Construction worker: Edwina Holden - The Many-Splendored Faces of Today's Black Woman

Ebony, March, 1997 by Kevin Chappell

It is so cold on this winter day in Chicago that two beefy construction workers are reduced to shivers, looking like a couple of nervous 14-year-old boys on a double date. The wind-chill has plunged to 20-below, ushered in by a knee-knocking, teeth-rattling wind howling off Lake Michigan.

In the distance, Edwina Holden can be spotted. As she makes her way toward the men, her pencil-thin braids blow in the bitter breeze. Her small frame would probably have blown away too, if not for her bulky coat weighing her down. "Nine times out of 10 when someone comes here, they will assume I'm a secretary," says the 43-year-old woman. "There's not an intent to insult or to be disrespectful. Society has programmed people to react that way."

But Holden is not a secretary. She's a construction worker -- a project manager to be exact -- and the only woman on the South Side job site where her employer, Riteway Construction Services, is building a Home Depot. "It's a shock to everyone at first because they have no idea," she says. "And when they do find out that you're not the secretary, they begin to doubt your abilities. But they quickly realize that I am just as qualified as the next guy."

Whether it's hauling gravel, pouring concrete, shoveling dirt, or shooting the bull, Holden's up to the challenge. And while many people may falsely assume she's a secretary or demean her with racist or sexist remarks, Holden refuses to make negative comments about anyone. The divorced mother believes in self-responsibility and self-accountability, principles instilled in her by her parents, grandparents and her church.

Working in construction, she is constantly put to the test. One time, about three years ago in Chicago on one of her previous jobs, two White guys called her "Buckwheat." She ignored them. They said it again, this time laughing. "Hey Buckwheat", they said.

"I didn't say anything. The best thing you can do is to not give it any energy because once you respond, then that's a mistake," she says. "It's easy to get drained because you have so many negative forces. You have to have a goal and have to focus past these day-to-day experiences. Or you won't survive out here."

Building things has been Holdens goal ever since she was in third grade. That was when her teacher asked Holden and the rest of the students to draw a picture of their house. "Mine was a gray frame house," she recalls. "The drawing was very amateurish. But after that, I became interested in drawing houses."

It wasn't until she reached 11th grade that Holden began to really pursue her interest. She signed up for drafting class. She was the only woman to do so, but that didn't bother her. She remembers idolizing her teacher, Theophilous Thomas, who split his time between teaching and construction work. "If there was any Black building that went up, he did it." she says. "He built Black churches and schools. I looked up to him."

Growing up in tiny Beaumont, Texas, Holden says there weren't many Black professionals. In fact, most Blacks worked on either the rice farms or at the oil refineries. After high school, Holden completed a program that trained her to do lighting work in the oil refineries, which were flourishing at that time. But she soon found it "too static. I really couldn't put my personal touch on it," she says.

Part of her creativity, she believes, comes from her religious upbringing. She has been a churchgoer since early childhood. Holden also spent a lot of time at her grandmother's house, where she learned how to play the piano by ear when she was 4 years old. By il, she was the pianist for her Sunday school class. By 13, she was the organist for the entire church.

Holden's involvement in church taught her to believe in herself, even if the people around her didn't. And even today, with her qualifications -- she received her degree in architecture from Prairie View A&M University in 1987 and is working on her masters degree -- many co-workers still find it hard to accept that a Black woman is qualified to work in construction. "They have a problem dealing with me because I am Black," Holden says. "And they don't have a problem telling me how they feel because I'm a woman."