The History We Bury

I've been going to a lot of funerals lately. So many that sometimes it seems like hardly a week passes without hearing that another friend, colleague, or fraternity brother has died. My mother has a simple explanation. She says, "When you know a lot of people, you're going to see a lot of people die." I suppose she's right, but lately I've begun to realize something else. Every time we bury someone, we may be burying a piece of history that nobody thought to write down.

Recently, I learned of the deaths of two people I'd known from my years at Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, Deavrah Chandler Turner and Harold Crumpton. Both belonged to a generation of Black employees who helped change corporate America, often at considerable personal sacrifice. I wrote resolutions honoring their lives because I wanted their families to understand that these weren't just people who had successful careers. They were people who helped make successful careers possible for others.

When Deavrah's family asked me to come to Gilmer, Texas, and read her resolution at the funeral, I didn't hesitate. She had meant too much to me not to be there. In fact, I told the family that if only two people showed up for her funeral, I wanted to be one of those two. Some people make such a difference in your life that showing up is the least you can do.

There wasn't a large crowd that morning. There were family members, several young people, and older Black men and women who reminded me of a generation that had fought for opportunities many of them probably never received themselves. Looking around the room, I wondered how much history those older folks carried and how much of it the younger people might never have heard. I had come to read a resolution, but I was beginning to sense that there was something more important I needed to do.

During the service, Deavrah's granddaughter shared a memory that made me smile. She remembered her grandmother as a successful, beautifully dressed woman who traveled, entertained friends, and seemed to enjoy the good things in life. She recalled being about six years old, riding in her grandmother's car, and asking, "Grandmother, are you rich?" I smiled because I knew Deavrah had helped make quite a few people rich, although not necessarily in the way her granddaughter meant.

When my turn came, I stepped to the podium with the resolution in my hand. I was ready to read it when something occurred to me. The words on that paper honored Deavrah's accomplishments, but they couldn't fully explain what those accomplishments meant. Her grandchildren knew the grandmother who loved them. I knew the woman who had helped change my life. And standing there, I realized I had an opportunity to bring those two stories together.

So I put the resolution aside for a moment and decided to tell them a little history.

I reminded them that most of us know about Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. We recognize their faces, remember their words, and celebrate their contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. And we should. But what about the Deavrahs of the world? What about the men and women whose names never appeared in history books, who never spoke before thousands of people, but who fought their own battles in offices, factories, churches, and communities across America?

Those were the people who helped turn the promises of the Civil Rights Movement into everyday opportunities.

There was a time when Black women faced barriers to becoming telephone operators and Black men faced barriers to becoming installers, technicians, and managers. Those jobs offered good wages, benefits, and opportunities to build a better life, but for generations, many were largely closed to people who looked like us. And those doors didn't open simply because somebody in Washington passed a law.

They opened because people marched, protested, organized, filed lawsuits, and demanded change. I remember hearing stories about people paying telephone bills with pennies to protest discriminatory hiring practices and Black workers challenging exclusion from construction jobs associated with the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. They weren't always fighting for jobs they would ever hold themselves. Many were fighting for their children, their neighbors, and young people they might never meet.

Sometimes you fight for a future you may never get to enjoy.

In 1973, the Bell System entered into a federal consent decree addressing employment discrimination. That agreement helped open opportunities for women and minorities, including people like me. I joined Southwestern Bell in 1978, part of a generation that benefited from affirmative action. But getting through the door was only the beginning.

Some of us were hired into management positions without receiving the same training as our white colleagues. We weren't always taught how to conduct meetings, manage projects, prepare reports, or navigate corporate politics. We had the responsibility, but not necessarily the preparation. Sometimes it seemed as though we were being given just enough opportunity to fail.

That's where Deavrah Chandler and two other courageous women came in.

They helped establish The NETWORK, an organization of Black employees committed to helping one another succeed. In the early days, they met in garages, church basements, and homes because they couldn't count on using company facilities. They shared information, developed leadership skills, and taught young Black managers the things their employer wasn't always teaching them.

And they paid a price for doing it.

I eventually became, I think, the fifth president of The NETWORK, but the presidents before me had faced serious consequences for their leadership. Some lost their jobs, while others saw their careers suffer. These weren't people protesting from the safety of retirement. They had families, mortgages, and futures, yet they understood that standing up for others could cost them everything they had worked to achieve.

Deavrah was one of those people.

She was a second-level manager at a time when that was a significant accomplishment for a Black employee. She was smart, confident, always beautifully dressed, and generous with what she knew. I told the people at her funeral that if she were coming through the company today, she might well have become a vice president. But what impressed me most wasn't how far she climbed. It was how determined she was to help others climb with her.

And I was one of those people.

Deavrah and the older brothers and sisters in The NETWORK taught us things we didn't even know we needed to learn. They taught us how to conduct meetings, prepare reports, manage projects, and navigate the unwritten rules of corporate America. They even taught us how to dress for success, down to the difference between wearing a white shirt and a blue shirt to certain meetings. Those details might seem trivial today, but back then, they could determine whether you were taken seriously before you ever opened your mouth.

Their lessons didn't stop when we left the office. They taught us how to save money, understand retirement benefits, purchase homes, and build financial security. Deavrah was especially influential in helping me understand the importance of saving 10% of my salary and the power of compound interest. With the help of her and others, by the time I was 25, I had purchased my first home.

Many of us were the first generation in our families to hold corporate management positions. Our parents had worked hard and prepared us as best they could, but they hadn't necessarily had access to the opportunities we were now enjoying. So those older brothers and sisters became our teachers, advisers, and sometimes our second families.

But the support didn't come only from people wearing suits and carrying briefcases.

I remember the Black security guards, janitors, cleaning ladies, secretaries, and other employees who worked in those buildings. Many had never been given the opportunity to become managers, but they were rooting for those of us who had. They looked out for us, shared information, offered encouragement, and celebrated our successes because they understood what those successes represented.

They knew that if we succeeded, perhaps their children would have a chance to succeed, too.

Even though affirmative action allowed the best and smartest of us to get jobs, we were never supposed to forget that having a management title didn't make us better than the Black employees who cleaned the offices, guarded the doors, or answered the telephones. In many ways, we were standing on their shoulders, too. They had helped create the opportunities we were enjoying, and they expected us to remember where we came from.

It wasn't just a corporate movement. It was a community movement.

The NETWORK understood that our success inside the company was connected to the Black community outside it. We built relationships with churches, civil rights organizations, elected officials, and community leaders. We pushed corporations to become more accountable to the communities they served. Our concerns extended beyond promotions and salaries to the broader struggle for economic opportunity and equality.

Over time, many of us built careers our predecessors could only have imagined. We became directors, executives, business owners, and community leaders. We raised families, purchased homes, and built financial security. Some of us enjoyed careers that lasted thirty or forty years.

And somewhere along the way, something interesting happened.

The extraordinary began to seem ordinary.

We became accustomed to seeing Black managers, Black executives, Black women leading departments, and Black professionals making decisions that once would have been made without anyone who looked like us in the room. Our children grew up seeing possibilities that our parents could barely imagine. And because those opportunities became part of everyday life, we didn't always stop to explain how they came to exist.

We were so busy enjoying the doors that had been opened that we sometimes forgot to tell our children who had opened them.

Standing at that podium in Gilmer, I wanted Deavrah's family to understand that their grandmother hadn't simply enjoyed the benefits of progress. She had helped make progress possible. I wanted them to know that the comfortable lives many of us enjoy today didn't just happen because a law was passed or a corporation suddenly decided to become fair.

People made those changes happen. People like their grandmother. People who protested, organized, marched, taught, mentored, and sometimes sacrificed their own careers so others could have a chance.

At one point, I told them something that came straight from my heart: "She took blows so that I would not have to take them."

I meant every word.

Only then did I read the resolution.

After I finished, the woman minister made an observation that stayed with me. She said that sometimes we sit right beside people without realizing the magnitude of the lives they've touched. We see them every day, talk with them, work alongside them, and never fully understand how far their influence reaches.

She was right.

And here's what troubles me.

I was there. I worked alongside these people. I benefited from what they did. I eventually became a leader in the very organization they helped build. Yet even now, I'm discovering things about that history that I didn't know. I don't remember every date, every person, or every battle.

If I don't know all of that history, how can I expect my children and grandchildren to know it?

I think about the debates we're having today over diversity, equity, and inclusion. People argue about affirmative action without always understanding the conditions that made those policies necessary in the first place. They didn't witness the exclusion, unequal training, delayed promotions, or the people who risked their careers trying to make things better. And why would younger generations know those things if we haven't told them?

At Deavrah's funeral, I met a younger relative named Regina, an intelligent, confident young woman who works at the Texas Capitol. I overheard her reminding some of her elders that there are still people working to make things better for those coming behind them. I liked that. She reminded me that the next generation isn't waiting around for us to hand them the future. They're already trying to shape it.

But I wonder how much stronger they might be if they knew more about the struggles, mistakes, sacrifices, and victories of those who came before them.

That's where I believe my generation has unfinished business.

We spent much of our lives building careers, raising families, accumulating assets, and trying to make the world better than we found it. Many of us have retired now. We have more time to reflect, and we have experiences that can't be found in textbooks or company archives. We remember the people, conversations, unwritten rules, and small victories that never made the newspapers.

But memories have expiration dates.

I've reached a season of life when I attend more funerals than weddings. When I hear about another friend passing away, I don't just think about the person I've lost. I think about the conversations we never had, the questions I never asked, and the stories that person might have told if somebody had taken the time to listen.

And I wonder what will happen to my own stories if I don't tell them.

We often talk about leaving a legacy. We think about wills, insurance policies, houses, investments, and the things we'll leave our families. Those things matter. But there's another kind of inheritance that may be just as valuable: the knowledge of how we got here, what it cost, who helped us, and what we learned along the way.

Maybe it's time for my generation to start thinking about that inheritance a little more seriously.

We need to record the stories of the people who opened doors for us. We need to tell our children and grandchildren about the people whose names they may never see in a history book. We need to share the mistakes we made, the battles we fought, and the lessons we learned. And we need to do it while there are still people around who can help us remember what really happened.

I'm not suggesting that every one of us needs to write a book. Sometimes all it takes is a conversation with a grandchild, a recording on a telephone, a photograph with a story attached, or a few pages written down. The important thing is that we stop assuming somebody else will preserve the history.

Because somebody else may not know it.

I went to Gilmer to honor Deavrah Chandler Turner. I came home realizing that the resolution I read was about more than one remarkable woman. It was about an entire Black community that fought to create opportunities for people they might never meet. It was about men and women who sacrificed their own advancement so others could move forward, and about janitors and security guards rooting for young managers because they understood that our success belonged to more than just us.

My forty-year career wasn't simply the result of my education, hard work, or affirmative action. It was the result of a community investment. People who didn't know me fought for my opportunity. People who would never become managers helped me succeed as one. And people who had already paid a price taught me how to avoid paying that same price.

I didn't just inherit a career. I inherited a responsibility.

We have done a good job of remembering the famous names of the Civil Rights Movement. Now it's time to remember the people who carried that movement into our workplaces, neighborhoods, and everyday lives. The Deavrahs of the world deserve to have their stories told, too.

We often say we stand on the shoulders of giants. But what happens when the giants are gone and nobody remembers their names?

The generation before us fought to open doors. My generation walked through them.

Now it's our turn to open one more—the door to our history.

Because the greatest tragedy isn't that the giants who carried us are dying.

It's that we might be the last generation that remembers what did.