Sometimes the sky becomes the only place left to prove you belong.
Bessie Coleman grew up in Texas at a time when both race and gender limited opportunity. When she dreamed of becoming a pilot, every flight school in the United States refused to teach her.
She was Black. She was a woman.
So Bessie Coleman did something extraordinary.
She learned French and traveled to France, where she earned her pilot’s license in 1921, becoming the first African American and Native American woman in the world to hold an international pilot’s license.
When she returned to the United States, crowds came to watch her fly. Coleman became a famous stunt pilot, performing breathtaking aerial tricks that left audiences amazed.
But she used her platform for something deeper.
She refused to perform at air shows that did not allow Black audiences to attend. To her, flight was not just entertainment.
It was dignity.
There is a verse in Isaiah that says, “They will soar on wings like eagles.”
Bessie Coleman lived that promise with courage and determination.
Sometimes the first person to break a barrier must build the runway herself.
Breadcrumb The world may close doors in front of you.
Bessie Coleman did not accept the doors that were closed.
She crossed an ocean instead.
Sometimes God places a dream in your heart that cannot grow where you started.
And sometimes the path forward begins with the courage to leave the ground.
Steps From Our Sisters Honoring the Women Who Marched Before Us
Sometimes change begins with something small enough to hold in your hand.
Lyda D. Newman was an inventor and hairdresser living in New York City at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1898 she patented an improved design for the hairbrush, creating a tool that was easier to clean and more effective for everyday use.
It was a practical invention, something millions of people would eventually use without thinking twice.
But Lyda Newman’s story does not stop in the bathroom mirror.
She was also deeply involved in the growing movement for women’s suffrage. At a time when women were still fighting for the basic right to vote, Newman worked with suffrage organizers in New York to help register women voters and mobilize communities.
For women like Newman, the fight for the ballot was not only about politics.
It was about dignity.
There is a verse in Proverbs that says, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.”
Lyda Newman did exactly that.
Through organizing and advocacy, she helped open the door for women to participate in the democratic process. Her work joined thousands of other women who marched, organized, and demanded that their voices be counted.
The tools she invented made daily life easier.
But the work she did for suffrage helped shape the future of a nation.
Sometimes the quiet hands that improve everyday life are the same hands helping move history forward.
Bread Crumbs
Not every act of courage looks dramatic.
Sometimes courage looks like organizing neighbors, registering voters, and refusing to believe your voice does not matter.
Lyda Newman reminds us that progress is built by ordinary people who decide their voice belongs in the conversation.
Sometimes the change God places in our hands is meant to help others find their voice too.
Steps From Our Sisters Honoring the Women Who Marched Before Us
My son-in-love, Kamau, posted that he was booking a flight to Africa. There was a storm coming, he said, and somebody needed to build shelters for the giraffes.
He displayed a picture like it was urgent. Dark sky. Lightning splitting it wide open. Giraffes standing tall in the open plain.
He might have been joking (hard to tell with him.) Because that is Kamau. Compassion wrapped in comedy. Protection tucked inside a punchline. A heart that sees danger and immediately asks, Who needs covering? I love that about him. ( Don’t tell him I said that.)
But when I looked closer at the picture, those giraffes were not panicking. They were not lowering themselves to the ground. They were not scattering. They were standing.
Unshakable. Unmovable. Storm pressing in. Mortal danger possible. And yet their necks were lifted. Their legs planted. Their bodies steady in the wind.
It made me think of Psalm 91: “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Under His feathers you will find refuge.”
Those giraffes looked uncovered. But they were not unprotected. They looked exposed. But they were not outside of shadow. Psalm 91 does not promise the absence of storms. It promises covering in the middle of them.
And then Psalm 46:10 settles it: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Not be frantic. Not be consumed. Not be undone. Be still. Still like you trust the One who commands the sky. Still like you believe the storm does not get the final word. Still like your roots run deeper than what threatens you.
We are living in days where thunder travels across oceans. International conflict crackles like lightning. Voices rise. Fear spreads.
But maybe faith looks like a giraffe in a storm. Not dramatic. Not reckless. Just anchored. Unshakable. Unmovable.
And I smiled again. Because my son-in-love thought he was just telling a joke. Instead… he helped me write a sermon about faith standing firm in adversity.
He is going to be so embarrassed when he reads this. Make sure you tease him for me.
Before food trucks. Before catering contracts. Before pop-up kitchens. There was a formerly enslaved Black woman pushing a baby carriage filled with pickled pig’s feet.
Her name was Lillian Harris Dean. History remembers her as Pig Foot Mary. And what some would have called scraps, she called strategy.
Born in Mississippi around 1870. She migrated north during the Great Migration era. She was reported a woman of large stature (striking fear in even some men).
THE BABY CARRIAGE BEGINNING
After emancipation, economic opportunity for Black women was painfully narrow. Formal loans were not available. Property ownership was rare. Protection under the law was inconsistent at best.
So Mary did what resilient women have always done. She looked at what she had. She cooked pig’s feet — inexpensive cuts that working people could afford — and loaded them into a baby carriage. That’s right no baby, just a baby carriage purchased with two of the five dollars she arrived with and a tin pot she brought with her.
Then she walked the streets of Washington, D.C., selling directly to laborers, porters, and government workers who had migrated from the South but desperate for a taste of home cooking lacking in the industrial north.
No storefront. No investors. No safety net. Just legs, grit, and a carriage. That carriage gave her mobility. Mobility gave her customers. Customers gave her capital. Capital gave her options. Consistency built reputation. Reputation built revenue.
From those early street sales, though unable to read, she negotiated contracts with suppliers, opened restaurants, operated boarding houses, acquired property, and became one of the wealthiest Black women in New York City during her time. She later married a prominent black lawyer she had hired to keep her financial empire safe.
Later in life, she faced legal troubles that interrupted her business, a common vulnerability for Black entrepreneurs in that era. When her power and influence started to invade beyond the black community and into white upper Manhattan, a racist court system convicted her of running a disorderly house. After her release from prison, she retired to California.
She did not inherit influence. She built it. She did not wait for approval. She moved.
Pig Foot Mary represents a pattern we see over and over in Black history: Innovation born from restriction. Mobility created from limitation. Enterprise rising from overlooked ingredients.
She took something humble and made it sustaining.
“She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.” — Proverbs 31:16
Mary did not own fields at first. She owned a route. But the principle is the same. Use what you have. Work what you have. Move what you have.
CARRY THIS WITH YOU You may be waiting for a storefront when all you have is a carriage. Push anyway.
You may be waiting for funding when all you have is a recipe. Cook anyway.
You may be waiting for someone to validate the vision. Walk anyway.
BREADCRUMB
Sometimes the business plan is wrapped in something people underestimate. And sometimes the thing you’re pushing… is actually pushing you into destiny.
We see you, Lillian Harris Dean for turning a baby carriage into a business model. We see you for feeding working hands and building wealth from what others discarded.
Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us. Victorious without reward. Still here.
In 1849, an enslaved man in Virginia made one of the most daring escapes in American history. His name was Henry Box Brown.
Born around 1815 in Louisa County, Virginia, Brown was enslaved by John Barret, a former mayor of Richmond. After Barret’s death, Brown was sent to Richmond and hired out to work in a tobacco warehouse. He married while enslaved. He had children.
In 1848, his wife and children were sold to a plantation in North Carolina. That loss changed everything.
On March 23, 1849, Brown arranged an extraordinary plan with the help of free Black and white abolitionists. He had himself sealed inside a wooden crate measuring approximately three feet long, two feet wide, and two and a half feet deep. The box was labeled “Dry Goods.”
It was shipped from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, via Adams Express Company. The journey lasted 27 hours. The crate traveled by wagon, railroad, steamboat, and carriage. At times it was placed upside down. Brown later wrote that blood rushed to his head and he feared suffocation. To steady himself, he sang hymns.
When the box was opened in Philadelphia at the Anti-Slavery Office, Brown stepped out alive and reportedly greeted the astonished men in the room with calm composure. His escape was immediate national news.
After gaining freedom, Brown became an abolitionist lecturer. He traveled throughout the Northern states, speaking about slavery and reenacting his escape by climbing into a replica box during performances.
Following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which increased the risk of capture even in free states, Brown moved to England. He remained there for more than two decades, performing as a speaker, showman, and later as a magician, continuing to tell his story.
He eventually returned to the United States later in life and remained a public performer until his death, believed to have occurred in 1897.
Henry Box Brown did not wait for rescue. He engineered it. He endured confinement to secure freedom. He turned survival into testimony. He transformed a shipping crate into a symbol of resistance.
His story remains one of the most vivid examples of self-emancipation in American history.
Psalm 18:19 “He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”
CARRY THIS WITH YOU Freedom sometimes requires courage that feels impossible. Do not underestimate what can happen when resolve meets faith.
BREADCRUMB When systems close in, imagination becomes strategy. When doors are locked, courage builds another exit. History remembers those who refused to accept chains as final.
SALUTE We honor Henry Box Brown, whose 27-hour journey inside a wooden crate became a permanent witness to the will to be free. We salute the man who trusted movement over fear, faith over despair, and action over surrender.
Your box became a doorway. Your confinement became testimony. Your name remains a symbol of self-determined freedom.
Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us. Victorious without reward. Still here.
Horace & Rose Gillison — A Civil Rights Love Story
For Black History Month, I want to honor two people whose legacy shaped not only my family, but the city of Richmond itself: Rev. Horace Gillison and Rose Gillison, my great-uncle and great-aunt. Their civil rights work did not always make headlines—but it changed systems.
Before they ever met, they came from very different worlds. Horace was a Virginia country boy with barely a sixth-grade formal education, big ideas, and—by most accounts—a big mouth. Others saw his limited schooling and dismissed him. Horace saw no limits at all. He believed doors were meant to be opened, systems challenged, and no one was qualified to tell him what could not be done.
Rose was polished and poised, barely grown, hailing from North Carolina before family loss dictated a move to Virginia to live with cousins. Where others saw Horace as rough around the edges, Rose became—for him—a beautiful princess of a challenge. And Horace loved a challenge.
Rose maintained a bail fund solely for Horace’s protests and sit-ins, understanding that resistance required preparation as much as courage. Horace challenged Richmond institutions like Thalhimers and Miller & Rhoads, demanding they hire college-educated Black women on their sales floors. He later took great joy in seeing that pressure bear fruit when I secured my first professional job in their credit offices—proof that justice delayed is not justice denied.
He rattled newspapers by insisting they run his ads—with his beautiful Black skin in all its glory—or face legal action. He was also arrested for earning a pilot’s license in Virginia and flying a plane to Culpeper so his mother could experience his joy of flight.
He was arrested again for attempting to sell a house to a Black family in the then all white neighborhood I now live in. He was rumored to have taken black families to house showings in rented limousines.
When Firestone Tire—a place where Black customers could barely purchase goods, let alone work—hired him as their first Black salesman, Horace did not simply succeed. He excelled.
Together, Horace and Rose ran soup kitchens, Christian charities, wig shops, and a modeling school that taught Black women poise, job readiness, and confidence—quietly fueling economic growth in local Black families. Rose’s porcelain beauty and charm made her the perfect choice to become one of the first Black spokespersons for Carnation Milk during the war. Horace ministered churches and broke corporate barriers as the first Black member of the Richfood board.
Their love story was just as intentional as their activism.
They met at a birthday party—for Horace’s then girlfriend. Upon seeing Rose, Horace declared, “That’s the woman I will marry.”
Rose did not make it easy. Before accepting his proposal, she handed him a list: get a good job, secure transportation, build a house. Each time Horace returned with a checkmark, she added another requirement—a lesson she later passed down to the women in our family: know your worth and make him work for it.
When Horace finally had enough, he arrived with friends, a new dress, and a pair of nylons—nearly impossible to find at the time—and dragged her to the courthouse.
They would reach their fiftieth wedding anniversary before Rose declared they finally had what she considered a proper wedding. Loving attended by 4 generations of the Gillison family
Though they never had biological children, Horace and Rose adopted two, fostered many more, and opened their lives wide enough to shape generations. Their influence rippled through the Gillison family and beyond—teaching love without limitation, legacy without bloodlines, and the quiet truth that family is often chosen, cultivated, and sustained by intention.
Lives, I believed patterned straight from the Bible; “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression.” — Isaiah 1:17 “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” — Amos 5:24 “Two are better than one… because they have a good reward for their labor.” — Ecclesiastes 4:9
Horace learned to do good and refused to wait for permission. Rose ensured that righteousness had structure and love behind it. Together, they made justice move.
BREADCRUMB Justice does not roll on its own. Someone has to push. Someone has to prepare. Someone has to stand side by side when the system pushes back.
Legacy does not always look like applause. Sometimes it looks like a bail fund. Sometimes it looks like insisting your image run in full color. Sometimes it looks like flying anyway.
SALUTE We see you, Rev. Horace Gillison and Rose Gillison — for seeking justice, correcting oppression, and laboring together so the stream would keep moving and building an extended family that walks in your shoes while still standing on your shoulders.
Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us. Victorious without reward. Still here.
This is a condensed excerpt from the forthcoming work,
She was born in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, enslaved at birth and freed as a child by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union Army.
She grew up in the turbulent Reconstruction era — a time full of hopes for freedom, but also brutal backlash against Black citizenship and rights.
Her early life was shaped by both the reality of oppression and a family that deeply valued education. Her father served on the board of trustees at Rust College, a historically Black college, and her parents instilled in her a belief in learning and equality.
At just 16, after both parents died during a yellow fever epidemic, Ida became the head of her household—raising her siblings while working as a schoolteacher.
At 25, Ida B. Wells was already a newspaper editor and co-owner — The Memphis Free Speech and Headlight – when a white mob destroyed her newspaper’s office in Memphis for exposing the lies behind lynching.
The true catalyst for her lifelong crusade came in 1892, when three of her close friends — Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart — were lynched by a white mob.
Refusing to accept the “justified crime” narratives of her time, Wells launched meticulous investigations into lynching across the South. She documented lynchings with data and truth, sparking a global anti-lynching crusade that laid the groundwork for modern investigative reporting.
She was forced to carry a pistol for protection while exposing racial terror.
They burned her press. She sharpened her pen.
Wells became a leading anti-lynching crusader, traveling across the United States and Europe to expose lynching’s brutality, publish groundbreaking pamphlets like Southern Horrors and The Red Record, and call the nation to account for its violence.
Wells also stood at the intersection of civil rights and women’s rights. After moving to Chicago and marrying attorney Ferdinand L. Barnett in 1895 — yet keeping her own name — she continued her activism by organizing She also stood and co-founded important organizations such as the Alpha Suffrage Club (the first Black women’s suffrage group in Chicago), the Negro Fellowship League, the National Association of Colored Women, and helping shape the early movement that became the NAACP.
Wells refused to be sidelined — famously refusing to march at the back of a segregated women’s suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., instead slipping into the front ranks under the Illinois banner.
She continued writing, organizing, and speaking for justice until her death in Chicago at age 68 — and in 2020 was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her fearless reporting that birthed many of the core practices of modern investigative journalism.
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves… defend the rights of the poor and needy.” (Proverbs 31:8–9)
BEFORE YOU MOVE ON What truth have you learned to soften so others can stay comfortable?
BREADCRUMB Truth backed by courage and facts becomes dangerous to systems built on silence.
We see you, Ida B. Wells — for telling the truth when lies were law. Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us. Victorious without reward. Still here.
Lucy Diggs Slowe was born in 1885, right here in Virginia. Sharp-minded. Observant. The kind of girl who noticed early on when the rules didn’t quite add up—and instead of shrugging, she kept the numbers in her head. Lucy loved learning, but she loved fairness more.
She went to college at a time when that alone made a statement. Then she went and won a national tennis championship, not because she was trying to make history, but because she liked to compete and she was good at it. First Black woman to do that. No speeches. No victory lap. Just excellence.
Later, at Howard University, Lucy started seeing something that bothered her. Black women students were being monitored, managed, and micromanaged—while Black men were being prepared for leadership.
Lucy didn’t raise her voice about it. She raised the standard.
She became the Dean of Women and pushed back on rules that treated grown women like children. She fought for privacy, dignity, and the right for Black women to become themselves without apology or supervision disguised as concern.
And when she saw young Black women needing each other, she helped start Alpha Kappa Alpha—not for prestige, but so they’d have sisterhood, scholarship, and somewhere solid to stand. Lucy didn’t perform rebellion. She practiced alignment.
SCRIPTURE CONTEXT “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” — Romans 12:2
BEFORE YOU MOVE ON Where have you learned to make yourself smaller just to keep the peace? Lucy reminds us that refusing to conform isn’t arrogance—it’s obedience to who God made you to be.
Some people don’t change the room by entering it. They change it by refusing to play along.
We see you, Lucy Diggs Slowe — for standing firm when shrinking was expected.
Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us. Victorious without reward. Still here.
John Berry Meachum was born enslaved in 1789 and eventually brought to Missouri, a slave state that worked very hard to keep Black people uneducated. Because ignorant people are easier to control. Meachum didn’t accept that.
Through years of labor, he bought his freedom. And once free, he did what a lot of free folks might not have dared to do — he started teaching Black children to read. Not secretly. Not halfway. He opened a school.
Then Missouri passed a law that said Black people could no longer be educated. Now here’s where John Berry Meachum shows us the difference between rebellion and holy wisdom. He didn’t shout at lawmakers. He didn’t beg for exceptions. He read the law. And he noticed something important: the law applied on land.
So Meachum bought a boat, anchored it in the Missouri River, and moved the school onto the water. No land. No violation. No stopping the lessons.
Children, enslaved and free, climbed onto that boat and learned to read, write, and think for themselves. The school became known as the Floating Freedom School, and it floated right outside the reach of unjust power.
John Berry Meachum didn’t break the law. He outgrew it.
He understood that sometimes obedience to God requires creativity — and that wisdom can be just as disruptive as protest. “We must obey God rather than men.” — Acts 5:29
In 1846, he published his pamphlet “An Address to All the Colored Citizens of the United States” emphasizing education and self-respect.
His floating school survived after his death until around 1860. Continuing under the direction of one of his former students
Where have you been told “you can’t” — not because it’s wrong, but because it’s inconvenient for those in power?
John Berry Meachum reminds us that sometimes the door isn’t locked. It’s just in the wrong place.
Wisdom doesn’t always fight the system head-on. Sometimes it floats right past it.
We see you, John Berry Meachum. Teaching freedom when the law said no.
Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us. Victorious without reward. Still here.
Black history is not only about who struck the match. It is also about who made sure the light did not go out. Lewis Howard Latimer understood that. Born in 1848 to parents who had escaped enslavement, he taught himself to read, draw, and engineer in a world that did not expect brilliance from him—and was not structured to reward it. History remembers the spark. Latimer worked on the endurance. In 1884, he joined the Edison Electric Light Company as a draftsman. He was not hired to be the face of innovation. He was brought in to make the work hold. While others are credited with inventing the light bulb, Lewis Latimer improved it. He developed a carbon filament that made electric light durable, affordable, and practical—light that could last in ordinary homes, not just demonstrations. Without his work, the light would have remained fragile. Exclusive. Unreliable. And the light was not his only contribution. Latimer also: – drafted critical technical drawings for early telephone technology – designed an evaporative air-conditioning system – improved safety and sanitation systems for railroad cars – trained others, documented processes, and quietly strengthened industries that carried other people’s names Important work. Essential work. Weight-bearing work.
Lewis Latimer lived long enough to see the world changed by the light he helped sustain. He died in 1928—not wealthy, not widely celebrated—but respected by those who understood the work. His legacy lived on in homes lit safely, cities made brighter, systems made usable. If you have ever been the one who made something work instead of making it visible— If you have refined what others rushed through— If you have strengthened what others started— If you have stayed faithful long after the applause moved on— This story stands with you. “Let your light so shine before others…” — Matthew 5:16
Lewis Latimer did not create the first light. He made sure it endured. Some people are called to begin things. Others are called to make them last. This, too, is history. This, too, is weight-bearing work.
Lewis Latimer stands with you. God sees the work that makes light reliable — not just remarkable.
We see you, Lewis. We honor the way you made the light last.
Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us. Victorious without reward. Still here.
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