Barbara Lee: A bridge to connect to our roots

By Rosa Lizarde

All our silences in the face of racist assault are acts of complicity.
– Bell Hooks

Connecting Our Roots, organized by Loretto Link’s Cooperative Economics Working Group in early August, brought together members of the Black community from Louisville and nearby towns at Loretto Motherhouse for a day with U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-19), a former Mary Rhodes Award recipient and student of the Sisters of Loretto in El Paso. Having served on the staff of Barbara Lee in the California State Assembly in 1996, I met with her in September 2023 at the United Nations, where she works on women’s economic and gender justice. Her interest was piqued when I invited her to the Motherhouse for this event.

Congresswoman Lee shared a moving personal narrative as the keynote speaker at the main panel, weaving in the connection to the Loretto Community’s historic truth of having enslaved persons and the importance of seeking understanding and healing of our shared past. She also brought hope and encouragement for deepening the connections with descendants of enslaved persons.

A storm had threatened to cancel a Motherhouse campus tour. While Eleanor Craig compensated with a tour of the Heritage Center, the storm cleared enough to allow a shortened tour to the Slave Memorial. The overcast skies matched the mood when Rep. Lee asked what oblates were, how many lived among the early sisters, and about the “other slaves” on the Slave Memorial plaque.

Celine Mutuyemariya, organizing director of the Black Leadership Action Coalition of Kentucky, and Carolyn Jaramillo, member of Loretto Link’s Good Trouble Working Group, complemented the panel as respondents who added insightful remarks. Mariel Gardner of the West Louisville’s Women’s Collaborative joined the organizing team and was instrumental in inviting many Black women to the panel.

Rep. Lee recalled how her values and beliefs were rooted in those formative elementary years being taught by the Sisters of Loretto. In recounting her story, she was a bridge to our past, and she was also helping build a bridge to our future by properly acknowledging the past, making connections with those impacted by it and having deep understanding of the historic truth of participating in the system of enslaving human beings. Through her introduction of House Resolution 44, which urges the establishment of a U.S. Commission on Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation, she lays the policy work for reparations, which she explained is the transformational catalyst for progress toward eliminating persistent racial inequities.

I told the Congresswoman we very much appreciated her presence, as she is in demand as a surrogate for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. She replied, “I am at the right place, at the right time. I am exactly where I need to be at this time.”