Dr. Quintessa Hathaway

Founder And Chief Executive Officer 

Q. Hathaway And Associates, LLC

And

A Talk With The Community

Expresses a message of how a nation and globe can propel onward, a community can go forward, a people can look upward, and change can go outward. 

We are on a journey together. It is one of edification, education, excellence, and expectation. These concepts start within the womb. They last for a lifetime and carry us to the hereafter. Along the way, we engage with humanity and see our own humanness.  

We are edified by means of our socialization, our experiences. That edification wields power if we seek and demand it. We are involved in a chasm between the rich and the poor, minority and majority, conscious and unconscious, ancient and modern, and classic and contemporary. 

We are educated by our first teacher, our mother, and everything else flows from that fountain. We have enhanced along the way. We get what the elders call, “book learning” which allows us access and entry to great halls, academies, and opens doors to institutions both real and imaginary.  

We have a requisite to grow and glow in excellence. We are called to give and let it overflow. We are emboldened to be the highest and best. We were instructed by the late Congressman John Lewis to “Study the path of others to make your way easier and more abundant. Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover universal truth, and follow its dictates. Know that the truth always leads to love and the perpetuation of peace...Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won.” Those fervent and accurate statements lead us to better tomorrows. They lead us to become a force for greater good. They lead us to what Rev. James Lawson calls “a social and political ecospace to contribute.” They lead us to change radically from where we have been to rise to our most noble selves. They lead us to channels of understanding.  

We are expected to reckon with and defy discrimination, racism, and poverty. We are expected to confront these perils in the spirit of grace and with a spirit of strength and hope. We are expected to throw off the physical and psychological shackles of segregation, bigotry, and brokenness. Those constructs have metastasized the foreign and body politic for over four hundred years. We are expected to walk in new winds, travel across new bridges, migrate to new lands, swim through new waters, and lead a new charge.  We are expected to listen to the sound of “Our Striving” as expressed by Dr. W.E.B. DuBois. We are expected to tackle the challenges and conditions of our time. We are expected to stop moaning, begging, crying, rocking, and marching. We are expected to think in a profound way that establishes a deep respect of self and others. We are expected to hear the rhetoric and rhyme while leading a revolution as inspired by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing.   

Voices on many points of the sphere are arguing strongly for action and a dialectic. We have to give prescriptions on how to achieve it. We have to use our social and political stratification to shift power and influence.  

We have consistently taken to the streets to protest a government that is considered a leader of the free world. The national legislative body is in gridlock, despite the Democratic Party having majorities in two of the three branches of government. Both parties hold the line for passing comprehensive bipartisan bills that reflect the interest of most Americans. 

If "We The People" do not pay closer attention; we can become programmed to dysfunction! If “We The People” do not pay closer attention, the laws can change and feel like Jim Crow and Jane Crow have been resurrected. If “We The People” do not pay closer attention, a nation can be redivided along racial, geographical, and economic lines. If “We The People” do not pay closer attention, current realities may be difficult to maintain, and advancement can be eroded and lost. 

We are in a unique position to do some bold and meaningful things in our communities. For the first time in our history, there is an African American woman in the second most powerful seat on the planet. Vice President Kamala Harris.  

Movements stretched open the door to allow us to be in this posture. We are living in one now. It has all the makings of those from the days of ole. 

For the First Civil Rights Movement was an outgrowth of rights which were fought for since the genocide of the indigenous peoples who inhabited this region. It was spurred by the agitators and revolters of African, Native, and Hispanic ancestries. It was thrust forward by the oration of our most powerful speakers and grassroots leaders. It was stirred in the souls of our grandmothers and grandfathers. It boiled up in the belly of multiple generations of the oppressed, repressed, and suppressed who sought to redress their grievances.   

For the Second Civil Rights Movement, whose time frame is ‘Beyond 1968,’ has intersections of its predecessor; but it is different. It pushes us to grow in ways that challenge our values, our moral capacity, our tolerance, our humanity. It transforms how we experience one another and our willingness to overlap our lives together. One people under the Divine with a sense of liberty and justice for most. It restores the ideologues of old and brings them to a new focus. It extends our ability to frame and set agendas. It encapsulates our power and authority. It puts wind in our backs which has insidiously declined.  

According to Congressman John Lewis, we are still “grappling with the challenges of conscience.” We must latch arms, latch minds, and latch hearts to the idea that we are on a continuum in the fight for change and freedom. We must speak in unison with one voice, one inextricable connection to transform a society.  

There will be benchmarks and milestones on the long walk to freedom. Every generation is called to give the absolute best of themselves; to show the world its significant contribution and its striving toward liberation. We are to give whether it is cognitive, material or immaterial, spiritual, financial, or emotional. We are to serve one another and ourselves purposefully.  

It is time to reignite the nation and world around causes which are difficult, convenient and inconvenient, troublesome, and deep seated. It is the time to focus in on what matters to families and communities. It is time to change the tone and tenor of a nation that has been operating as business as usual.  

A reigniting happened this year. The spirit of the Reconstruction era is ripe and well in Georgia. Senator Raphael Warnock, a fellow Historically Black College and University (HBCU) graduate, is living proof that the Old South is changing. The work to elect him was done by countless and unsung leaders, community activist, and engaged citizens.  

Therefore, we must say in the ethos of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Let freedom ring, Georgia. Let it ring out over the Mississippi Delta and on the red clay roads trod in Alabama. Let freedom ring in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee and across the swamp lands of Louisiana. Let it ring through the Coastal Plains of North Carolina. Let freedom ring over the highways and byways of Southern California. Let it ring over the urban sprawl of the land. Let freedom ring in the roar of New York City. Let freedom ring in the corn fields of the Midwest. Let it ring over the ranches and piney woods of Texas. Let freedom ring over the rich prairies of the Arkansas Alluvial Plain.” 

As we go forward, we must speak truth to power and pressure all officials at every level of government, our community leaders, clergy, corporations, and the like to expand access to home ownership, boost profit sharing to employees, grow the social safety net for the poor, seniors, and vulnerable families. As we go forward, we must increase local, state, and federal funding for underrepresented populations. As we go forward, we must respire, reinvest, and reimagine our educational system. It must be culturally responsive and inclusive. It must mirror our technological innovation, be uncompromising, and demonstrate that our diversity is our strength. 

As we look upward, we have to demand unique opportunities which foster connections, engage in conversations and take part in our nation. As we look upward, we have to expand and explore our boundaries and perceptions.  

As change goes outward, we have to offer and anticipate unparalleled regional, national, and international opportunities to network, develop leaders, collaborate, and create problem-solving solutions. This will occur across all spectrums of this country and abroad. As change goes outward, we have to do more than have a seat at the table or bring our own folding chair as suggested by the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. We have to utilize every matrix and component to communicate, build consensus, resolve conflict, and make the critical decisions to uplift truly our sisterhood and brotherhood.  

Because we are articulating a message which is connected to a movement on how a nation and globe can propel onward, a community can go forward, a people can look upward, and change can go outward.  

*This work is dedicated to my beautiful beloved mother, Ms. J.A. Hathaway and my nurturing maternal grandmother, Ms. Willie Mae Hathaway. For their love, power, and protection forever rests upon me and may I go tell the story of their lives and legacies to every corner of the world.

This is my charge and mandate.