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In the last issue, I provided insight into my youth and how my experiences shaped my worldview and relationship with the world. Like many of my generation, I carried the burden of always being watched and observed. I felt obligated to represent us—the Black race—well. This responsibility encompassed so many things, yet it was simply the way things were. I had no idea back then that this was pressure. I just knew it was my responsibility. It was an expectation of my parents, grandparents, neighbors, and church to represent us with dignity. I was happy to do so, unaware of the deep enigma this posed.
I just knew that I had to dress, walk, talk, and carry myself in a certain way. I had to be a young lady at all times, never out of character. Anything else would bring shame upon my family and community. I grew up in North Avondale, Cincinnati, and attended North Avondale Elementary. We had tennis courts and swim classes. I belonged to the Great Books Club, played the violin, and studied ballet. We went to the symphony on field trips. There were three of us—three Black girls in our class from kindergarten through fourth grade, when William arrived.
William was a little different from us. He spoke differently, which disturbed me at first. However, I quickly noticed that he was intelligent and exceptionally skilled in mathematics, which always earned my respect.
Fast forward to high school. The four of us advanced to the same college preparatory school filled with very privileged kids. It was essentially a continuation of the same environment we’d experienced in elementary school. Though we were the "BBs" of football team stars, we were also the scholar champs in everything. We carried a sense of pride and, admittedly, some arrogance.
We didn’t encounter blatant racial incidents, but we were keenly aware of what was happening around us. I served as the secretary of the citywide Black Student Union (BSU). Our adult mentor was a pastor and the president of the NAACP.
One day, everything seemed fine. The next, two Black male students were expelled from Withrow High School. They were seniors, and the expulsion meant they wouldn’t graduate. The BSU convened, and we decided to call a citywide student strike. Black and white students sat in and protested for three days until the Public School System ordered us back to class, threatening to call our parents to escort us home.
I’ll never forget when my friend and neighbor Debbie Marcus’s mother came to get her. Debbie was sitting next to me when her mother spoke to me briefly and then said to her, “Let’s go. This is not your fight.”
That moment hit me like a ton of bricks. Up until then, I hadn’t fully grasped the racial undertones or all that they meant.
That was my first act of defiance. The school administration issued an ultimatum: students had to return to class, or parents would face accountability for their children’s suspension. My mother was prepared to come and take me back to school, but my father asked me if the strike was important to me. I said yes. He then asked if I was ready to commit for the long haul. My parents were MLK supporters and had attended the March on Washington. I always believed my father was proud of me.
He left to smooth things over with my mother. Meanwhile, the BSU organized alternative schooling in churches, where Black teachers joined in to instruct us. We continued our coursework and persisted with the strike, which lasted six weeks. In the end, we won. That was my first involvement in something racially motivated.
Two years later, I went off to college. There were only 99 Black students on campus, as the university maintained that number by only admitting as many Black students as had graduated. Lake Forest College felt a lot like my high school, and I loved it.
During my time there, I had the opportunity to study abroad at Fourah Bay University in Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa. One day, our professor lectured on our responsibility to the next generation and said, “We must save the chiren.” I literally fell out of my chair and wept.
Everyone tried to console me, thinking I was crying for the children. But my shame stemmed from something else entirely. In that moment, I understood for the first time the origin of why our people mispronounced the English word children. It was due to their accents, just like Chinese, Japanese, or Spanish speakers sometimes struggle with certain English pronunciations.
It was then that I realized how deprived we had been of exposure. Africans had not been allowed to freely immigrate to the U.S. until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Until then, we had limited communication with Africans.
Visionary Kai EL´ Zabar has worked as CEO of arts organizations and as editor, writer and multimedia consultant accumulating a significant number of years in experience as an executive, journalist,publisher, public relations, media training, marketing, internal and external communications. Kai currently continues her life’s work as Editor-in-Chief Of Chicago News Weekly where she has resumed her column, “E NOTES.” She is ecstatic to be in the position to grace Chicago and the world with a publication that articulates the Black voice.