Resilience of Black Women: A Mother’s Legacy

One autumn afternoon, I board the metro around 3:30 pm, surrounded by several black women. Despite not appearing to be related, they share a resemblance that reflects a shared universe between them. They remain silent, yet I feel the common thread they hold.

Observing their bodies, I sense a weight they carry; one of soreness, aches from repetitive movements, the toll of long days in the fields. Their bodies bear the burden of toiling on the earth, the mother earth. These silent, invisible women are the heart of our societies: nurturing mothers.

Many of them are mothers themselves, providing for their children with the fruits of relentless, painful, undervalued, and underpaid labor.

Recently, one of their sons spoke up for his mother, a single mother of six. At an event at the Montreal Center for Afro-Canadian Cultural Community, honoring her career and achievements, her son recounted her life. She was a woman embodying the miracle of life and transcendence. How could she, with so little, raise children who are determined to change the world?

This single mother rose at dawn to attend meeting points where precarious workers, their skills undervalued, gathered for the ‘privilege’ of working for a meager wage.

To survive, they had no choice but to submit to this harsh labor. Assigned to tasks belonging to a workforce that would have to leave Quebec once the harvest season ended. An ordeal relegated to those perpetually confined to the status of foreigner.

These women, precarious day laborers, who would be paid in cash: under the table work. And, in reality, ‘black work.’ As noted by Isabel Wilkerson in her book ‘Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,’ adapted for screen by Ava Duvernay, even today, professional castes are reserved for members of the higher caste. American laws enforcing segregation, known as Jim Crow, ensured certain spaces remained white: seats of power. As for Black women and men, they were confined to agricultural or domestic work, a reality that too often persists. This worldview is not just American but Western, rooted in the ‘Racial Contract’ concept by philosopher Charles W. Mills.

This extraordinary narrative belongs to Frantz Saintellemy, CEO of Leddartech, chancellor of the University of Montreal, and co-founder of Group 3737, to whom his mother passed on her values and dreams, which fueled his ambition.

Frantz Saintellemy reveres the fruits of his mother’s labor, understanding their significance. Despite immense financial precarity, his inheritance was primarily dignity. His duty to her: become the alchemist of her sacrifices. I wish you could hear him speak of this powerful woman, the pride she carried, of being Marie-Louise Célestin’s son.

As Frantz told me, his mother is no different from many Haitian mothers, the family’s pillars. The matrifocal family is a product of the ‘Plantation Universe’ defined by Édouard Glissant, a microcosm where the family’s economic fate rests on women’s shoulders. Slavery confined men to the role of progenitors, while women’s bodies were not their own; they were the masters’ property, used for breeding, as Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner and founding father of the U.S., believed that forced sexual labor was necessary to increase slaves, a source of capital.

What experts overlook are the recurring effects of the ‘Plantation Universe’ that have left lasting marks on Black men. This disruption became normalized. The family consisted of the mother and her children.

On this International Women’s Day, I think of this woman and resilient Black women, survivors of the legacy of slavery. Through boundless strength, they have overcome generational traumas. They have children who, like them, move mountains. They do so remembering their roots. Their mantra echoes that of their mothers: against all odds, forge a path for future generations.