4 MODELS

Diane Sawyer, Vernon Jordan, Cynthia McFadden & Barbara Walters
April 28, 2012
taking the 2pm shuttle to DC shuttle for the White House
Correspondent's Dinner

LETTER TO MY NEPHEW

Daniel, these are four influences in my life: 

Barbara Walters I watched in the 1960's amazed at many things about her. I thought back then only men did the news, and watching her on the news, and the way she spoke with all that resonance, and poise informed me. I also had a crush on her. There was a depth within her that turned something on within me, and never stopped gushing and stirring with ideas, and sounds of achievement. 

Vernon Jordan was a man in a time white men questioned Black manhood. If one paid attention one could feel white men evaluating and comparing their manhood to Mr. Jordan. He was a study of purpose, and discipline. You have to evaluate your beliefs, and standards to see better who you were dealing with and who you were on the international stage in service to your People. At his level he had to produce, and be every bit a product of the best of his family, ancestral lines, and the deep drive to succeed, not in the white world creating chaos, and division, but in the world created by White men he had to initiate change, and stir people into action in the way only a Black prepared man could, and the times required. I studied this man, and these things. They live and lived in your grandfather (my father) extending back to Daddy's father and further. I, we, you need to know these things, Daniel. 

Cynthia McFadden, and Diane Sawyer are elegant, and beautiful women. Being older and mature women the appeal of their work on television has more to do with a steely grip on a talent to go to the core of an issue, a story from the core of their being. How to be a woman, a white woman in a white male dominated industry is an instruction in dedication to the higher order of purpose. Black and White women have a daunting task in the work place for the same and different reasons. Doors do open for white women that don't open for women from other ethnic groups, but to their credit it seems, thanks to the standard set by Barbara Walters, their generosity came from a sense of directing their careers as women, and they have been helpful and instrumental to opening doors for women! - Uncle Greg 

Gregory E. Woods, 

Keeper of Stories

July 24, 2012