Making your Dash Count

Stephanie Tubbs Jones August 21, 2008

It isn’t exactly like I knew Stephanie Tubbs Jones. But I did eat dinner with her in an airport restaurant in Washington in 2004. My daughter, mom and I spent the weekend in DC participating in the million person “March for Women’s Lives.” It is hard to describe the power of that event, but our dinner at Legal Seafoods that night cemented every bit of empowerment we felt that spring weekend.

I am sure that Stephanie initiated the conversation, because there was one of her and three of us; we had built in company. As we, she was eager to talk about the weekend. We talked about family; she had lost her husband several months prior. She talked about single motherhood’s challenges, and the trials of living in two cities. She talked about her district, which she obviously loved, and what it was like being a black woman in Congress.

By the end of supper, I wanted to be a constituant.

My memory of that dinner is as embedded in the power of that weekend as marching on the Capital. There is no doubt that Stephanie inspired young women in her district that they can be whatever, whomever they choose! I feel most for her son, Mervyn Jr. He lost his mother way too young. But her loss is felt among many. America lost a rising, shining star this week; Stephanie Tubbs Jones made her dash count.