An 18-year-old African American high school senior became a heroine of mine in July 1996. Her name is Keshia Thomas. Keshia was part of a crowd of 300 people assembled to protest a Ku Klux Klan rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A man who looked like a white supremacist was spotted in the protesters’ midst and there was suddenly an angry mob surrounding him. The crowd started beating him, knocking him to the pavement, and Keshia, who had been one of the people who was going to verbally confront him, threw herself on top of the man to protect him from the attack. The picture in the July 8th People magazine of this young woman grimacing, using her body to protect the bald-headed, tattooed man as he lay on the ground, is etched in my memory, as is Keshia’s explanation of what she did. Keshia’s was a decidedly woman’s act of courage. She was there in the first place to stand against violence and oppression. And when she actually witnessed them, it was the feminine voice which arose, fearless, strong, powerful, in protection of all life. “You don’t beat a man up because he doesn’t believe the same things you do. He’s still somebody’s child,” she said. Then she laughingly told the People reporter that “this will all be over in a New York minute. People don’t have to remember my name. I just want them to remember that I did the right thing.” I remember both, Keshia, and you give me the courage to be a woman fighting for what I believe in.
Affirmations of Support and Celebration for Women by Janet F. Quinn