Here is the full transcript of sociologist and author Anna Malaika Tubbs’ talk titled “How Moms Shape The World” at TED 2021 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Every year, around January 15th, the world rightfully celebrates the birth of the great Martin Luther King Jr. Yet, virtually no one has stopped to consider who else was in that room that day in 1929. As if somehow MLK Jr. birthed himself. I toured the location where he was born.
A charming, quaint two-story home in Atlanta. And while it was an honor to even be there, I left feeling frustrated by the tour guide’s script. Of course, MLK Jr. was the center of most of the tales, and then came stories about his father, the inspiring Reverend Martin Luther King Sr.
The Erasure of Alberta Christine Williams King
But what frustrated me was the lack of attention being paid to his mother, Alberta Christine Williams King. Even though this was actually her childhood home first and the home where she’d later birth her children, in a room on the second floor. This erasure doesn’t only concern Alberta.
Mothers in the US are often misrepresented or completely left out in the stories we tell. Mothers are used to being seen as selfless beings without needs for others to consider. They’re used to feeling belittled if they stay at home with their children because the narrative says it’s “unproductive.”
Or they might even hide the fact that they have children at work so that they’re still taken seriously rather than seen as distracted. And they will not receive credit for the accomplishments of the loved ones they have supported day in and day out because our retelling of events doesn’t feature the many acts of mothering.
The Impact of Misrepresentation
Beyond such instances being frustrating, I believe they lead to a lack of understanding surrounding the critical roles mothers play in our society, and they contribute to a lack of support for mothers. If the stories we tell, both on an interpersonal level as well as in literature and in media, deem mothers as unimportant, as unworthy of being seen and considered, then these opinions will be reflected in the way that mothers are treated in our country.
It is not a surprise, then, that in the US we have yet to establish universal parental leave, a universal quality, affordable child care, that we are experiencing a maternal mortality crisis and that many mothers had no other choice but to leave the workforce as a result of the pandemic. Such tragedies have a ripple effect that also hurts our children, our communities, even our national economy.
The Role of Storytelling
As a writer and sociologist, I believe that storytelling plays a necessary role in fixing our current trajectory; that through the intentional centering of mothers, we can not only make life better for them, we can actually make life better for everyone. The way to get organizations and our government to give mothers the resources that they desperately need and deserve is to first shift our perspective of motherhood on a cultural level.
I am on a mission for that shift to happen in my lifetime, especially for mothers of color who have historically received the least resources. I have spent the last several years studying three women in particular, whose life stories show, number one, just how easily we disregard mothers, and number two, how a lack of consideration for their needs and their contributions leads to a lack of intervention and support.
The Story of Alberta King
While it may be too late to help the three of them, I believe their life stories provide guidance on how we can make the world better for moms and everyone they impact today. So let’s first go back to Alberta King.
Alberta was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1903, to the leaders of Ebenezer Baptist Church. Even as a young girl, she was an activist. She participated in marches and boycotts, and she even joined her parents as some of the very first members of the NAACP. She believed that Christian faith must always be intertwined with social justice, and she used her education to advance freedom causes.
Alberta grew up to be a talented organizer and a musician, as well as a mother of three. Before meeting her husband, Alberta was on her path to becoming an educator. She earned a teaching certificate and a bachelor’s degree. But because the law stated that married women could not teach, she was forced to walk away from a formal career.
She still did everything she could to provide for, educate and protect her family and her community members. But that same care and shielding was not afforded to her in return. Her life was tragically taken when she was shot in the back as she played the church organ.
The Story of Louise Langdon Little
The second story begins in La Digue Grenada, at the very end of the 19th century. A little girl is influenced by her grandparents to always stand for Black pride and Black independence by any means necessary. At the young age of 17, she travels to Montreal, Canada, on her own, to spread the message of Black liberation.
And she joins the Marcus Garvey pan-African movement. This is just a brief introduction to Louise Langdon Little, a multilingual scholar and activist who also brought eight children into the world, one of whom was named Malcolm Little originally. He later became known to the world as Malcolm X.
When Louise’s husband was murdered and she was widowed when she was only in her 30s, white welfare workers started showing up and entering her home, questioning the way that she was raising her children. A white male physician was sent to evaluate her, and he concluded that she was experiencing dementia, citing that she was “imagining being discriminated against.” As a result, she was institutionalized against her will for around 25 years.