I am from a little-known sea island on the South Carolina coast that is a small dot on the map in comparison to the collective sea islands that it joins extending from North Carolina to Florida, known as the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor. I currently reside in a more developed area of the state, but I often take the three-hour journey back home. Along the way, the quaint shopping centers and subdivisions soon become mere images in the rearview mirror. The home stretch is a seven-mile state highway that is the only way to enter or exit the sea island that I call home. I am often tempted to stop at the small bridge at the entry of the island that extends over a quiet river, just to take in the beauty of Coosaw Island. The journey continues down a long, winding, paved road. At the very end of this road, the pavement shifts to dirt. Beyond this point, over five generations of my family were and continue to be raised.
The acres of land that I call home represent the experiences of many families where land ownership has been maintained through generations as heirs’ property. I was raised on a plot of land given to my mother by my grandmother, as her mother had given to her. By the standards of today’s society, my grandmother was not an educated woman, having received her high school diploma the year I was born, at the age of 53. She was a domestic worker by trade, yet within our small community, she was also a respected leader and church mother. She was one of many trusted leaders who had a lasting and sustainable impact. Their collective expertise and shared resources reaped many successes that are often not interpreted as such by the outside world. Mobile homes along dirt roads don’t necessarily present as a measure of wealth, and the absence of retail stores, grocery stores, health clinics, or parks are seen as a lack of resources. What’s often missed in understanding the value of my community, and other Black and rural communities like it, is a lack of awareness of the long-term investment in its community members. These “investments”, whether educational or financial, fostered later generations to become business owners, healthcare providers, educators, engineers, military veterans, civil servants, and public health professionals. Now as professionals in these spaces, we are able to approach our work with a lens of shared understanding of the very communities we seek to serve in our respective careers. Even still, home looks a little different now, as more and more unfamiliar faces obtain acres of land that were once family owned.
As a public health advocate, the focus of much of my work has centered around communities that share many similarities to the community that I was raised in – rural communities of color. In nearly two decades of working on initiatives to improve community health, there have been times in my career that I have been guilty of focusing on the disparities that serve as barriers, as opposed to the opportunities that exist within communities that are deemed low-resourced. Now even more, the impact of the massive loss of land ownership and other tools to build generational wealth are critical issues faced by many rural communities and communities of color. As I reflect over the lessons shared by fellow community development practitioners to amplify strategies to advance anti-racism, I can’t help but to be reminded of the early life lessons that I learned that impacted my career. The most impactful lessons came from family and community leaders who themselves were never formally trained or held any professional credentials in this space. It is from them that I learned the most valuable lessons about investment and development.
The investment into community goes well beyond the physical infrastructure, and into the very people that make up that community. Tapping into their lived experiences enables collective decision-making informed by the culture and history of the communities themselves. By opening the door for true, authentic engagement and equitable input, the untold stories of once underrepresented voices can become a collective legacy of true collaboration and sustainable change.
Andrea Heyward has nearly 20 years of experience providing training, technical assistance, and consultation to support the advancement of health equity. She holds a Master of Health Science from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a Bachelor of Arts in Experimental Psychology from the University of South Carolina.
The author is responding to the findings shared in the Anti-Racist Community Development Research Project, produced with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to increase understanding of structural racism in community development and pathways to racially equitable outcomes that promote health equity. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of RWJF or ThirdSpace Action Lab.
© 2023 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation