All of Us Are Brave

Inherent in any Plan B is the necessity to consider the option of making a move. If the place where you are or the situation you’re in isn’t working out, you’ve either got to find a way to fix it or find a way out.

But which is braver—to stay or to go?

I remember listening to a friend talk about his maverick ancestors who left their land and headed for Oklahoma—homesteaders escaping the misfortune of being Black in the south. He made his clan sound so wild and free—people nourished on wild meat washed down by hard liquor. People who stood up, stared you down. People who smiled a little and dared ya.

My own ancestors didn’t ride off or steal away. They can be traced for generations to plots of land a little north of the North Carolina border or a little south, but not much more than 75 miles in either direction. They are the ones who stayed, tethered by traditions—some that kept them poor, some that kept them hidden, some that them securely rooted. They smiled a little, cast their eyes aside and moved around whatever was in their way.

My grandfather’s legend comes to mind. An orderly in the local hospital, he worked quietly, steadily for the salary that helped feed his ten children. One day he had a heart attack at work. He must have been surrounded by doctors who might have treated him. But he was colored and this was a white hospital in Virginia. So they let him lie until they could send for my grandmother (there was no phone to call) so she could arrange to come get him (there was no car) and take him to the small colored hospital across town.

He survived. And when he’d recovered his strength, he went back to work. At the hospital that had refused him treatment.

Who, then, is stronger? The ones who leave their troubles behind, bracing for an uncertain fate? Or the ones who face their troubles down—certain of them, but certain, too, that somehow they can plow on?

The Exodusters and the Great Migrators must have been courageous souls to pick up and leave for definite or indefinite destinations—someplace, somehow new. I admire them for packing their things and taking to the road, singing I'll Fly Away. But the ones who stayed must have possessed a sturdy nerve to stay and stand firm in their roots. They sang, too: I Will Not Be Moved.

I understand both urges. My tendency, when times get too tough, is to look for a new road to take. But I am transfused with the sticky blood of people who kept plowing the land they knew. A free child of people who were not, I understand that there is more than one way to make tracks.

So, who is braver? I have considered it for years now, and I don’t know. There is a noted womanist studies book titled All the Woman Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave. I would like to think that all of us are brave. And that maybe it doesn’t matter that you made the courageous choice, as long as you know you’ve made the right one: the one that keeps your soul alive.