Wise Words - Brief Article

Ebony, March, 2001 by Laura Randolph Lancaster

EVERY Sister I know has experienced them: Times when the wisdom of another Black woman has shaped or simplified or saved her life. Moments when the words of a Sister brought her clarity or comfort or courage, and sometimes all three. Times when a Sister-friend's counsel gave her exactly what she needed when she needed it most.

As anyone who has ever sat in a room full of Black women--aunties, neighbors, grandmas, girlfriends--can tell you, Sisters know things, important things, about life and how to live it. Things that can push or pull you through. Things that make us, Black women, the ultimate survivors.

Remember all the hullabaloo surrounding the highly successful television series Survivor? Last season's breakout hit had folks across the country glued to their television sets last summer to see who would outwit, outlast and outdo whom. Trust me, had a Sister been among the finalists on that island, well, let's just say there would have been a very different outcome. There is no way that the fat, naked guy would have scored the million bucks; I don't care how many alliances he formed.

The game, not to mention the level of competition at which it was played, would have been vastly different for several reasons he cannot begin to divine. Every Sister in America, however, knows why. Because of what Abbey Lincoln and Toni Morrison said.

"Any Black human being able to survive the horrendous and evil circumstances in which one inevitably finds oneself trapped must be some kind of a giant with great and peculiar abilities, with an armor as resistant as steel yet made of purest gold," Lincoln said.

And Black women in particular have "this uncanny ability to shape an untenable reality, mold it, sing it, reduce it to its manageable, transforming essence which is a knowing so deep it's like a secret," Morrison said.

To celebrate the annual Women's History Month, this month's column is a treasure trove of "secrets." A special collection of wise words from a special collection of wise women. Words to help us keep the faith. Words to help us keep it together. Words to help us keep on keeping on.

Among some of the most treasured of those "secrets" are the following entries:

1. "When the sky's the limit, how can you tell you've gone too far?" --Rita Dove

2. "You never find yourself until you face the truth." --Pearl Bailey

3. "Once you know who you are, you don't have to worry anymore." --Nikki Giovanni

4. "You are the only person who can forgive yourself. Once that forgiving has taken place, you can then console yourself with the knowledge that a diamond is the result of extreme pressure ... The pressure can make you something quite precious, quite wonderful, quite beautiful and extremely hard." --Maya Angelou

5. "Be Black, shine, aim high." --Leontyne Price

6. "I will fight until I drop. That is a strength that is in my sinew ... It is just a matter of having some faith in the fact that as long as you are able to draw breath in this universe you have a chance." --Cicely Tyson

7. "Can't nothing make your life work if you ain't the architect." --Terry McMillan

8. "Your husband may leave you, but what you have in your mind will never leave you." --Miriam Makeba.

9. "The Good Lord can make you anything you want to be, but you have to put everything in his hands." --Mahalia Jackson

10. "I know that pain just means I'm carving more deeply into my own being, and I'm gonna have a bigger place to hold my joy." --Ananda Lewis

11. "Thin love ain't love at all." Toni Morrison

12. "Such that I am, I am a precious gift." --Zora Neale Hurston

13. "It's up to each of us to get very still and say, `This is who I am.' No one else defines your life. Only you do.' --Oprah Winfrey

14. "There isn't a certain time we should set aside to talk about God. God is part of our every waking moment." --Marva Collins

15. "Learn to be quiet enough to hear the sound of the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in other people." --Marian Wright Edelman

16. "I found God in myself/and I loved her fiercely." --Ntozake Shange