What happens when love tells you to leave? From Pittsburgh to Norfolk, guided by an elder's wisdom, an HBCU that chose her, and a city that helped raise her into who she is today, Charlette found her home.
What happens when love tells you to leave? From Pittsburgh to Norfolk, guided by an elder's wisdom, an HBCU that chose her, and a city that helped raise her into who she is today, Charlette found her home.
heardofem.com
elizabethrivertrail.org
nps.gov/locations/chesapeakebaywatershed/grants.htm
virginiahumanities.org
Charlette: My name is Charlette Covington. I'm originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but I reside in the City of Norfolk. I came to Norfolk to attend Norfolk State University in 1985.
That was a long time ago. God. (laughs) Wow. That's. That's a long time ago. I am definitely a Virginia girl.
(Sound of a labored breath subtly underneath the following, with gentle strumming music, and humming)
Nichole Hill: People arrive in places in many ways.
Some are born into them.
Some find them by chance.
And some are sent....by love
This is a story of becoming.
Charlette: I graduated high school in 1984. I did not attend school right away due to a situation with my Grandmother, where I had become her caretaker. And so I stepped in with the understanding that I would attend college that next spring.
(Sound of dishes being washed)
It was a normal day that I had gone to my Aunt's house, where my Grandmother lived, gave her breakfast and came up, gave her breakfast, help her wash up.
And sometime we'd sit and talk and chat. And this day in particular, she asked me about school and my plans and what did I wanna do with my life? My Grandmother was from Macon, Georgia. And, she said her experience moving from the south to the north, that major move, or, that migration was life-altering. And it took her out of her comfort zone to a place that challenged her.
She said Charlette, 'cause she called me, although my name is pronounced Charette, she called me in that little southern drawl, Charlotte,
She would say, "Go, do you, take care of you. You don't need to take care of other people. Once you've eaten, your whole family has eaten. Breathe other air. Do other things."
(Sound of an airplane taking off, then the normal "drop in cabin pressure speech" which fades under the following)
Nichole Hill: Breathe other air. It sounds simple.
Like the quiet instruction we’re given in flight (to place the mask over our own face first…) not your kid or your aging grandmother, but you.
Until the air masks deploy and you are ACTUALLY choosing who to save first.
Charlette: It kind of hurt my feelings a little bit. I felt I was doing something good. I was doing something worthwhile. I felt like she didn't need me.
That was my mind then, of course. But that was the best thing she could have ever did for me is tell me it was okay for me to be self-absorbed, to concern myself with my own personal business.
Here I am doing what I felt like I had been taught to do. Take care of your family. Take care of the people who took care of you. I felt like I was doing that. And, um, for a brief moment, it stung.
(We hear breathing, the kind you take when you are trying to steady yourself)
It felt like it--I'm not doing the right thing, you know, what is the right thing here? So I didn't feel my feet totally under me at that point.
I had an uncle, my mother's brother was in Hampton, and I had friends who attended Norfolk State. So at the last minute, I sent applications to Hampton University and Norfolk State University. I did not get a response from either school. I called over the Christmas holiday because here it is, we're down to the wire. School starts in mid-January, and so now I'm scared, but I had a backup because I still could have attended school in Pittsburgh, but my Grandmother was adamant about that not happening.
I called Hampton several times, no answer. I called Norfolk State. The third time I called Norfolk State. A man named Mr. Charles Pleasants, who worked in admissions, answered the phone. I told him the situation, and he told me, "Just come to school. I will admit you as a non-matriculating student.” He said, "You bring me a check for your room and board, and you bring me a check for your tuition, two separate checks, and you come down here, and you meet me at 9:00 AM in my office on this day."
And I did. I got officially admitted to Norfolk State only after actually coming to school, but I did not go through the normal process. I did not choose Norfolk State. Norfolk State chose me.
(Strumming of guitar under the following)
It was culture shock being here. The things that I experienced being on a HBCU campus... I had gone to an all-girls Catholic school, so I've always been in predominantly white environments my entire education.
(Sound of NSU marching band drum line)
I got up to my junior year, I ran out of money and decided to figure out what I needed to do to get myself gainfully employed so that I can finish my education.
So the answer to that was to join the Navy.
I didn't pack up and drive all of my things back to Pennsylvania and then join the military from there, I put my stuff in storage right here, so there was no way in my mind, it never even entered my thoughts that I was not coming back.
(Sound of Naval band, or soldiers' boots marching)
I enlisted in the United States Navy in July of 1990.
I was in an electrician's mate “A” school in Great Lakes at the top of my class at that point.
Nichole Hill: “A” School: the place Sailors learn the work they’ve been assigned to do. Char finished first academically. In the Navy, academic performance decides the order of selection: where you go… where your career begins.
For Char, that meant certainty. Certainty that Norfolk was still home.
(Whistle blows, the breathing sound returns, and the marching continues)
The expectations in the military were clear. So were the tensions.
In a class of thirty-five, she was twenty-two. Everyone else was a teenager.
She was she. They were all he.
She was Black, and well….
Charlette: The male sailors that were in my class, at “A” school, they made it no secret. You always knew where you stood. That was the good thing.
I had a few, one in particular, male sailor that was from Tennessee. He said there's no way some Black chick is smarter than him. It was really out in the open. I was thankful that it wasn't so, you know, it's like you have to kind of dig for it, then that's one thing, but it was pretty much in my face, and so I knew what to deal with it any given time and how to conduct myself.
I don't count it as being rough. I count it as being just one of those things; it just came with the territory. The military is male-dominated, especially in 1990. There were no females at that point on combatant ships or female fighter pilots like there are today. I have faced a lot of barriers that female sailors currently do not face.
My level of maturity helped me a great deal.
So I counted it as an advantage that way, but there were disadvantages. I can’t run as fast as a 18 or 19-year-old or whatever, but I had to push it and keep up with them. It wasn't a barrier; it was just something that really inspired me to excel.
(Sound of men shouting, feet running)
Nichole Hill: Char’s excellence showed up easily on paper. But in the military, excellence is expressed in grades AND physical fitness…
One of its clearest expressions is “The Run.”
Charlette: I was going to try as best I could to finish first, or as close to first as possible. And I ended up finishing fourth or fifth, I think fifth out of a group of 80 people running, which is still good.
But I pushed myself to the point of utter and complete exhaustion--and the moment that my foot crossed the finish line. I collapsed. Everything that I had for breakfast that morning came, all came up. But I was satisfied that I had completed the run and that I had beat out quite a few of the young kids.
(Drumming crechendos and then stops and is replaced by a deep breath)
Nichole Hill: She didn’t leave her Grandmother’s side to be average. She broke expectations: seen and unseen, and chose to allow her feet to land under her. To breathe THIS intimate, industrial Norfolk air.
Charlette: The main reason why that made me attach myself to this area was that during the time I was at Norfolk State, all the experiences that I had here at Norfolk State, the exposure to my professors, and the level of prestige that they had in the community. They were lawmakers, they were city officials. Just movers and shakers and that was exciting. It was all the world to me. Because in the City of Norfolk, I saw people who looked like me in government. And that meant everything, that representation. I didn't… (gets choked up)
I didn't know what that would mean. I know what it means now, but I didn't know that that would just become so significant to me.
(Humming and gentle music ease under the following)
In my time here in Norfolk, I've made many connections. I'm an NSU Alumni, retired Navy Chief Petty Officer. I am an educator, which is one of the most important hats that I've ever worn. I am a member of the most prestigious sorority in the universe, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, and an active member of Norfolk Alumni Chapter.
And it all happened right here in Norfolk. Right here in Norfolk. I went from not even knowing how to pronounce 'cause I was saying Northfolk in my used to be. 'cause I don't think I have a Pennsylvania accent anymore. I think I've, I've lost my Pennsylvania little.whatever dialect, but, um, yeah, in my, in my PA-VA Southern girl, I say it happened right here and it two up, two down in Norfolk, Virginia y'all.
(Chanting "I left my home" and military marching under the following)
Charlette: Visit our website Truthbetoldcommunity.com to find out ways to get involved, and share this episode with friends.
This series was written by Jackie Glass and Hannah Sobol, edited and hosted by me, Nichole Hill, Sound Design by Trendel Lightburn, and our work has been supported by the Elizabeth River Trail Foundation through a National Park Service Chesapeake Gateways Grant as well as by a grant from Virginia Humanities. Follow our work by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. We couldn’t do this without people brave enough to share their experiences, so thank you, Mrs. Charlette Covington!