By Jared Guadagni - Staff Writer

Published on Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 2:27pm |

• News

Forgetfulness leads to exile while remembrance is the secret of redemption.
- Baal Shem Tov,
16th century
Jewish rabbi

Brendolyn L. Jenkins knows the importance of remembering where one was yesterday to get to where one wants to be tomorrow.

The former Barnwell native is the president of the Aiken branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the executive director for the Aiken-based Imani Group, a social justice and civic organization.

Imani is the Swahili word for "faith" and faith is what sustained Jenkins during the civil rights era and today.

"Fast forward to 2010 - now what are we doing with the tools and dreams we won?" said Jenkins.

It's a question that Jenkins is answering with the Imani Group which work to empower the youth of today for tomorrow but remind them of the battles fought yesterday.

Jenkins was born and raised in Barnwell and came of age in the early 1960s when the civil rights movement was in full stride.

"The movement was very strategized - we strategized who would go to jail and who would get us out - that is why it worked," she said.

Her late mother, Johnnie Ruth Jenkins, marched with Martin Luther King and was an inspiration and guiding force in Jenkins' life.

"I call myself a child of the grand experiment," said Jenkins.

In 1964, Jenkins was one of the few black children integrated into the Barnwell school district and "among the first families in South Carolina," to optionally sit side by side with white children academically.

"We clearly were not wanted there - we had to be mentally and physically prepared," said Jenkins.

She recalls being escorted by federal marshals and walking through an angry crowd of people - some carrying shotguns - on the first day of school.

The black children were put in academically advanced classes, said Jenkins.

"We were set up to fail,"she said.

Jenkins was tutored in Bethlehem Church on Wall Street in Barnwell to keep up in her studies.

But rather than feel bitter about the experience, Jenkins said she is thankful for the quality education she received.

"The honors curriculum is a private school education within public schools," said Jenkins. "Our challange now is to get our children into those advanced classes."

However, an academic education was just one part of Jenkins' life studies.

Jenkins would go to school and return home and march in the picket line on weekdays and weekends.

"I didn't know anything about Saturday morning cartoons - I would wake up and there would be a yard full of people waiting to be helped," said Jenkins.

The help could take any form such as getting protesters out of jail or giving people food.

Civil rights heroes - such as the state's first black federal judge Matthew J. Perry and I. DeQuincey Newman, South Carolina's first African American state senator since Reconstruction - were familiar faces in the Jenkins' household.

At the time, Perry was a struggling attorney who would bail protesters out of jail, Jenkins said.

"These are the people we grew up with; there were great people all around us but we didn't think too much about it then because it was the norm," said Jenkins.

Her father - Matthew Jenkins Sr. and her brother Matt Jr. - would guard the house at night and Jenkins would sleep on the floor out of fear retailiation.

But soft reprisals could also come from within her community by those and others who felt she and others were stirring up trouble.
Jenkins remembers sitting at the counter in a Barnwell business and being scolded by a black woman who asked her, "Why do you bother these good white people?"

Jenkins left Barnwell in 1971 and the state soon after but returned to the area in 1993.

"It's a different decade; different century - but many of the problems are the same," said Jenkins. "The difference is we were a powerless people then; now we are empowered and have more voice."

And that is what Jenkins' feels is her mission now with the Imani Group.

"Far too many have forgotten," said Jenkins, on the civil rights struggle.

She is quick to point out that what she believes is not a total indictment on white America but a shared conviction on black America.
"My sniffle and cough is not the cold - it's a symptom of the cold," said Jenkins.

She said the problems of today's youth are not just their problems; they're a part of an overall problem in society that includes a lack of expectation and soft leadership.

Sisters Honoring African Rites of Passage (S.H.A.R.P.) are young women ages 13 and up who participate leadership development in the community, said Jenkins.

"They're a group of bright youngsters and they allow me to hang out with them," said Jenkins.

S.H.A.R.P. was recently involved in a teen forum on public safety that helped rescind a potential teen curfew in Aiken, said Jenkins.

Brothers Offering Leadership and Diversity (B.O.L.D.) focuses on young men and the members will be heading to Senegal in June to do service work in that country, Jenkins said.

Imani engages youths in a series of leadership modules including public speaking, press releases, conflict resolution and others areas, she said.

Teens participate annually at the Black Youth Leadership Development Institute - a collaboration with Dr. Mildred McClain of Harambee House, in Savannah, Georgia - where workshops prepare them to be role models for their peers.

The Harambee House is an environmental justice organization which is another area the Imani Group focuses on.

From fighting for civil rights to empowering youth, "my world has come full circle," she said.