Game Changers: The Conscious Culture Volume 2 Issue 8 | Page 21

1 Child, 1 Family, 1 Community at a Time:
Community Activist and Advocate Ms. Sarah Billups
B y A s h o n t é Ly l e s
Although starting life under the
suffocating oppression of the Jim
Crow South, Ms. Sarah Billups
was incredibly free. For most of
her earliest years in her home
town of
Aliceville,
Alabama
along with
her sister,
Sarah grew
to be a gift-
ed, strong-
willed,
musically
talented
young
woman.
Living in
her seg-
regated
community
afforded her
a level of
protection
and cultural
education
most do not
experience
today. While
the outside
greater community of Aliceville
was a harsh reality filled with a
complicated type of line walking,
her inner African-American com-
munity fostered her self-esteem,
demanded excellence, required a
thirst for knowledge and taught
her that she had only the limits
her own mind conceived. Her
childhood and adolescence was
punctuated by the reality that the
outside world did not see her in
the same light.
Sarah’s father passed when she
was just four years old and she
and her sister had an 18-year
gap between themselves and
her older brothers. Her mother
worked tirelessly as a housekeep-
er and caretaker earning just $10
per week; in spite of this obvious
struggle she provided a loving
and enriching home for Sarah
and her siblings, giving them
whatever they needed “some-
how, by the grace of God”. She
regularly brought home sweet
treats for
her girls
and books
which
she’d often
rescued
from her
employ-
er’s trash.
Sarah
devoured
these
books and
all educa-
tional op-
portunities
even life’s
harshest
lessons.
Sarah re-
calls “there
were so
many
things that
went into
making us
into the people we are” speaking
of herself and her sister. She
says though her mother had little
formal education she was much
smarter than herself and had she
had similar opportunities “she
would have been something!”
On the rare occasion Sarah
encountered White people while
growing up it was usually an
unpleasant experience. She
recounted an incident when a
crooked salesman talked her
mother into purchasing some-
thing she couldn’t afford. When
the man came to their home to
collect the money owed, her
mother wasn’t home, the man de-
manded of Sarah that her mother
owed the money. Sarah defiantly
snapped that her mother told him
she could not afford it when he
gave it to her. Her mother came
home in between jobs and when
she learned of Sarah’s flippant
attitude toward the man she
became terribly frightened, she
knew the man would come back
looking to harm Sarah. Sarah’s
mother assig ned her own sister to
stand guard outside the home and
ordered Sarah to remain in doors
no matter what she heard outside.
Sure enough the man returned
ready to hurt that “gal” who
mouthed off to him, Sarah’s aunt
just kept repeating that Sarah
wasn’t home until the man grew
frustrated and left, but not before
hurling racial slurs and threats.
These punctuations do not define
the woman Sarah Billups has
become. Where some may have
been turned to hate in response
to the treatment she and many
in her community experienced,
Ms. Billups’ response has been
academic excellence, compassion
for others, and a passion for com-
munity activism. Sarah graduated
from high school at the age of 16,
soon after moving with her fami-
ly to the borough of Long Island
in New York City. The vibrancy
of the city matched her own
and she set to the path toward
advocacy and activism. Sarah
went on to receive her Associates
of Applied Science from Suffolk
County Community College in
1975, then her bachelor’s degree
in social work at State University
of New York at Stony Brook in
1977 and her last formal degree,
Masters in Social Work at Adel-
phi University in Garden City,
NY in 1983. While in college
Sarah founded the Black United
Students at Suffolk Communi-