Lula Mae BrownMy great-grandmother was born in North Carolina and lived most of her adult life in Washington, D.C. A wise, loving soul she was full of mother wit, common sense, and resourcefulness. She was married to my great-grandfather Ernest Brown, whom I never met. She was a devoted member of Union Wesley African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Washington, D.C., a part of the storied Church family of Harriett Tubman, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. Though she never made it west of the Mississippi, she will be remembered and immortalized in the Mission District of San Francisco. Aunt Lu (as she was affectionately called) is now a part of the powerful sisterhood that will reside in the walls, bricks, and mortar of the Names Ribbon Project at the Women's Building. In certain West African cultures, when you speak an ancestor's name, they are present and among us--the living. This, I believe, that my great-grandmother will always be alive in the memories and hearts of her loved ones as well as to those who enter the sacred space and walk the grounds of this historic building.
Honored by Karen Stroud |
