Description
It’s hard for me to put into words the extraordinary divine being that was our mother: Sandi Duncan.
Born Helen Sandra Duncan in Harlem Hospital, Manhattan, New York to a Scottish father and African American mother on the 13th October 1946, ” Sandi,” as she was called was already a published poet in Reader’s Digest as a young child.
Raised in Jackson Mississippi, as landed gentry on “The Mudline,” a vast estate famous for its 400 acre lake; she was immersed in both the elegance and gentility of southern hospitality and the demonic viciousness that was “Jim Crow” South, segregation and racism.
She was a skinny tomboy who grew to be a beautiful young lady with deep set eyes, sharp cheek bones, a slim figure and waistline. The first Black Alpha Kappa Alpha debutante in Mississippi, she dabbled in acting, spearheaded a girl group called “The Sensationals” (poised to be top rivals to the Supremes) and was the first Black high fashion model to grace the runways of New York.
While show business and Hollywood came calling it was the 1960’s Civil Right’s movement that claimed her heart and soul.
She was there at every meeting, sit-in and demonstration. She bore the scars and injuries brought on by police billy clubs and water hoses. She was jailed countless times and claims to have coined the phrase “Black Power” to her close friend Stokely Carmichael during a speech he made before thousands. He echoed her phrase, raising his fist high and the rest is history.
She did not mind being an unsung “shero.” She did not seek fame, but only justice for all who fought for freedom and human rights. She did not mind that others claimed a bigger spotlight. She was a Lady of the Lake and her true aristocratic lineage as a Duncan did not need the trappings of fame and fortune for validation.
I remember hearing stories about her first marriage being officiated by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. He was after all a close family friend of the “The Mudline Clan” in Mississippi and yet it was not until I saw with my own eyes the marriage certificate with his name on it; that it spoke volumes to me, of the exciting historical times she lived in.
I will not try to illustrate it. She was writing a autobiography in her last years and so I would rather let her tell the tale when it is all published. But look closely at the certificate as this was just months before Dr. King’s assassination.
For now I pay tribute to our mother. She was a revolutionary who lived and died by the code. Unfortunately it meant spending years hiding underground for fear of being renditioned by government agencies as she and others, who committed no crime, had been wrongfully branded “Enemies of the State” and placed on watch lists and stop lists along with their infant children, myself included. I suffered proudly with her.
Yet when we discovered much too late that her driver’s license was lost to the black moldy mess left by Hurricane Dorian we thought it would be nothing to obtain a record of it from the Mississippi DMV.
But that has been impossible. Now that she is gone, we have no government issued photo ID of her and so she cannot be properly laid to rest.
My brother and I now struggle to raise $2,300 for her cremation.
Please help my brother Akin and I grant the woman who gave so much to her fellow man/woman/child, her dying wish; to have her ashes scattered into the ocean.
Thank you
Guzzy
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