By Keeon Rudder, Special Style Contributor

No one person rises to the top alone. Someone or something pushes us physically or mentally to go beyond what we imagined for ourselves so they can flourish in a place we never thought we would be. Solo we struggle; we count ourselves out; we give up. Together we excel; we have a vision; we let nothing stand in our way. In celebration of Black History Month, we honor that hand on our back, that word in our ear, that support in our darkest hour. Black History Month is not just the honoring of how history and culture but the spirit of a people that know with a village anything and everything is possible. Together we rise.

He felt the tension of her arm as the distance between them increased. He stopped. Looked back. “Everything alright babe?”

His gentle smile and the faint sweat of his hand teleported her back to the first grade.

She was a brilliant student and enjoyed learning, but her scholastic acumen couldn’t hold a candle to the joy she felt every time she ran. Oh, how she loved foot-races. She was quick as a rabbit with top-end speed as a cheetah. The thrill of the race was fun but she thrived on the fact that she had won every race beating both the girls and boys (Robinson, 2016).

Every day she looked forward to recess, which gave her and her hyper classmates the opportunity to release some of their pent-up energy. Their teacher regularly lined-up the entire class on one side of the great big field and let them race to the brick wall on the far end then back to the teacher’s outstretched hand.

The twelve classmates anxiously waited through her countdown.

“On your mark. Get set. Go!”

The students sprinted to the wall as fast as they could. She touched the wall first and darted back to the teacher. Her little legs effortlessly glided across the grass. Her skinny arms punched through the air with well-timed precision. Her eyes fixated intently on her teacher.

She hunched over, hands on her knees, as she gasped exhaustingly at the chilly afternoon air to catch her breath. The teacher respectfully waited with her hand extended for the remaining eleven students to cross the finish line.

The sound of sobbing drowned out the celebratory praise of her classmates. A fellow dark-skinned girl sat on the ground, her arms wrapped around her legs with her face pressed against her knees. She had seen this heavy-set girl cry many times before as last place had been her best finish, but something about this cry session struck a nerve within her.

As she inched her way through the crowd of high fives toward her crying classmate, the hair on her brown skin stood tall, goosebumps poked through, her cheeks warmed as her little heart beat faster and faster. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I never win and I hate coming in last. Why can’t I be as fast as you? You always get to win. Just once, I want to know what it’s like to win,” the other girl shrieked.

She reached out her hands and helped her classmate up off the ground. As the two walked distantly behind the others to their classroom, she whispered her plan to the other girl and made her swear not to tell anyone. “I think I can help you win. If we hold hands and run together, you can win with me.” The other girl’s face lit up with utter excitement!

The two didn’t have to wait very long for their next race day. Two days later at recess, their teacher lined everyone up to race. The two girls smiled at each other and clasped their hands together. Their collective hearts beat a thousand beats per minute.

“On your mark. Get set. Go!”

The entire class dashed out of the starting line and bee-lined it for the wall. The two girls were in the middle of the pack. Everyone touched the wall almost simultaneously, turned around, and scampered towards the teacher.

Neither one of them had run this hard in a race before. Sweat streamed unabashedly down their entire body. Stride-for-stride they ran as their steps were in perfect unison. They inched ahead of the pack but that motivated their classmates to run even faster.

Hand-in-hand, their grip tightened. The harder she pulled, the harder the other girl ran. The harder the other girl ran, the harder she pulled. They both wanted this win more than anything they had ever wanted in their life. The teacher got closer and closer. She pulled the other girl with all her might.

Just when they thought that they couldn’t run any harder, they reached out and touched the teacher’s hand. They both screamed at the top of their lungs, bounced around like pogo sticks, and hugged each other elatedly. That was the first time that the other girl didn’t sit on the ground and cry.

“First place! We got first place!” the other girl boisterously exclaimed! The classmates gathered around to congratulate the other girl.

Everyone wanted that scrawny little girl to hold their hand for the next race.

“Oh yeah. Sorry,” she cupped his stubble cheek with her other hand and kissed him. “Everything will be alright,” she answered as she squeezed his hand. “We have all that we need in each other.”

References

Robinson, B. (2016). My Name is Alvonia: The Autobiography of Beverly Robinson.

Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/My-Name-Alvonia-Autobiography-Robinson/dp/0578178672