In an annotated wiki on the history of Wyandanch - it's a hamlet on Long Island - my grandfather's name is mentioned more than four times.
- James Ellison, real estate man
- James Ellison, World War II veteran
- James Ellison, Republican committeeman
- And probably my favorite - James Ellison, the "intrepid" Wyandanch civil rights leader.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and had he lived to see this day, James Ellison would be four years shy of 100. Saturday would have been his second march, because I'm certain James Ellison would want to go.
He was a man who pushed for affordable and fair housing in his community and for the integration of the Wyandanch Volunteer Fire Department. He suggested a local school be named after the fallen Pfc. Milton L. Olive, the first African-American awarded a Medal of Honor for service in Vietnam. Milton L. Olive Middle School stands to this day.
James was a man who didn't stand alone. He and my grandmother Ruby, a dental hygienist, collaborated with the Suffolk County Police Department in working with the community and developing a community policing model. And they worked together in bringing much-needed health-care services to Wyandanch by garnering support to launch the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Health Center.
It opened its doors in July 1968, mere months after the assassination of its namesake - the outspoken reverend with whom James went to march nearly five years earlier.
And it seemed, in a short span of time following the March on Washington, James and Ruby had embarked on a civil rights movement of their own in New York. Their activism in the community extends beyond these pages.
But to me they were just Grandma and Grandpa.
Grandpa singing in the morning. Grandma and her thick glasses and white-grey hair. Grandpa playing with us children in the backyard. Grandma sitting with limited vision at the kitchen table, Grandpa peeling open the day's newspaper, Grandma ultimately in the nursing home.
I wish I'd had the wherewithal to ask the questions that mattered, then.
Grandpa died in '95, Grandma, almost 10 years later.
"I want to have you know that you come from a line of great leaders in the community," my mother tells me one evening in a recording that runs about 45 minutes long. I know this story she is about to tell, but I want to hear it again - save her voice for perpetuity and the story, well, for the books.
It's a story to be proud of, not all that pretty at points, yet one that only in recent years have I noticed seems to come up whenever my mother meets some suitor of mine.
So smoothly she'll slide a condensed version of our history into their conversation with a negligible air of pride, as though to say "My daughter comes from a place of great strength, treat her as such."
Combing through the pages of history for my grandfather's name, I am reminded of that. Even if the plight and fight of my mother's family had not been documented but confined only to oral history, it wouldn't change a thing.
A legacy had been left - passed along, so to speak. Through an emphasis on education, high achievement and, most of all, on helping lift up one's fellow man.
It runs through my cousins, both in social work; through my mother and aunt Nadia, who tirelessly served for years as educators; and through aunt Michele, a brilliant Lutheran minister who also worked in social services.
And it runs through me, too. I continue to figure out how and what that looks like.
What is your legacy, Bravetta?
I think to myself, did James and Ruby know what legacy they were creating in the strides for change they took? Surely a glimpse of it is what propelled them. And I am certain "the dream," which belonged to them, too, pushed them on.
A dream that, in its simplest form, made this world a place more livable than it was the day before.
And I think about legacy and this challenged country with potential.
The concerns of the day aren't in black and white anymore. In many ways they are in color now - a multiplicity of colors. But the themes haven't changed. The basic needs of all human beings - as championed by King and my grandfather James Ellison at the March on Washington held 50 years ago to this date - haven't changed and won't change.
What is my legacy, Grandpa?
As I reach forward into the future - grasping for that which will leave this world a better place, more livable than it was the day before - for the moment I offer what I can: a smile and a kind word and what time I have to give to whomever will receive it.
Because somebody, somewhere can use it.
Such small gestures will never be recorded in any wiki, but I'm assured that they matter and make a difference.
It's not a health center, Grandma, or a school name, Grandpa, but know that I appreciate and take pride in your great works and want only to build on them.
Bravetta Hassell 918-581-8316
bravetta.hassell@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Leaving a legacy a family trait
Family
If I had kids, I'm afraid I'd be more than a helicopter parent. I'd be an AH-1W Super Cobra. Obviously, I had to Google that.
I don't know why I don't think about preparing and serving ham more often. Pig-headed, I guess.
