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| What Emerges When Paths Cross?
Jack Turman, Jr., PhD, USC Center for Premature Infant Health and Development
Keynote address for Sister Friend Leadership Academy © June 25, 2007 |
Five years ago, a scientist investigating the mysteries of the developing brain decided to embark on a new path to research ways to eliminate he persistent racial disparities in adverse birth outcomes. Ten years ago, a businesswoman decided to exit the path of corporate America and decided to walk the path of directing a non‐profit community‐based organization aimed at eliminating the black infant mortality crisis. Eighteen months ago, divine providence intervened, causing the paths being traveled by these different individuals to intersect, and no one, except the holy and divine one, knew how the mission of improving the reproductive lives of African American women in Southern California would be impacted.
You probably figured out by now that the scientist is myself, and the businesswoman is Wenonah, and this partnership between university and community, between science and outreach, has begun to flourish beyond our wildest dreams. In 18 months of partnership, we has hosted a community dialogue, received funding to host a lecture series, partnered with local churches, been written up in the local paper, the Kaiser network, the USC news, and are now a finalist for a March of Dimes Community Service grant. Witness the power of paths crossing!
| This evening, I am here to applaud you all, and let you know that you have my deepest respect. Because I know that you are all busy individuals that have decided that our nation’s black infant mortality crisis, which dates back to 1850, must be faced, and that it must be faced in the community, where it lives, not in some academic institution or some clinic. I am here to tell you that you are brave, because you have decided to take ownership of this problem and contribute to its resolution, as opposed to either ignoring it or just sitting around and talking about its complex causes. Maya Angelou once said, “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” In a similar vein, by no means do I, or Wenonah, or any of you, at this time, have a quick answer to this important public health problem, but we all have skills to utilize to resolve the problem. In deciding to be a Sister Friend, I can guarantee you only one thing, that the path you have chosen is going to make some fascinating intersections with other people’s paths, and the question is, “what emerges when paths cross?” Now, I realize that there are many possibilities to this question, but there are two outcomes that I would bet my life on, those being HOPE and LOVE.
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Hope‐It is the word that Wenonah and I built our collaboration around. I promise that in your role as a Sister Friend, you are going to bring an immense amount of hope to a number of pregnant African American women. In my few years of giving talks about our nation’s black infant mortality crisis, and my ideas on addressing it, the one constant response I get from African American ladies, is that they believe that my message is one of hope. I have had African American ladies inform me that they entered pregnancy, experienced pregnancy and childbirth, and raised their children with no hope extended to them from their family or community. This breaks my heart.
A pregnant woman living in a community of hope and support can really influence the community, the world and history. Let me tell you a true, relevant story. There was a woman that once lived in a community and culture that greatly supported pregnancy, she got married, pregnant and both her husband and baby died shortly after child birth. Then she remarried and got pregnant, delivered the baby and the baby died 6 days later. She got pregnant again. The child she was now carrying, would become deaf, and suffer terrible GI and mental disorders. Clearly this woman had every right to view her reproductive life, and life in general, as hopeless, but she, with the encouragement of her family and community, carried on with her pregnancy. Now, I was first introduced to this story when my pastor read it from the pulpit. Soon after he finished it, a woman in the congregation yelled out, “Abort the child.” Silence filled the sanctuary, and our pastor, quietly replied, “You just aborted Beethoven.”
By involving yourself in this important role as a Sister Friend, you are joining a family of individuals that work to bring hope to pregnant women, encouraging them to look forward to new life they are holding and shaping. Sister Friends are in the business of building hopeful communities. 
| But is hope enough? I really do not know the answer, but I do find it interesting that St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” I have often thought, why is love the greatest? My personal belief, at this point in my life, is that of these three words, love is the verb that carries in it action towards others, where it is hard to see faith and hope, we all recognize love when it happens. When your path crosses with the paths of the pregnant women you serve, love will be visualized! How can this be, well, because you are going to give them valuable information and teach them skills, information and skills that very well might save their lives, the lives of their babies, and improve the outcomes of their pregnancy. This friends, is LOVE. You are not just saying, it is all going to be alright (that is giving hope). You are saying, this is what we will do together, to make it alright (this is love).
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So thank you ladies, thank you very much, for taking times out of your busy, hectic, and personal and professional lives, to join folks like Wenonah and myself on this journey to eliminate the black infant mortality crisis. I am excited about the hope and love that is going to emerge when your path crosses with that of a pregnant African American wman, and for the glorious community that is going to emerge around all these blesses intersections. Click here to download a PDF copy of this document.
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