Remembering Those Who Shaped Our Path

What happens when the unsung heroes of our lives step into the spotlight, even if only through the memories we cherish? 

I’m Carmen Cauthen, and in this heartfelt episode of "Quiet, No More" I reflect on the profound influence of my mother, whose dedication as a community activist and educator has left an indelible mark on the social and educational fabric of Raleigh, North Carolina. Her strength and commitment to mentoring others, especially during pivotal social changes, have shaped who I am today. 

Join me as I recount personal stories of her impact and discuss plans for a commemorative dinner that celebrates her legacy and honors other remarkable yet unrecognized women who have tirelessly contributed to our community's growth.

Acknowledging the invisible hands that guide our journey is a step towards understanding our roots. In the latter part of the episode, I urge you to reflect on the mentors, family members, and colleagues who have quietly influenced your path. These are the people who have inspired growth and opened doors in your professional and personal life. 

I invite you to share your stories of gratitude on social media, tagging me to create a tapestry of shared appreciation. Whether they are elders or younger individuals, these unsung heroes deserve recognition for their lasting impact. 

Let’s take the time to express our gratitude and honor the foundational figures who have paved the way for us all.

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Carmen Wimberley Cauthen is an author, speaker, and lover of history, Black history in particular. As a truth teller, she delights in finding the hidden truths about the lives of people who made a difference - whether they were unknown icons or regular everyday people.

To Learn more of Carmen:
www.carmencauthen.com
www.researchandresource.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
unseen, unheard.
We've lived like that far toolong.
I'm carmen coffin and this isquiet, no more.
So who do you need to honor inyour life and why?

(00:23):
We all kind of have people thatwe look up to or we think we're
patterning some pieces of ourlives.
There were things that thesepeople did that were important,
and how do we honor them?
Sometimes the honoring is justin following a pattern that they

(00:46):
set or a way of life that theychose, or some characteristics
that made them be the personthat they were.
But have you ever consideredwho it is that you have put in
that place in your life?
Because sometimes we do it andit's not conscious, it's just

(01:10):
hmm, I like how that person doesOne of the things I've noticed
that I do.
Sometimes, when I'm spendingtime around the same people a
lot, I'll start to pick up someof the words that they say or
some of the little tiny habitsthat they have, and I'll start
to do them and suddenly I'll go,oh, that sounds like so-and-so

(01:31):
or so-and-so.
Does that Wonder when I pickthat up?
But then there are times when Ineed to really honor what
someone has done and I have tothink about that A lot of times
when you're growing up,especially in school, people ask

(01:53):
you, or even in an interview,who is someone that you admired
and that meant a lot to you?
Or that you try to follow thingsthat they did, and do you know?
I hear a lot to you.
Or that you try to followthings that they did, and do you
know?
I hear a lot of people talkabout people whose names are big
, that you know they might befollowing on a podcast or

(02:15):
following in their career, orsomething like that.
But for me, it was my mama.
Now I'm going to tell youstraight up my mama and I
clashed about a lot of stuff,but I learned so many things
from her, not just how to be awoman, but how to be a community

(02:37):
activist, how to speak my peaceand how to maneuver among
people male, female, black,white how to accomplish things
and be in a position of strengthin the process of doing it.

(03:01):
Now, I'm not saying that thereweren't probably some areas of
her life where she had someinsecurities.
She didn't necessarily showthem to me, but I know that they
were there, because we all havethem.
But it's so important for me tohonor the woman that she was to
honor the fact that during the50s and 60s and 70s, she was

(03:27):
willing to speak up and she washeard by others.
Her values and her lifestylewere important ways that people
paid attention to her, and someof the things that she did I
fought against oh so hard.

(03:47):
Like she liked for me, she likedto dress, to dress properly, to
dress in a conservative manner,but a manner that showed her
strength.
Even when she was in sweatpantsand socks and sneakers, she was
coordinated from head to toe.

(04:09):
Her hair was always done.
She was.
I grew up going to thehairdresser every two weeks and
that was who she was.
That was what she did.
I hated it.
I didn't want to do that.
I didn't want to.
You know, I didn't want to becoordinated from head to toe.
I'm still struggling with thattoday.

(04:29):
I just want to look like who Iwant to look like, and some days
that's kind of bummy and somedays it's really dressed up.
But I have realized that therewas a standard that she set and
so I have to honor that.
After my mother died, I realizedthat her life had really meant

(04:55):
something to so many people andit wasn't recognized.
It wasn't, it didn't seem to beimportant to other people.
But then I thought about ifthat was the case when we'd go
shopping or we'd be somewhere.
Someone would come up to herand say Mrs Wimberly, you were

(05:18):
my third grade teacher and youdid this for me.
You opened this door for me.
You made me think about thesethings when she taught at
Meredith.
As one of the first blackeducators at Meredith College,
she helped the few black womenwho were there at the time.

(05:41):
They would come to our house.
She would mentor them.
When I nominated her for theRaleigh Hall of Fame and I asked
Linda Coleman, who was runningfor lieutenant governor at the
time, if she would narrate thevideo about my mother, and one

(06:02):
of the things that she said washow much of a mentor my mother
was to her.
And I thought about all theother people that mama had
mentored, that she would spendtime with, that were male and
female, black and white, andeven when she helped as a
teacher to desegregate theschool system, how she had

(06:25):
teachers and parents who wouldcome back later and say that she
had done this and that that hadopened their eyes or helped
them learn either more abouttheir children or more about the
things that they were doing oropened up a whole new way of
life for them in terms of raceand dealing with people.

(06:50):
She made a difference in thelives of a lot of people, but
that just wasn't acknowledged,and I'm not thinking about
people, but that just wasn'tacknowledged.
And I'm not thinking about, youknow, at her funeral, when the
church was packed.
But how do we acknowledge thevalue and how do we honor the
value of people who were part ofour family and people who

(07:12):
helped to undergird the systemsthat we've had to live with?
And so I have made a decisionto honor my mother by giving a
dinner, hosting a dinner nextyear, on April 25th of 2025,
which would have been her 95thbirthday.
But I realized, as I waslooking around and reading

(07:37):
through the things that she did,that while she was elected to
do some things, there were somany other women who, in Raleigh
, north Carolina, alone,undergirded the educational
system, the community and socialsystem, community and social
system, the fabrics that createthe history of the city of

(07:59):
Raleigh, and some who createdsome of the fabrics for the
country, the state, that nevergot their due.
So how do we put that into thehistorical record?
So, for me as part of thisdinner I am hosting, I am going

(08:22):
to write a book.
I have been researching women.
One of the things that juststruck me was Oprah's Legends
Ball.
She hosted a ball that juststarted out as a luncheon
because after she had celebratedher birthday and she had
invited women for her birthday,she realized some women that she

(08:43):
left out, I think, startingwith Cecily Tyson, and so she
said, oh, I need to inviteCecily Tyson to lunch.
And then she thought about someother women she had left out
and the luncheon grew and grewto a weekend and she invited
what she called legends and sheinvited youngins.

(09:03):
Youngins were the people whohad had doors opened for them by
the legends, and the legendswere in all different categories
and walks of life, and it endedup being a Friday luncheon and
then a Saturday ball and aSunday gospel brunch, and I was
so amazed at that and I justthought there's so many women I

(09:25):
would love to honor, and thatwas probably 20 years ago.
So I'm going to write a bookabout the women that I have
pulled into a spreadsheet.
I have about 200 women on mylist and the list continues to
grow.
200 women on my list and thelist continues to grow.

(09:48):
I was just going to do a dinnerhonoring my mother.
Someone said to me you reallydon't have time for that.
If you're going to do this, youneed to do this.
Do it bigger than that Honor 15or 20 women.
And then it was oh, honor 100women.
And it's grown to 200.
And I have found women from the1800s that I can honor, whose

(10:12):
families may not know that theydid things and they may not have
done a lot, but some of thewomen were entrusted with things
like money at church and it wasan ad in a newspaper.
In the 1800s, black women whitewomen for that matter were not
necessarily said told you cancollect money for something for

(10:35):
church at that period of timeand then to put an ad with their
names in it in the newspaperthat says something about who
they were.
And I want these women to haverecognition and the only way to
recognize it and make sure thatothers recognize it is to have
it in a written record somewhere.
So there's going to be a book.
It's important If we only teachour young people that five or

(11:05):
six women did things in thescheme of 50 or 60 men.
While that might be true it'snot all the truth, and so I'm
going to honor women, startingwith my mama.
So who can you honor?
Who do you need to honor?

(11:27):
Who made a path for you,whether they knew you or whether
they didn't?
How can you recognize thatperson?
How can you honor them?
Are you on Facebook?
Can you do a Facebook post?
Can you just write out who madea path for you?

(11:49):
Their name can be big or theirname can be little in our genre
of talking about people, buthonor them.
They can be men, they can bewomen.
Shoot, sometimes I look atthings children do and I think I
don't have the nerve to do that.
You have given me opportunityto do something that I haven't

(12:12):
done before, and you werewilling to open yourself up to
doing it and to letting otherpeople know about it, letting
other people know about it.
Who can you honor?
How can you honor?
Do a Facebook post, do anInstagram reel, do something on
LinkedIn to talk about somebodywho opened the door for you in
your work relationships or inhow you do your work or in what

(12:37):
you studied.
Those things are important.
We don't just fall into stuff.
Sometimes we fall behind whatsomebody else did.
We follow behind what they didand it's important to
acknowledge them.
They could be alive, they couldbe dead, but when you do it, I

(12:59):
want you to tag me, whetheryou're on Facebook, linkedin,
instagram.
I know I'm on those things, I'mprobably on a few more, but
will you tag me If you're onFacebook?
Will you tag Carmen W Coffin?
If you're on Instagram, willyou tag the Carmen Coffin?

(13:22):
If you're on LinkedIn, will youtag the Carmen Coffin?
If you're on LinkedIn, will youtag Carmen Coffin?
Because I want to know who youhonored and how you honored them
and what they did that made adifference for you, because
there's somebody, at least one,somebody that has caught your

(13:42):
attention and helped you to moveforward, just like my mom did
for me.
And my mom's not the only woman.
Like I told you, I found 150,almost 200 elders who have paved
the way for me and someyoung'uns who have paved the way
for me and some young'uns, andeven though I'm 65, I'm a

(14:04):
young'un, but I'm going to putmyself in the legend category
because people tell me I inspirethem all the time and it blows
me away.
But that's part of what happenswhen you're quiet.
No more.
You've been listening to Quietno More, where I share my

(14:25):
journey so you can be quiet.