Boston Women’s Community Radio: "Reading for Twelve Black Women Killed in Roxbury"
Starting in January and extending into late spring of 1979, twelve Black women and one white woman were murdered in Roxbury, Massachusetts.
News coverage was lacking, but the community responded with vigorous action. They marched: nearly 500 people protested at Governor Kevin White’s residence in April, and 5,000 women marched at the August “Take Back the Night” event. They organized: the Combahee River Collective held events and published a series of pamphlets (including the one depicted here); the Coalition for Women’s Safety was created by women in the Greater Boston area. And they shared their voices: holding poetry readings, communicating to the governor, the mayor, the police, and their community. The murders and investigations were underreported, but the women are not forgotten by family, friends, or allies.
From the records of the Boston Women’s Community Radio collection:
Listen to audio of three poems read at the poetry reading, “Reading for Twelve Black Women Killed in Roxbury,”:
For research tips and additional resources, view the Hear Black Women's Voices research guide.
[Start of first track]
[Anonymous speaker]
All right I’ll read a couple more…
[Audience laughs]
[Pause]
Ruby laughs too loud, drinks too much, pounds you on the back, and can throw a softball better than anybody. The mothers suck their teeth, shake their heads and say “That Robinson girl walks like a man.” We know there must be some sin in this, but we can't quite figure out what it is.
[Audience laughs]
[Pause]
When Ruby talks to you, she rubs her jaw. She wraps her arms tight around herself.
[Pause]
The old woman with the ramrod back, looks me up and down. “Hmm? Whose child did you say you was? Look like one of them Williamses.” She stands sideways to me on the street corner with her hands behind her back, rocking on her toes. “You know, I've worked for the Wilkinsons for 16 years girl. I'm 89 years old and I still work. When I was sick, they brought me my dinner every day for two weeks, and I got paid for it. Now what more could I ask for? What more?” She stops rocking and looks at me again. Now whose child did you say you was? Well, now, ain't you Lizzie's girl?”
Thank you.
[Audience applause]
[End of first track]
[Start of second track]
[Anonymous speaker; possibly Donna Kate Rushin reading her poem “A Bridge Across My Back”]
I've had enough
I’m sick of this shit
I'm sick of seeing and touching
Both sides of things
Sick of being the damn bridge for everybody
Nobody
Can talk to anybody
Without me Right?
I explain my mother to my father, my father to my little sister
My little sister to my brother, my brother to the white feminists
The white feminists to the Black church folks, the Black church folks
To the Ex-hippies, the ex-hippies to the Black separatists, the
Black separatists to the artists, the artists to my friends' parents...
Then
I've got to explain myself
To everybody
I do more translating
Than the Goddamn U.N.
Forget it
I'm sick of it
I stretch to span your weaknesses
Then I’m the one who’s wishy-washy
I'm sick of filling in your gaps
Sick of being your insurance against
The isolation of your self-imposed limitations
Sick of being the crazy at your holiday dinners
Sick of being the odd one at your Sunday Brunches
Sick of being the sole Black friend to 34 individual White people
Find another connection to the rest of the world
Find something else to make you legitimate
Find some other way to be political and hip
I will not be the bridge to your womanhood
Your manhood
Your human-ness
I am sick of reminding you not to
Close off too tight for too long
I'm sick of mediating with your worst self
On behalf you your better selves
I am sick
Of having to remind you
To breathe
Before you suffocate
Your own fool self
Forget it
Stretch or drown
Evolve or die
The bridge I must be
Is the bridge to my own power
I must translate
My own fears
Mediate
My own weaknesses
I must be the bridge to nowhere
But my true self
And then
I will be useful
[Audience applause]
[2:40 to 3:11: Silence]
[End of second track]
[Start of third track]
[Anonymous speaker]
Can't Have Nothin’
[Pause]
Seems to be cool to be white and act like me
to dress and dance like me.
It is fly to be tan and bra free.
I'm in style, My man, my Afro, my “right on” and “be free”
As long as you're white, it seems to be cool to be black like me.
[Laughs]
[Audience applause]
[End of third track]
