Author Extraordinaire.

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Author of:  The Up Side of Down, published in 2006

And

Views of You In Shaded Hues:  A Place Between Black & White, published in 2008

They were presented with the below piece.

Whose Legacy Are We Passing Along  

My bosom is heavy and my eyes filled with water.  It is because yesterday’s woman is slowly disappearing and being replaced by hip hoppers, people blockers and stiletto wearing Diva’s.  Many are downright nasty.  They refer to the likes of Harriet Tubman, Mary McLeod Bethune, Barbara Jordan, Rosa Parks and Dorothy Height as “Old School” and of no use today.  They say that it is every woman for herself.  If this is the case, where do women turn when they need words of encouragement, a prayer partner and secrets kept?  Have the givers of life become the bearers of death?  Has my best friend become my worst enemy?  Will this be the last generation of women with good character to represent the “National Council of Negro women, Inc.?” “Whose legacy is being passed along and whose legacy will be followed?”  Is it the one of envy, jealousy and disgruntled woman or is it that which the love of God commands?  Today, I challenge aged women, from the outhouses to the Whitehouse, to be examples for the young who are watching and listening at them. Walk the walk and stop just talking it.  I call on young women to carry the banner of old and do it with pride.  Understand that advancement costs and now it is your turn to advance the cause. We must watch our conversations and actions.  Eyes are on us, ears are listening to us and yes women are held to a higher standard.  Why you may ask?  I respond by asking, “Whose breasts are sucked at to maintain life?”  “Who bear down in pain and birth children?”  “Who is the teacher of that child being rocked in the cradle now and who birth First Lady Michelle Robinson Obama?”  Then I ask, “Whose breast of life can our children suck at for life, when yours are filled with your sisters’ blood?”  I say, “Remember those who bled and died yesterday that our today may be better.”  Yes that was then and this is now, but without them, today Barack Obama would not be President and we would not be sitting in the Garden City Hotel.   Like it or not we are legacy keepers.  If we fail to speak out who will and if you fail to go who can we send?  Come, adhere to a higher calling, knowing that you can and must.  January 29, 2011 CR.  Ms. Alice B. Nixon-Barr.  This work is not to be duplicated in any form, published in any form or placed in a retrieval system without the written permission of the above named author.  January 29, 2011. CR