What Gloria White-Hammond did not know has made all the difference in her life: Had anyone told a little black girl born in America in the 1950s that her dreams of becoming a doctor were implausible, at best, Gloria White-Hammond might not be the determined savior she is today.
By age nine, she was already aware of how she planned to impact the world. She yearned to save lives, and a library book she borrowed called 'How to Be a Doctor' was the first step in her career plan. "I was pretty much focused on that through school and while growing up," she says. "Fortunately, no one told me it was unheard of for someone like me to do such things."
Oh, how fortunate the world.
That outcome is that today White-Hammond is not only a successful pediatrician, but the co-pastor of
Bethel AME Church in Boston, a champion for at-risk teens and a global humanitarian, who lately, is spending every moment trying to wake the world up about the crisis in Sudan, Africa.
White-Hammond is the force behind a effort to get the world to focus on the atrocities in
Darfur by bringing thousands of people to Washington in a couple of weeks.
The work has brought her to a Baltimore hotel, miles away from her Boston home during these first days of spring. On break from her pastoral duties and the patients she serves at Boston’s South End Community Health Center, White-Hammond is organizing
a massive rally in Washington. She's the national chair of a campaign to end slavery and genocide in Darfur, an area in the western region of the Sudan, and spends the better part of each week promoting the cause.
"I was interested in the whole issue of slavery to understand it," says White-Hammond, 55, who, since 2001, has trekked to war-ravaged Sudan eight times. Civil war has compromised the lives of some 10,000 women and children, leaving them to live in unfathomable conditions. Reportedly, an estimated 400,000 have died since the fighting began. "It's a hard trip to make. It’s in the bush. No running water. It's hot and dry. I have so many stories of what people endured when they were enslaved."
The mother of two daughters has endured her own pain. The third child of eight -- her mother, a stay-at-home mom, and her father, an Air Force sergeant -- White-Hammond moved around extensively, spending her youngest years in places like Texas, Maine, Guam, New Hampshire and Texas. If packing up every few years weren’t tough enough, she also dealt with her father’s abuse, a difficult period of her life that she eventually mustered up the strength to forgive him for.
"He didn't deny it," she says. "On his death bed, I thought about the cost of his disobedience. It challenged me about my own disobedience.”
She had an epiphany. She says she realized she had to obey God's calling to be a minister. She and
her husband, Ray, a pastor and physician she met while at Tufts Medical School, had already founded their own church in 1988. By 1994, she was in divinity school, and three years later, she joined her husband in the pulpit as pastor. "It's a role that I really enjoy," she says of ministering to their 450-person congregation. "They all have a huge heart for God."
Those who know her well speak endlessly about her ethereal presence, her knack for leading under extreme circumstances, and her willingness to help anyone who crosses her path.
"She finds the humanness in everyone," says
Melinda Weekes, a Bethel AME member and part of
My Sister's Keeper (MSK), a humanitarian women's action group White-Hammond co-founded in 2002 to help the women of Sudan rebuild their communities.
Weekes traveled to Sudan twice with White-Hammond. "She's authentic, and she has a great way of relating to the Sudanese people. She's looked to as a leader by them and by us."
Her current campaign -- A Million Voices for Darfur -- calls on a million people to e-mail postcards to President Bush, reminding him of his pledge to protect the civilians of Darfur. She's also hoping to draw 10,000 people to the National Mall on April 30 to dramatize a collectively concern about what is happening in Darfur. She sees it as a moral obligation.
"Nationally, we need to be concerned about Katrina," she says, "In 2006, we need to have a global interest, and there's nothing more urgent than Sudan."
For more information on the upcoming rally and to email a postcard, go to
www.savedarfur.org.Get More of Today's Top News StoriesAbout the AuthorStacy Gilliam is a freelance writer based in Washington.
