Nineteen Fifty-Six Vol.4 Issue 2

FAMILY
58
My grandmother, Earlean
Isaac, was born in 1950 to
Mary V. Williams and Robert
Percy Williams. She had 14 siblings.
In all, there were 15 of them, with
her being the 2nd oldest. For a
long time, the 1st born, my Auntie
Minnie, took care of her younger
brothers and sisters but when my
grandmother came of age to work,
she took responsibility for the family
and her parents after she graduated
high school to help financially.
It has always been hard to rely
on history books for accurate
storytelling, African American
households use oral history, art,
music, cuisine, and language,
along with photographs to tell the
history of our people. In this small
town in rural Alabama, most of its
inhabitants are older. Once they pass
on, so do their memories and their
stories. We owe it to those who come
after them to document as much
history and information as possible.
So, I took the initiative and decided
to focus on my Nana, for my senior
capstone project. Not only because
she’s someone very close to me, but
also to inspire small-town people to
tell their stories their way.
My Nana worked at Vanity Fair, then
HISTORY
JAZMYNE ISSAC
as an office clerk in the courthouse
for 18 years before she was elected
as the first Black woman to be
elected Probate Judge in the state
of Alabama, spending almost 46
years in the courthouse until her
retirement. The road there was
not easy nor was it during. My
grandmother sacrificed much of her
childhood, even missing school, to
work in the fields supporting her
family. She and her family worked
this land during the Civil Rights
Movement much to the dismay of
the white man, whose land they
were on, but this did not stop her.
She still found a way to attend the
Mass Meetings, traveling from state
to state, and even shook Dr. Martin
Luther King’s hand at the meeting
in Montgomery, Alabama.
This is why it is important to
continue having these conversations
and why it is important to document
and record this history. If there
is anything to know about our
Black elders, then indulging in
information of the past is not
something they always do. It comes
in spurts and most times not all at
once. Some stories I did not know
about until I interviewed her. I have
reported on my grandmother so
much throughout the years and