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Maudelle Brown Bousfleld accomplished a successful career as a Chicago teacher and principal in the midst of deep discrimination against African Americans. Her elite status helped prepare her with the necessary beliefs and tools to achieve a number of notable firsts in her life. Her career attainment also dictated that she assist in uplifting her race. She spent much of her life not only building a thriving career, but also serving her people in a number of different capacities.
"We did what we were trained to do, what we were bred to do, what we were born to do." (300, Snyder, 2006)
The narrator in the movie 300 described Spartan men as fierce warriors who were trained from birth to be soldiers by both their families and the larger community in which they lived (Snyder, 2006). Like the Spartan men of 480 BC, we were all born to be, at times bred and trained to be, something on both a conscious and an unconscious level. But is that destiny enough to guarantee mat we will become what we are meant to be in the face of overwhelming oppression? Stephanie J. Shaw (1996) argued that Black women coming of age in the Jim Crow era were socialized by born their families and their communities to become professional workers not only for themselves, but also to instill pride and uplift their communities. This idea of professionalization was infused in Black women through both formal and informal education, imprinting on them a set of behavioral characteristics that would ensure that the women positively represented themselves and their communities.
There was also the Black elite who not only imparted the characteristics their children needed for success in a racist society, but who were also a living witness ofthat success. This meant that some Black children were trained at certain schools, attended certain churches, and participated in certain social organizations (Gatewood, 1990; Graham, 1999). These children also came to expect that the obstacles placed before mem could and would not stop them in their quest for success. Their families provided them with myriad examples of success in the face of oppression.
Maudelle Brown Bousfield's status as a child of the Black elite allowed her to achieve many "firsts" in her...