Generate Health
We’re proud to have shared our storytelling in partnership with Generate Health STL. These photostories were produced to help celebrate the organization’s annual Standing Up for Mother's and Babies Awards event.
“Both of my girls have locs. And I cut my hair off when I was 17, which was almost 30 years ago. I told the good Lord when I cut my hair off that I was never, ever going to grow hair again. I was done because my experiences with it were too painful. Plus, I found my look with a bald fade that was quintessentially me. Well, the spirit in its infinite humor gave me two daughters with heads full of hair. It turned out that ‘never’ was not as long as I thought it was going to be.
So, there I was in the salon with my youngest getting my baby’s hair done as she was moving and crying and screaming. And she was not having it. She didn’t want to get her locs touched up, but she also didn’t want me to do anything else with her hair. To calm her down, I tried everything. I gave her the iPad, held her hand, had her sit in my lap, bribed her with candy and gum. She still kept crying and moving. After about four hours, I said to her, ‘I cannot take it. Look, if you don’t get it together, we are going to the barbershop. You want Uncle Randall to cut your hair off?’ Randall’s my barber, but he’s like my brother. ‘He can cut it off and we don’t have to go through this ever again.’ Well, she wasn’t interested in this option either and continued with her full-fledged meltdown.
In that moment, I called on my ancestors and said, ‘Y’all gonna have to help me right now. I need an intervention because I’m done. I’m going to get this hair off this child’s head and I’m not coming back to the salon ever again. I’m about to cry, so do something now. Please!’ And I kid you not, within 30 seconds a peace came through that shop and my child settled down. She got her hair done and it only took another 15 minutes. I could’ve kicked myself because I should have called on my ancestors for help in the first hour. The change was so pronounced, I knew exactly what was happening. And I said, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you for me and her.’”
Rebeccah Bennett, Founder of Emerging Wisdom, InPower Institute & the Black Healers Collective, and 2020 Generate Health STL Judy Wilson-Griffin Maternal Health Equity Champion
“At first, I didn’t want the job. I just wanted to do a job. And the girl who wanted to hire me kept saying, ‘You will be good at Queen of Peace.’ I was like, ‘No, baby. That job is too important.’ I didn’t want to have to be in charge of anybody’s life. I mean, even when I leave and the clients see me out and about, I’m still responsible for what they see. I’m always wanting to be a vision of hope for them and sometimes I know I’m falling short. I tell myself, ‘I can’t believe you just said or did that.’ But, God is not done with me. I used to measure myself by what other people are doing or what they have. Now, I just want to know that I’m strong and I can do what’s necessary to be there for somebody else. People have been there for me so many times when I didn’t expect it. So I want to show up, fulfill my obligations, and make a difference here. That’s why I pray for strength. And to put a lot of expectations on the people I’m here to serve. When I overhear someone say there are women who shouldn’t be here, I don’t think about ‘where’ she is, I think about ‘why’ she is. If you’re constantly wondering why somebody got here and how she got here, then you never have time to judge. And what’s rewarding is when a woman leaves here and has a job, a place to live, and her babies are healthy and thriving.”
Angela Ross, Queen of Peace Center House Manager and 2020 Generate Health STL Alderman Gregory Carter Community Champion
“When my dad went through chemo, he played tennis all the time. People were so amazed he was still playing. One day after chemo, he went outside to fertilize my grass, too. I was like, ‘Ain’t you supposed to be in the house?’ He said, ‘I’m not going to sit around and do nothing.’ In January, we got a CT scan which showed everything was clear. We were so excited. Everything was clear and we were so excited. The chemo was working. A few days later, I took him to the doctor again and thought something was not right. He was acting very strange. We got him an MRI and found out the cancer spread to his spinal fluid, which is a rare area for metastasis. At that point, he could only receive radiation. That was the second moment I knew I had to prepare myself for what was going to come. The nurse practitioner handed me the MRI results. I burst into tears. My dad looked at me and said ‘Kanika, what does it say, come tell me?’ I’ll never forget that moment because I walked over, I told him, and he said, ‘It’s okay.’ He stayed in the hospital for a few days to try radiation and after that failed, we took him home on hospice. My mom and siblings took care of him. We had family and friends who visited. We never left his bedside. He took his last breath on a Saturday morning. And even in that moment, there was something spiritual behind it and I actually felt okay. I often recall those feelings and gain strength and restore faith. It was more than just my father dying. It was a spiritual elevation, too.”
Kanika A. Turner, MD, MPH, Family Care Health Center and 2020 Generate Health STL Dr. Corinne Walentik Provider/Practitioner Champion
“Radical forgiveness looks like not having to hold onto the hurt. When we hold onto it, it doesn’t hurt the people who hurt us. It just hurts us. There’s power in that hurt and power in knowing when to put it down. Radical imagination looks like community. It looks like the most marginalized people sitting and speaking at the table while the most powerful are listening. It looks like humanizing equity and a place where everybody’s thoughts and ideas are taken into account and potentially implemented. This shows up in how I parent.
My nephew wrote a story about how this little boy who was a really good kid, who did really good things, went to school and got really bad grades. His parents went up to the school to talk to the teacher and the teacher said, ‘It’s because your son is a bad kid.’ But the kid is trying to say, ‘No, I’m actually a good kid!’ Then the boy goes home and starts doing bad things because, ‘If you think I’m a bad person, that’s who I might be.’
The average parent would read that story and ask, ‘Why did you spend so much time talking about negative? There’s no balance.’ They might critique the story instead of asking, ‘What you’re trying to tell me is that you feel like school is unfair? Are you trying to tell me you feel invisible and stereotyped by your teacher? Or that you’re having thoughts about causing harm to yourself and others because of how you feel? How do we think beyond to help you deal with this moment?’ Radical imagination and my parenting look like lifting my babies up when they have an experience versus shutting them down, shaming them, and trying to force obedience.”
Dr. Amber Johnson, Founding Director Of The Justice Fleet, Co-founder of The Institute for Healing Justice and Equity, Associate Professor of Communication and Social Justice at SLU and 2020 Generate Health STL Dr. Terry Leet Researcher Champion