Quiet No More

Reflecting on Our Past While Building Our Future

• Carmen Cauthen

Share episode

What if you could preserve your family's legacy while honoring the powerful women who shaped history? Join me, Carmen Cauthen, as I share my ambitious vision for 2025, where we celebrate the influential Black women of Raleigh, North Carolina, through extraordinary initiatives like the "Woman of Substance, Strong and Beautiful Dinner Event." 

This episode is a heartfelt tribute to these remarkable individuals, including my mother, and introduces my upcoming book projects and classes on creating family histories through written memories. Together, we'll explore the stories of the Black community that built Raleigh, delve into a personal connection with WWII veteran Millie Dunn Vesey of the 6888th Battalion, and embark on a journey from the legislature to preserve history through storytelling.

Forging strong relationships and a supportive network is key to embracing the future with optimism and gratitude. Whether you're envisioning a new invention, launching a business, or nurturing your family, personal growth stems from being present, open, and connected. As we anticipate the possibilities of 2025, let’s reflect on our shared aspirations, break free from the mundane, and ensure our stories are told for generations to come. Tune in to Quiet, No More, and let's navigate this journey together, leaving no one behind as we honor the past and build a brighter future.

====================================
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

Speaker 1:

Unseen, unheard. We've lived like that far too long. I'm Carmen Coffin and this is Quiet, no More. What does 2025 look like for you? I am amazed at the things that I have planned to do this year. I probably will have to take a break somewhere in July and just breathe deeply, go somewhere and smell some salt water or go somewhere and smell some mountain air, because I am going to push myself this year. I'm not only doing the podcast, which I love doing because I love to talk, but I am hosting a dinner in April called the Woman of Substance, strong and Beautiful Dinner Event, and it is to honor my mother and black women in the Raleigh, north Carolina area for the amazing things they have done Probably about 250 women we are honoring from the 1800s forward, and I'm just really excited about that, about the process, about the fact that I am trying to have men to do the honoring of the women, because I think it's important for us to make sure that our young people see men honor women for the work that they do. I am working on a book for that, so the women who are being honored there will be a book that I'm writing and publishing about that.

Speaker 1:

I am teaching classes this year about creating your family history through memories. It's a six-month class and at the end of the class you will have written your own family memories. You will have written a book that will be. You can have published copies of that for yourself to give to your family. I'm also going to be working. I have another book contracted that will be about Mount Hope Cemetery and the Black people who were buried in the cemetery who helped to build the city of Raleigh. I'm doing that in collaboration with a gentleman who researches the WPA slave narratives, and so there will be information about those families as well. I'm really excited.

Speaker 1:

If you have seen the movie 6888, talking about the Women's Army Corps, the 6888 Battalion. That was the only Black all-female battalion that went to England during World War II. One of the women who was part of that battalion was a person I had known all my life and didn't know that about her, and her name was Millie Dunn Vesey. She was a Raleigh native. Her grandparents were written their narratives are in the slave narratives Essex and Millie Henry. Her family was close to my family. In fact I have found out that her family lived next door to my grandparents, and so I'm really excited to dig into her history a little bit more, having grown up with her and her nephews. And just, you know, sometimes we just don't know. You know, we're kids, we don't really care about all that history stuff, we just want to play. So I'll be doing that and I'm also going to write, I guess, kind of an autobiography about Quiet no More and who I've been, who's made me quiet, no more. So that's the first half of the year and I've got some other things going on, but 2025 is going to be a busy year for me and, of course, I'm always available to speak, to come and talk to organizations and talk about using your voice and talking about things that are important, talking about history and Black history and the history of our country, and so feel free to reach out to me for any of those kinds of things. You can email me at carmen, at researchandresourcecom, and ask me about my availability to speak.

Speaker 1:

But what do you have planned for 2025 for yourself? Are you just going to get up and go to work every day, or get up and go to school every day and come back home and do the same old, same old all the time? Does that ever get boring to you. One of the reasons I loved my job when I worked at the legislature was because there were no two days alike While I had the same sort of structure. There was nothing about each day that was the same. It was exciting because I never knew what was coming, who was going to be there, what kinds of important discussions would be had on the floor of the house, what kind of legislation we would pass. And, believe me, some of it I didn't like, and I don't fix my face very well. So I'm sure there were members of the legislature who saw that I didn't like some of the decisions that they were making, but that wasn't my job. It wasn't my job. It was just my job to make a record of what they were doing, and I enjoyed doing that.

Speaker 1:

What are you going to do? Do you have plans? I don't mean vacation plans. Are you going to learn something new this year? Are you going to help somebody out this year? Are you going to? Are you going to write a book? Are you going to write some poetry? Are you going to write some family memories and legacy? Are you going to put some things down so that you have a history to leave that's not in your head, for your family to know things that happened before you, happened with you and will happen after you. It's so important to make sure that we put those family memories on paper that we be sure that we have, even if we've just journaled in a scrapbook where we're keeping pictures, because I've seen way too many boxes of pictures for sale at a flea market or you know, just thrown out because people didn't know who they were, and we don't want that to happen anymore.

Speaker 1:

I just want to say when I before I knew what path my life was going to take after retirement, I was always doing something extra. So I sold Tupperware for a while. I had a little boutique next door to my dad's drugstore. I made jewelry for a good little while and would sell it, travel the state and go to craft fairs and sell. I sold creative memories products. I taught people how to put things into scrapbooks and that has changed over to this. Create your family memories, because that's just as important as anything else I find today. I think now about questions that I wish I had asked my parents about family history and things that they may not have known, but at least I would have been able to ask questions, had I considered it.

Speaker 1:

So what are you going to do in 2025?

Speaker 1:

Are you going to invent something new? Are you going to start a new business? Are you going to start a new family? Are you getting married or divorced, or are you going to have children? What are you going to do?

Speaker 1:

Reach out and let me know so I can be excited along with you, because it's good to have somebody having your back and to know that you're not in it by yourself, and I'm thankful that I've not ever been in anything by myself, even when I was struggling. I've never been all by myself. I've been fortunate to have a crew around me of friends and people that I have spent time building relationships with, and so I want that for you too, and it's important when we do those things to know that if we're quiet, it's kind of hard to build the relationships. You've got to ask questions and you've got to be willing to hear what other people have to say, so let's work on those things. This year, 2025, will be a special year for us all, just because we're here, and so I want you to remember that and to be quiet. No more this year You've been listening to Quiet no More, where I share my journey so you can be quiet no more.