Two Trailblazers On Growing Up Black And Female In The North And South

What was your childhood like growing up as a young black girl?

Trilby Barnes (Louisiana): I grew up in a town called New Iberia, Louisiana, and I grew up there with my parents in the town, but my mother came from the country part of New Iberia so I did a lot of growing up there as well. Even in town, I lived on a dirt road. It wasn’t paved, but it was a really nice home compared to the fact that we were on a dirt road and one of the only better homes on that street at the time.

My mother was 15 when she had me, and my grandmother, who was always the head of the family, she decided that with my mother being 15 and with my great aunt and great uncle not being able to have children, she decided that she would give me to them, so that’s how I became the child of Irving and Hazel Barnes. My mother went on to have five more children, and so for that reason I have lovely siblings. We weren’t raised together but we came to know each other during our childhood.

Charlene Dukes (Maryland): I was born in a small town in southwest Pennsylvania called Johnstown. I am the second oldest of nine children. I grew up in a small but a very close community. All of my cousins had large families; my aunt had 13 children. My parents did not go to college. I am a first-generation college student, and grew up probably for the first 15 years of my life in a four-room house, and by four rooms I mean a living room, a kitchen and ..