Dona E. Bowens

I spent a lot of time as a kid being babysat by a cousin 11 years my senior. So while I was 6, 7, 8, years old, this cousin was in her prime teen years. Her musical tastes became mine. And if there was music, we had to dance along to it. Earth, Wind & Fire, Al Green, Tina Turner.

It’s disgustingly cute when I think of a 3rd grade me with cornrows in my hair, doing the Tina Turner “Proud Mary” dance. You’ve all seen it. Tina and The Ikettes whipping those wigs around and then they all had legs for days. I’d inherited my father’s athletic legs and even that young, grown women would compliment me on my “pretty legs.”

I arrogantly imagined that my legs looked just as good as Ms. Turner’s as I quick-stepped in imitation of her, even if my cornrows wouldn’t whip back and forth like her wig. My cousin danced alongside me with encouragement, “More like this. Look…” and she’d demonstrate how to get deep in your knees as you swung the imaginary locks forward and back again, all the time keeping up a runner’s pace with your legs, legs, legs to the beat.

Oh but Ms. Tina, you gave so much to little Black girls like me and my cousin. You taught us to dance with wild abandon especially if it scared the boys a bit. You taught us to be unapologetically sexy in our brown skin. You taught us that little brown girls from obscure places with names like “Nutbush,” could one day stand astride the world and have the masses call us Queen.

Thank you, Anna Mae Bullock, you gave us more than we dared to ask.