By Kwan Booth
A child of the 1950s, Zeola was born in Mound Bayou, an all Black Mississippi town. With three siblings: Matilda, Mattie and Robert, she was raised by three strong Black women: her mother, her aunt and her grandmother.
She tells me that “there’s a song by Helen Baylor that goes, ‘I’ve got a praying grandmother’, well I had a praying grandmother, mother and aunt!”
I. Family
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
~The 23rd Psalm
The 23rd Psalm hung on the wall of Zeola Slaughter’s house, and it was the first thing she and her four siblings learned to read. Yes, indeed. Her grandma made sure of it.
“There it is, right there,” she’d say. “Read that. Learn it.”
Zeola did. And the message of that Psalm has carried her through a long life of service and community commitment.
A child of the 1950s, Zeola was born in Mound Bayou, an all Black Mississippi town. With three siblings: Matilda, Mattie and Robert, she was raised by three strong Black women: her mother, her aunt and her grandmother.
She tells me that “there’s a song by Helen Baylor that goes, ‘I’ve got a praying grandmother’, well I had a praying grandmother, mother and aunt!”
They grew up in what they called “The family mansion,” a small house in the middle of town. And what space wasn’t filled with family was filled with neighbors, friends and community members—everybody came through their house at one point or another. All this today about everybody got to have their room and their own space. There was none of that. Her sister and her shared the bed together and it was all good. All love.
Grandma was a stay at home mom. Her daddy and grandaddy worked the land. Mom picked cotton and kept houses for a spell before going to nursing school and heading up to Chicago to find work. Her aunt worked in St. Louis. Even her and her siblings worked. Cooking, helping in the garden, bringing water out to the men working in the fields. Everybody pulled their weight. Everyone helped build the community.
II. Grandmamma
Cast your bread out on the water.
~Ecclesiastes 11:1
Growing up Grandma Hattie would always tell Zeola to “cast your bread out on the water.” But back then times were tough and Zeola always thought “Shoot! If I had some extra bread, I’m gonna eat it myself!”
But she was younger then. As she got older and went out into the world, Zeola kept her grandmother’s words close and let them guide her in her commitment to serving others.
Her grandma was a central figure in her life, staying at home to tend the house and mind the kids while the other adults worked. Grandma instilled a sense of pride and responsibility early on.
“She just told me that she’d been through a lot and she wouldn’t take anything from anybody,” Zeola said of her grandmother.
Even the white people called Zeola’s grandma “Miss Hattie”. What kind of force was she to garner that respect from southern whites in the racist south of the 1950’s?
Zeola explained that her grandmother was type of woman that gave her plenty of advice towards earning the same respect,“…just prepare yourself,” she’d say. “People mistreat you just move on. And always help other people along the way. Lift, climb, lift, climb. Lift, climb.”
III. All Black Everything
Say it loud. I’m Black and I’m proud!
~James Brown
Zeola Slaughter was raised in Mound Bayou Mississippi, an all black town of about 5,000 people, cradled by the Mississippi Delta.
An all Black town in Mississippi.
An all Black town in Mississippi in the 1950’s. Imagine that. Right at the height of the fight for Civil Rights. In the epicenter of the white sheets and cross burnings, Zeola grew up in a town where Black personhood and Black liberty and Black people thrived. Black people existed and could walk down the street and not hang their heads or lower their gaze or step off the sidewalk for nobody.
“I heard about people having to sit in the back of buses and movie theaters,” she recalled. But Black people in Mound Bayou didn’t have to sit in the back of nothing.
“We didn’t have all the tall buildings,” she recalls. “…but there was a sense of community pride, of ownership and possibility. There were all kinds of people with all kinds of positions with schools and clinics and movie theaters and a post office and banks and everything.”
The closest thing to segregation was a couple towns over in Merigold. The first time Zeola experienced any hint of racism was when she accompanied her grandmother to see Dr. Westerfield over in Merigold. This was in the 1960’s, and her grandmother had to explain to her why there were separate sections for white people and Black people.
But best believe that after that, Dr. Westerfield came to Mound Bayou to make house calls whenever they needed the physician. Cuz Miss Hattie didn’t take anything from anybody.
IV. A Commitment to Service
To whom much is given, much will be required.
~Luke 12:48
Zeola grew up in the kind of place that if you didn’t make the honor roll your coach would give you a spanking. Then on the way home your friend’s mom would give you and her child a spanking; then the neighbor would take a go; and then you’d get home and have to answer to Mamma, Auntie, and Grandma
“It wasn’t abuse,” Zeola assured. “It was everybody looking out for you. It was a reminder that we were better. So we had to do better.
Imagine not just a village, but a whole town of caring Black people to raise and look out for you and instill in you a commitment to serve yourself, your community and people that looked like you. And people that looked like us were going through it.”
Zeola gained strength and a sense of purpose listening to and reading King, Hamer, Cookman, Medgar Evars, John Lewis. These were her role models and aspirations growing up in Mound Bayou, and she had just over 5,000 people at her back to make sure she lived up to them.
V. Migrations
I’m just trying to put some paint where it ain’t.
~Black people proverb
In those days you went where the action was, where the need was, where you could get ahead and make a way.
There was never a question of if Zeola was going to college. It was just a question of which one. Although she wanted to go to Jackson State, Alcorn was giving the money. So her first migration was only a few hours away to the historically Black university where she spent four years studying humanities and English and learning to think more critically about the world she was preparing to enter.
The big migration West came on a whim. While visiting her uncle in Oakland in the mid 1970’s, Zeola got a job and started a 35-year career as an educator. During this time, school superintendent Marcus Foster was actively recruiting recent Black college graduates to be educators and administrators in Oakland schools.
Oakland’s great migration may have been partially industrial, but thanks to Foster and teachers like Miss Zeola, an influx of new energy migrated into the school systems as well.
VI. The Town
“Hold on to your dreams of a better life and stay committed to striving to realize it.”
~Earl G. Graves, Sr.
Oakland was a pleasant experience because so many people were from the south. There was so much going on, and Zeola was always determined to participate and do her part. Soon after she touched foot in the town, she found herself involded in unions, church and different social and political organizations during the day; and house parties, book clubs and hanging out at Lake Merritt on the weekends.
Miss Zeola was Miss Dashiki queen! She wore her hip huggers, afro and dashiki’s. This was the time of Sly and the Family Stone, “Uncle” Charlie Wilson, The Gap Band, Maze and The Pointer Sisters. She stayed hip and tuned into the sounds of the day, “You never knew who you’d see or what kind of sounds you’d hear,” she said.
This was the time of Black power and afro picks. Huey Newton was a fellow member of Antioch church. Revolution, politics and education were in the air like church hymnals. It was a spirit that Zeola caught and brought to all of her work. During her 35-year teaching career, Zeola taught Kindergarten to sixth grade in 13 different schools from the Flatland to the Oakland hills. She always looked for ways to teach her kids about social responsibility and giving back to their communities. Whether it was through her time running Student Council programs at Sobrante and Santa Fe or being a teacher/mentor for the last 15 years of her career.
VII. The Now
“The time is always right to do what is right.”
~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Even now, after her official retirement, she’s still on the move and making things happen. She’s still active in the local chapters of the National Council of Negro Women, the NAACP, the Oakland chapter of Zeta Phi Beta and recently returned to work administering tests in local elementary schools. Before the pandemic, she spent her off time as ombudsman, advocating for Oakland Seniors.
She says she just wants to continue to pursue her passions for working with younger and older people. She’s been watching the changes in Oakland over the last few years and isn’t quite sure which direction we’re heading. Friends have gotten pushed out, and she’s unsure of how the new mayor will solve the city’s myriad issues.
She says the Town has a different feeling. Yet, she still has hope and advice for the younger generation:
“I would tell them that they can be anything that they want to be. Get the training, maintain themselves and keep trying to matter. Push ahead and persevere.”
By Kwan Booth
Kwan Booth is an award winning writer focused on the intersection of media, technology and social justice. His journalism and creative writing have been published in anthologies, journals and news sites including The Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, “CHORUS: a literary mixtape” and “Beyond the Frontier: African American Poets for the 21st Century”. His awards include a Sigma Delta Chi Award for investigative journalism, The Editor’s Prize from Saint Mary’s College and two Pushcart Prize nominations for fiction. More info at Boothism.org.
