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Donzaleigh Abernathy brought
the testimony of a first hand witness to an eager crowd of
nearly 1,800 at the 2017 MLK Unity Celebration at The
University of Toledo. Abernathy’s parents, Juanita Jones and
Rev. Ralph Abernathy, have been described as King’s “closest
friends” and co-creators of the American Civil Rights
Movement. The families were almost inseparable during one of
the darkest periods in American history.
Abernathy’s eyewitness
account of King and the historic struggle for civil rights
brings racial realism and provides clarity for a
contemporary generation that has been spoon-fed sanitized
Eurocentric versions of the Movement.
Abernathy, now, a
critically acclaimed actress, author and activist, agreed to
share her personalized story to The Truth’s readers and
those “hungry for an authentic witness.” This is part two of
the interview.
Perryman:
You have talked about the trauma as well as the joys of your
dad and Dr. King. Can you please tell our readers about your
own life as you grew and transitioned from the battlefield
of the civil rights movement to the glamour of the
performing arts industry? Your bio lists some amazing
credits.
Abernathy:
Well, I always knew I was an artist before I could write. I
could draw, so my dad always said “Donzaleigh’s going to be
an artist” and I knew I was an artist. And I didn’t want to
go outside and play with other children, I had this creative
thing inside me and there was nothing I could do to shake
it. So, Yolanda (Yoki) King started taking acting lessons
and she decided we were going to put on these plays, so
every year we would make a Christmas and an Easter play for
our parents.
And we did that for like,
four years, and I watched the acting classes that Yoki would
take. I was too young to participate, but I sure watched,
and I loved the acting, and so then I decided as a little
girl that I was going to be an actress or a painter. Or I
was gonna be a dancer. But I knew that I was never going to
be that person that sat in a corporate office or who was a
doctor or a lawyer. I liked doing artistic things.
And after a short period
in my life, I gave up on my art and my dad said to me,
“You’ve convinced me that you’re an artist and that you’re
an actress, and I need you to pursue your dreams.” And so he
put me in a car, shut the door and said, “Now I’ve lived my
life and I want you to go live yours, and I want you to live
your dreams, so I need you to go to California and pursue
your dream, because you can’t achieve it here in Atlanta,
Georgia.”
And I drove across America
and decided that if I have to live in the land of the
earthquakes, I’m going to fulfill my dreams like my dad did,
and that’s how I became a professional actress, and I’m
glad. It’s been a hard, yet a wonderful journey. It’s a
great profession and I feel blessed.
Perryman:
Are you active in the movement today?
Abernathy:
In the Civil Rights Movement today?
Perryman:
Yes. Contemporary social justice of any kind, whether that’s
Black Lives Matter or any other activity.
Abernathy:
Well, I’m active in what’s called The Resistance Movement.
Perryman:
Please elaborate.
Abernathy:
Well, The Resistance Movement are the people that are trying
to do everything we can to keep America an integrated place
and where people of color get to live together; where
Latinos are respected, Native Americans get to live and have
wonderful clean drinking water and where immigrants are
welcomed. I go out of my way to embrace every Muslim that I
encounter just to let them know that you’re welcome in my
land and if you need to cover your head with a chador or
cover your body with a burqa, that’s okay with me.
I’m interested in a place
where Planned Parenthood and their services are available to
women, and that a woman has a right to choose what happens
to her body and the right to govern her own body.
I’m interested in working
hard for maintaining the right to vote and to make it easier
for everyone in America to have the right to vote. I’m
interested in working hard for equal pay for women and men,
equal opportunity for all people of color in the workplace,
as well as in education. I work so that higher education is
available to all, and that it’s more than just 10 percent of
people of color and women that are entitled to education,
jobs, fair housing, public accommodations, voting rights,
because we make up…women make up more than 50 percent of the
population, and women are entitled to at least 50 percent of
the jobs, 50 percent of the income.
Minorities - people of
color are not minorities, actually. We are the majority
because there are huge numbers of Latino people and black
people and Asian people, and when you add us together, we’re
more than 50 percent of the population. We’re entitled to
more than 50 percent of the jobs and income. And, we are…the
majority of black people are poor, the majority of Latino
people are poor, and the majority of poor people in America
are white, that’s the common ground that unites us. So I
work for those things.
Under the Obama
administration, we were blessed to have the Affordable Care
Act. It’s a wonderful blessing, and for a period of my life
I did not have health insurance. I could not afford it, and
then Obamacare came to be, and I was blessed to be able to
have health insurance. So, I don’t need anybody to tell me
that it’s despicable and it’s a horrible thing, I know that
it was a wonderful thing and it afforded me the opportunity
to be covered when I was over 40 years of age and needed to
have health insurance.
I’m not a billionaire, so
I can’t buy and sell the doctors. I’m just a black woman
who struggles every day to earn a living, and therefore
needed it, and I have too many friends who need mammograms
and Pap smears and birth control and things like that, that
are provided through Planned Parenthood, and when they
defund Planned Parenthood, the healthcare for women will not
be available.
So droves of women of all
colors will start to die because they will not get their Pap
smears, they will not know that cancer and disease are
growing in their body. Without the Affordable Care Act,
there will be no healthcare for these women and there will
be no replacement, because billionaires don’t care what
happens to poor people. And we learned that the trickledown
theory does not work. It did not work before and it’s not
going to work again.
So, that’s the Resistance
Movement that I’m a part of, and wherever I can go and be a
part and help I do, I’m not trying to lead, I’m just one of
the team. I’m just an American citizen.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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