy babies because they either didn’t have access to prenatal care or just didn’t come to their appointments. She felt helpless standing by, watching it all happen, unable to stop it.
“So, you’re in the facility with them?” I asked her. “What’s holding you back from doing something?”
Denise confided that the hospital has rules about what nurses can and can’t do. If she passed out pamphlets or gave advice that didn’t come from the hospital, she could find herself out on the street and out of a job.
I understood where she was coming from. I remembered what it was like to bend over backward to keep a job. But I also thought her words sounded a lot like an excuse.
I sat next to her and put my arm around her shoulders. “You have the whole world at your fingertips,” I told her. “You have a computer. Why don’t you start a website? Just one page. Then see what else you feel like you can do.”
She nodded slowly. I could see the wheels turning in her mind.
“Then you reach out,” I said. “Show your website to your friends and family. Let people know you have it. See if they’re interested in helping you. Because you probably got other nurses and doctors who care about this same issue. You’re not alone out there.”
Denise listened. She walked out my door determined to make a difference. I kept meeting with her regularly as she started a website and created one-pagers of information on infant and maternal health care. She created a group of like-minded people to help her research and brainstorm ideas. And she’s well on her way to creating a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. She’s not crying anymore. She’s empowered. Fierce Over 40 did that.
Helping women like Denise spurred a new passion inside me. I had no idea that other women were like me, afraid to step out from the sidelines. They just needed somebody to say, “You can do it.” Women came to me who were divorced, widowed, single, empty nesters, searching for that thing in their life that lights their heart on fire. Some of them had given up on their dreams when they were younger. Some of them truly believed that life had passed them by. I told them that it’s not too late. They’re not trapped. They’re free.
I felt inspired and energized seeing other women realize that maybe, just maybe, they had dreams left to dream. They could go volunteer at a homeless shelter or start one themselves if one didn’t exist in their area. They could create a website, mentor a kid, visit the elderly. Wherever they were, whatever resources they had, there was something they could do to make a difference.
My energy and excitement must have been contagious, because it wasn’t long before Aisha approached me. “Ma, what about young women?” she asked. “We want to do something too.”
I don’t know if I’d ever been prouder than I was in that moment. I grinned and wrapped my arms around her in a big bear hug. “Let’s do something about that.”
Together we created a sister organization, Fierce Under 40. Aisha volunteered to be the president and to help mentor women who came to her.
Aisha sure grew up to be something, I thought, my heart about to burst. A tall, intelligent, strong woman stood where a gangly girl once had. In Aisha, I saw the past and the future of KOB. One day, I’ll be too old to run around after these teenagers. When that day comes, I know Aisha will be ready to take the reins. Lord knows she could run this program in her sleep already.
I started Fierce Over 40 for other women, but it turned out the Lord wasn’t done giving me dreams. The more I mentored other women, the more the Lord spoke to my heart. Opening up my front door was just the first step, He showed me. There are kids who need help in other cities too. Kids who aren’t welcome at other organizations. Kids who just need somebody to give them goals for the future, to speak hope into their lives, to show them that there’s more available to them than drugs and gangs. I’ve seen them myself when I’ve traveled around the country on a bus, showing the kids in KOB that there’s more to the world than their little neighborhood.
More cities need KOB, I clearly felt the Lord tell me. People who are fed up with violence in their communities need someone to help them open their own grassroots programs and mentor kids on their blocks. I started to dream of traveling to cities and helping to raise up people in their neighborhoods. I could mentor them, showing them what I’ve learned and starting them off on the right foot.
I’m no expert. I’ve done what I could by the grace of God. I’m certainly not qualified to teach people how to open a nonprofit. But if the Lord has called me, then I know He’ll equip me for the job. He’s never let me down yet.