THIS SPEECH WAS DELIVERED ON 4/2018, BY WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH AWARDEE ELLISA JOHNSON, AT UN CONFERENCE AS SEEN ON CSPAN
The Art of the Pivot
It is the woman’s natural flexibility that allows her to shapeshift from woman to womb, and then back again. It is our intuitive agility, that allows us to pivot from the needs of the home to the workplace, without either audience feeling the turbulence of the journey. Indeed, to be a successful woman, is to master an athleticism of Olympic proportions.
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In life, the moments that shape us are often unmarked by cheerleaders or hecklers. They are the quiet moments, in which we evaluate our lives and our goals; in which we examine whether the path we’re on will ultimately carry us towards them.
At 18, when I found myself on a premature and uncharted road to motherhood, I carried the burden alone. It was during those dark days that I truly understood the meaning of ‘stand and be still,’ brilliant words my mother offered me from her toolbox.
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The details of how I had deviated from my acceptance into the University of Houston, of how I was now firmly planted on a path that was diverged from my peers, was an existential riddle with which I grappled in secret. It was my burden to bear.
Eventually, it was the women in my life that showed me I wouldn’t have to navigate alone. It was my sister Donna’s reassuring voice on the telephone, coaxing the burden off my shoulders, so that she could carry it with me. It was my mother’s strong vision and strategic execution, that allowed me to transition from junior college to University.
My mother granted me the flexibility I needed while raising my beautiful baby daughter Tesha, who would turn out to be a strong, educated woman, with her bachelor’s degree from Hampton University, and a Master’s degree from George Washington University in D.C.. It was 1981, and I didn’t yet know that I, too, was becoming the mirrored image of the brilliant woman I was raising.
And there was the steady presence of my father; my champion protector, after teenage pregnancy left me alone: isolated from friends, and shunned by The Church that had vowed to protect and forgive.
Above all else, it was my own determination that shrunk insurmountable barriers to pesky obstacles.
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It is possible that this was a natural assiduousness. It is just as likely, that it was a determination I discovered on the glossy basketball court of Pleasant Hill Elementary school in Oklahoma City; the first place where I learned that agility is a woman’s greatest virtue.
I can still remember the squeak of clean sneakers, the smell of a freshly waxed floor, and the shine of a large Cardinal emblem on the court.
None of these, however, are as vivid in my memory as the base in my coach’s voice, as he pounded this epic lesson into my head: remember to pivot, remember to pivot.
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It was this coaching that reminded me to stay light on my feet, as I pivoted swiftly between motherhood and soon to come, student life at the University of Oklahoma. I was a student Monday-Thursday, and Tesha’s Mom Thursday-Sunday, when I left campus for Oklahoma City for the fulltime role of mother. A requirement placed upon me by my parents to ensure that I maintained a strong presence in my child’s life.
I believe it is this same intuitive agility that exists in all strong women, that allowed Tesha to remain light on her own tiny feet, as she pivoted between doting grandparents, and the place reserved for her father. A place that for the first 2 years of her life, was largely marked by absence. That space was filled by my soon-to-be husband, who would provide a seamless transition into fatherhood.
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Through it all, I worked to remain agile for the sake of my daughter. Tesha was “one of the quiet ones.” We called her The Recorder, because while she appeared to be playing with her toys, she was known to make silent note of everything going on around her. To this day, Tesha remains keenly aware of her surroundings; a sixth sense that allows her to appreciate life in its fullness.
Still, in her childhood, I feared that any lapse in confidence or capability that she observed in me, could fester and grow in her. And I refused to allow my trials to become my daughter’s undoing. While there is always room for some failure, I was raised with both subtle and innate tools of strength and resilience; it was my greatest priority, to provide my daughter with the same armor that was instilled in me.
And yet, some of the closed doors I faced would leave a lasting impression. Among the most impactful, were the female friendships that had been so central to my adolescence; friendships that were suddenly absent from my life. My girlfriends went away to colleges, and along their individual life paths, and they didn’t look back.
I knew that they loved me, but that didn’t change the natural attrition of life that took them away. The loneliness was deafening.
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I was all alone in a life that was suddenly so different than the one we had shared. Still, I kept my gaze focused, and my pivot shoes laced up. I enrolled in junior college, where I could navigate pregnancy and coursework.
But once I made it on to the campus of the University of Oklahoma, I was met with another closed door. I was late. And I’d missed the fleeting, magical time when freshman form the friendships that define their college experiences. The life time bonds.
I navigated the harsh reality that social organizations had little room for a student who traveled home every Thursday to raise her child.
I learned that the female friendships I had longed to find myself back in, were more like the fickle desert than the steady tide. What was bright and airy by day, became frigid and barren under a sunless night sky.
Female friendships ran hot and cold, unforgivingly. And I decided that they simply were not for me.
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It wasn’t until after I graduated – a year ahead of my peers – that I found my way back to the strong women that shaped me. While my peers loved me from a distance, the older women in my life—or, as I like to call them, the “seasoned” women-- leaned into an invested mentorship.
My first bosses, my professional cheerleaders, and in a surrealist turn of fate, my daughters, have reached through their own successes to remind me of my potential. It is they who have stoked the fires of my ambition, whenever they’ve run lukewarm with self-doubt or cynicism.
It was my first impactful boss, Shirley A. Darrell, who was the first black-female County Commissioner in Oklahoma City, who challenged the young women she so vigilantly mentored. It was Shirley who pushed me into my first speaking engagement. “Of course, you are,” she dismissed me, after I lamented that I wasn’t “prepared” to speak to a room of more than 75 people.
Her unrelenting confidence in me has been the gift that keeps on giving, and for that, I’m blessed.
There have been some men, too.
My dad, who founded one of the first black owned construction companies in Oklahoma, taught me the importance of working hard, and never settling for no.
In my mid-twenties, a tender and precarious time, John H. Stroger Jr. taught me to walk confidently down the halls of the White House, and placed me in meetings with world dignitaries. He enabled me to command respect, in spaces where women were not necessarily welcome, and taught me to speak with a clear, confident voice. Even while feeling I didn’t belong in these big rooms, amongst these successful people. And I, of course, kept my pivot shoes all laced up, just in case a clear voice wasn’t enough.
The truth is, you just never can know what you’re being prepared for.
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At 53, with three college graduate children, the only pivot I was bracing for, was from career to the final enjoyments of life. But on one morning last year, under a sky so grey, it seemed to be just for me, I found myself in O’hare International Airport, running from bad news I had not planned for.
My husband was sick.
Naturally, I pivoted. Not from career woman to caretaker. But from panicked partner to frantic fugitive.
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As women, we wear 100 hats, and it would be impossible to list them in order of most importance. Because, over time, the fabric of these hats grows thinner and thinner, until it appears seamless against our own skin.
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We know all too well how easy it is to become the role. Team Lead. Mom. Mother-in-law. Wife. Daughter. Lisa.
And there I sat, across from my husband’s doctor at the University of Chicago Medical Center, as he told me it was time to shapeshift once again. But the pivot from partner to patient was not one I was prepared to watch my husband take.
Besides, I had to be in New York. They were expecting me, after all.
Not the “me” who sat there wondering whether her family would see the other side of this, but the me who kicked ass at work. The me who had this down to a science.
So, I ran.
It was then that my sister Jackie urged me to go back to the hospital; to go back to my loving husband. It was her strong and gentle voice that reminded me: I may have been scared, but I was also needed.
Once again, I found myself at an existential crossroads. And like before, it was the steady voice of a woman in my life, that was clear enough to rise above the static noise of fear and uncertainty.
I, however, was simply not ready.
Fatefully, as I requested my boarding pass from the kiosk, I was met with a message to see customer service. My flight was cancelled. It was through my faith, that I knew God, Life and my great teachings as a woman, had prepared me to lace up my pivot shoes, and face the next challenge. And I would do so with the steel armor my parents bestowed upon me.
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So, I found my way back to my husband. Back to myself. I learned to be both wife and care taker. I learned to appreciate the little things; to use them as a gauge. And judging by the amount of golf my husband has played this year, I would say, things are okay.
Laugh 😊
Indeed, to be a woman is to exist in an endless cycle of pivot and pirouette. We are the original athlete.
In 30 plus years of politics and communications, it has been my exercises in agility that have left the most lasting impact on my team.
Any woman who has ever led a team of men, knows that it is only with swift and sound movements that her authority will be accepted.
Not unchallenged, and rarely without question, but respected after the test of time.
Over the years, I’ve taught my work team – a group of 30 somethings -- that putting on their pivot shoes is mandatory for the job. And more often than not, they report that their pivot shoes helped them navigate in tense, tough moments. I suppose I feel some sense of satisfaction, that my trials have become their tools. And yet, they have no idea how much I’ve had to overcome to be their leader.
In truth, it is only when I look to the women in my life, that I feel the full weight of all that lay behind me.
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My path has been flooded by countless streams of strong women, that have allowed me to lean into their wisdom and guidance. My friendships of the past have shapeshifted, and now serve as some of my strongest support systems; a pivot that, at times, feels unexplainable. I describe these new friendships as eternal blooms: flowers so divine, they could have only been planted by God’s hand. These are bonds that make life’s many transitions easier, and even joyful.
My mother, who has for 97 years, stood as a pillar of unbreakable strength in my life, fought her own battle with cancer, and survived. The fact that she waged this war while starting her own business, is a keen example of the intrinsic resilience and agility that I have passed down to my own daughters. My supernatural mother continues to thrive.
My sister Anita, a Hidden Figure of AT&T in her own right, showed me that I, too, could be a black leader in my 30s. Her support landed me in national publication Ebony Magazine, as one of the Top 30 Black Leaders of the Future. Anita was preparing me for a destiny that she envisioned, when my own vision was nearsighted.
Indeed, like all of us, I am the sum of my parts. There are a dozen women who have been my eyes and ears; my limbs when my own feet failed me, and my beating heart, when disappointment and depression threatened to stop it forever.
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Still, I cannot honor the power of women here in America, and around the world, without taking a moment to recognize my husband and son; two of the strongest men in my life. They support me when life hits the hardest, and grant me unconditional strength and protection in this cruel man’s world.
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In Sydni, my youngest daughter, I marvel at a determination so graceful, she would be the envy of gazelles.
I see how her agile confidence has followed her off the basketball courts of Howard University, as she now navigates the work world, where she is crushing glass ceilings, in one of the country’s largest and oldest non-profits. She follows her own vision for how she can impact change in this world, while forfeiting more lucrative opportunities, that could provide her with financial independence at the age of 23. She, too, sports her pivot shoes in unique patterns and colors. Her style and grace catch the untrained eye off guard.
When I look at Tesha, my first born, it is hard not to think of all that could have been. The past -- our past -- only deepens my admiration for the force she has become. If women are natural athletes, then Tesha was born into the Junior Olympics. I have watched her pivot and pirouette through many of life’s challenges. Those that befell her, and those that she was born into. She beats to her own rhythmic drum, and plays by her own rules.
In my daughters, I see the bottomless depth of the impact women can have on each other.
I see the infinite height of our potential. And I see a battle that is hard-worn, with opponents that often don’t play fair.
I see us.
I hope you all can see it too. Happy Women’s History Month.
Speech by Danielle Maya Banks