On ramblings, releasing, and remembering

I have been grappling with writing anything about this - worrying that I am rambling too much about what happened to me at the Abortion Liberation Fund of PA (ALF-PA). But then I remembered that I write for ME, that doing so helps to release the trauma I carry with me on this healing journey. Also - healing is anything but linear so if I am still needing to write about my ousting, so be it.

so here it' goes. It’s brief.

I feel all kinds ways about the fact ALF-PA is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary. I am so curious about how they will honor its history when BOTH of their Executive Directors who are women of color were fired and never to be spoken of again in any way other than negatively and disgracefully.

When I first started as the ED at ALF-PA, some folks were saying I was the first women of color in that role. (*Note - I acknowledge that I am a White Latina with ample privilege. And, I am also a woman of color.) Soon after, I learned there was, in fact, a Black woman who served as ED years before me in 2001. Her name is Oretha Wofford. What? Why had no one shared this important info with me? ! I set out to learn more about her and the reason the Board terminated her after only two years. Finding out anything was a challenge. I learned that she had created the organization’s first community organizing effort. I was both thrilled and saddened to learn this because we, too, had been trying to get community organizing off the ground. She created the Community Leadership Development Project, an entire educational program to train up community members on everything to do with abortions. I was told numerous times to leave it alone, let it rest, not dig. I was told by several folks (white people who served on the Board during her time, to be precise) that she had wronged the organization via fiscal mismanagement.

Deflated, I eventually gave up. (Though I was SURE we included her name on the organization’s historical timeline on their website.)

Thinking about this and their upcoming anniversary left me seething. What information was actually shared about me behind closed doors - ‘cause I know what was shared publicly and it was awful, not to mention blatantly untruthful.

Is their current Interim ED (a Latina) also being discouraged from reaching out to me, as I had been? Is she being told that I mismanaged finances, that I am anti-Black? What lies are being told about me under the guise of protecting the organization?

Is it my duty to mySELF to speak truth to power? Or is it my ego wanting my story to be told and my contributions to ALF-PA to be remembered?

Not everyone deserves our truth. But like Zora Neale Hurston said, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”