Bridges Digital Archive: Audio and Video Recordings

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Document Type

Oral History

Publication Date

1-5-2016

Abstract

Carolyn Tillman interviews Lea Michelle Cash, a woman with a long history of helping others. Cash began the interview by mentioning that she was born in Massachusetts and moved to San Bernardino in 1975 to follow her career goals. She loved writing and originally wanted to become an entertainment reporter, but her marriage and four children paused that dream. Another interest that Cash had from a young age was fostering and was able to do so with her husband for eight years. However, she was unexpectedly divorced from her husband and it damaged her emotionally. Once she started to volunteer to help foster parents and returned to her love of writing, she met people within the local newspaper industry. With that, she started to volunteer in the San Bernardino American News and the Black Voice News, eventually landing a job in the Precinct Reporter. Cash mentioned the beauty she could see in the Black community and her heroes Dr. Mildered Henry and Georgia Floyd Morris, both of who left physical and intangible gifts for Cash. The interviewee made a mention of her nonprofit organization The Brightest Star, the book The Strawberry Pot that Cash wrote inspired by Morris, the topic changes to Cash’s journey in getting her two master's degrees. She then mentions the difficulties that come with creating a nonprofit organization as well as the story of Oseola McCarty, who was a washerwoman who saved up funds to donate to a university. After McCarty was successfully able to be invited to the Black History Parade, Cash talks about her stipend won for the organization. Cash talks about creating differences in foster youth, such as the one girl who cried after going to American Idol and the other girl who called Cash from Sacramento on Foster Youth Day. When asked about sharing philosophy for those fifty years in the future, Cash talks about how one must find one’s purpose in life and move forward. The interview ends with Cash on the topic of volunteering and working.

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