Two Women’s Journeys—Lessons in Overcoming Obstacles
February’s Pan-African Conference, titled “Women Empowerment: A Black Woman’s Journey,” featured two highly accomplished black women—one African American, one Zambian—who shared their journeys.
Regaining the ability to see God
The first speaker, Nselaa Ward, JD, shared the story of her rise from child sex worker to lawyer. She has practiced law with Baker and Hostetler, one of the largest law firms in the United States, owned her own law firm, and is well known for successfully defending the rights of black men as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. Earlier, Ward served as national field director for the National Organization for Women, helping to organize the 2004 March for Women’s Lives, the largest march in the history of the United States at that time. Ward is also an internationally recognized slam poet.
Instead of focusing on her many professional successes, however, Ward shared her more personal journey of having been raped repeatedly by her landlord during law school and how she recovered. Ultimately, she said, learning to see others—whites, blacks, men, women—with love instead of fear or suspicion depended on seeing them as children of God.
Extrapolating from personal growth to unity among peoples, Ward explained, “The key to being able to reconnect the Pan-African movement is being able to see our reflection in each other. And since all of us are just reflections of God, it’s really about being able to surrender and see God in everybody you meet. We can’t reconnect the Pan-African movement until we start connecting with each other. And this is what I lost when I was sexually assaulted—the ability to connect with people—because I couldn’t see God anymore. But when I started to realize that everybody . . . was going through the same struggles and that, united together, we could make it out, I started to see God again.”
Weaving biographical stories throughout her talk, Ward described learning what leadership really means. “Leadership, reconnecting, unity,” she explained, “is about lifting while you climb. . . . Leadership is about building our integrity contract.”
Ward illustrated that contract by having audience members stand and link arms around the room. Then she explained that to break the contract—to stop holding on to each other—leaves an opening for trouble to enter or for someone to fall out. “When the integrity contract is broken,” Ward noted, “it makes the whole link weak.” Urging audience members to stand by each other, she reminded them, “Make sure you hold your integrity contract sacred, because once it’s broken, it’s broken for everybody.”
Deciding to try her hardest
The conference’s second speaker shared a very different journey. Two-time Olympian and Principia alum Ngozi (Mwanamwambwa, US’89, C’93) Asinga openly admitted that she was “a lazy athlete” at first. A naturally gifted runner, Asinga won races and set records with relative ease at the Upper School and College, and, for a while, her coaches didn’t push her too hard.
But all that changed one day at the College when Coach Lee Suarez wouldn’t let her wriggle out of running up to Eliestoun. Instead, she drove alongside Asinga to ensure she ran the entire distance. “That was the moment my Olympic journey started,” Asinga said. “At that moment, I realized that I could do anything if I worked hard.”
Later, Coach Steve Morganthaler began the complicated process of securing her a spot on her home country’s Olympic team. In 1992 in Barcelona, Asinga was not only the first woman to represent Zambia in the Olympics but her country’s flag bearer. While there, she experienced a dramatic healing of shin splints, which freed her to compete in the 100 m, 200 m, and 400 m races.
But the Olympics held dramatic negative lessons as well. A runner from another country offered her performance-enhancing drugs, which she refused, and the Zambian team physician expected her, as a woman, to do his laundry. In this case, her refusal came with a price—she was shunned by the entire team.
Asinga’s experiences in Barcelona—good and bad—changed her. She returned to the College “fired up,” as she put it. In fact, she worked so hard and did so well that the NCAA was suspicious of her dramatic improvement and drug tested her. Needless to say, she passed.
After graduating, Asinga trained for and competed in the 400 m in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, posting a faster time than she had in Barcelona. She also met her husband while training for the Atlanta Games. After the Olympics, Asinga worked as a personal trainer, earned an MBA, and she and her husband started a family. Today, their daughter is a 2019 Upper School grad, and their son, a freshman at the School.
Now living in Zambia, Asinga has achieved her dream of opening her own gym. But the work comes with daily challenges related to her gender. For example, when a man asked to see the owner, Asinga introduced herself, and he was shocked, unable to accept that a woman could—or should—be a business owner. Even other professional women criticize her for not leaving work in time to fix her family’s dinner (a job her husband willingly and capably assumes). “It’s a daily obstacle you have to climb over,” Asinga explained. “You just have to be loving. . . . You have to be the bigger person.”
“I’m not good at holding grudges and being angry,” she continued. “There’s so much to be grateful for. . . . I’d rather express joy and gratitude and love.”