The StoryCorps Mobile Tour returned to Fort Myers in February 2024 to record meaningful conversations with people right here in Southwest Florida about their lives.
Each Monday for the next several months, we’re highlighting some of the compelling stories from our fellow Southwest Florida residents.
In this installment, we hear Martha Bireda, Ph.D., speak with her son Jaha Cummings about perceptions of their own childhoods, memories of their grandmothers, and the need for a return to the dissipating values of community and altruism.
TRANSCRIPT:
JOHN DAVIS, HOST: Each Monday, we're featuring conversations recorded through the StoryCorps mobile tour stop in Fort Myers earlier this year. Today we hear Dr. Martha Bireda speak with her son Jaha Cummings about perceptions of their own childhoods, memories of their grandmothers, and the need for a return to the dissipating values of community and altruism.
MARTHA BIREDA: People my age, especially who've grown up during Jim Crow, we had a certain set of values that enabled us, and I have to say this, not only to survive, but to thrive during the Jim Crow era. And part of it has to do what we believed in, what we practiced, which were our values and the lessons that we instilled in our children. I am because we are. Community was everything to us during the segregated era. Community was our collective consciousness. Growing up, as I did during the Jim Crow era, I never, and I'm very serious about this, I never knew a hungry person. I never knew a person who didn't have a place to live. I see now that there are elderly people in homeless shelters. Our elderly were taken care of. We gave back. That was one of our core values, to give back. Community was everything. It was believed in our, I guess our African culture, individuals can't exist alone. You have to have community. And that's what we did. And so everybody, especially children, were taken care of because we believed children were our future, and so we had to make sure that they felt loved. I never felt insecure. I always felt like the whole community loved me. The whole community knew who I was. Right now what we need most is a return to remember who we were as a people during Jim Crow and to return to that especially in terms of how we relate to our community.
JAHA CUMMINGS: Revolution's based in love. Everything has to be based on love of ourselves and love of each other and anything else is like building a house without foundation. pretty much, it's going to turn to nothing.
BIREDA: Love is what community is about, Jaha. And that love brings joy. I think we have to start, though, with our child rearing again. During the Jim Crow era the whole community was responsible for bringing up children. Every adult had the responsibility to nurture, to encourage, and to discipline children. And so a child never felt insecure because there were always these adults around who were there to do it. And your generation, to some extent, you grew up in a very, and you maybe can talk about a very extended family, but we're going to have to teach people how to be community again. People do not know how to be community.
CUMMINGS: Clearly, in middle school, I actually noticed there literally was a line between the age of confidence and security and the age of what we're into now, where I saw young people had individual fashion, and they would actually really just show who they are through their creativity. I noticed with the younger generations, it turned into all buying the same thing, and it became more brand oriented and culturally that wasn't our way. But I noticed actually, within my time, I actually saw the change from really one's creative expression being the most celebrated as opposed to being just a mimic of other people. And what you consume is your identity and your value being based on what you consumed as opposed to what you created. I've seen both worlds and so, what of course, gratitude to is that of my elders, which was that of being a creative person.
BIREDA: I think that both you and your sister, Saba, cannot remember wearing something that has somebody else's name in it.
CUMMINGS: Goodness, no.
BIREDA: And so that that was one thing. But since you mentioned your elders, can you tell me about who influenced you? what kind of influence do they have on you? What DID you learn from the people that were around you?
CUMMINGS: As a young child, definitely my grandmother.
BIREDA: Okay.
CUMMINGS: Without question, because she was kind of like an empress in that she was the matriarch of the family, but she also was probably the most powerful force I saw as a child. And so in terms of my feeling secure, there was nothing stronger than granny. And so in the world, there never, ever was a sense of any kind of no insecurity, nor any weird orientation towards the society, like what some people may feel. I never felt any of these feelings that people felt. I always felt very much confident.
BIREDA: My grandmother left North Florida, and Granny must have had like, a third or fourth grade education, because they didn't have a school up there. And Martha Andrews said she wanted three things in her life. She wanted a family, which she got. She wanted to be a nurse. She went to night school and learned to read and write enough so that she could get a certificate for being a private duty nurse. That was my grandmother. Her third thing was to go to the Holy Land. At 50, she and her cousins went to the Holy Land. So I think my grandmother did everything she wanted in life, and she was born in 1902. So how could with everything they gave me, everything that you was given, how could we not stand on our own and do what we had to do? But also, we also had to give back.
CUMMINGS: Yes.
BIREDA: And that was part of it. Your degrees weren't just for you. Mine weren't just for me.
CUMMINGS: Oh, this is wonderful. Thank you.
Love you, honey.
BIREDA: Love you, too.
DAVIS: that was Dr. Martha Bireda and her son Jaha Cummings. Their conversation was recorded in Fort Myers through the StoryCorps mobile tour. This is WGCU News.
WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you.
