Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Constance Nicole Frierson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Constance Nicole, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
My resilient nature developed over the years out of pure necessity. As an only child in a complex kinship adoption situation, I faced numerous challenges growing up. In my way, I took care of the adults in my life to keep myself safe. I experienced situations that were frightening with no clear explanation from family members who were supposed to nurture and protect me. As in my case, children tend to reason in silence. In some ways I withdrew into books that fascinated my imagination. Yet in other ways I figured out how to push past my fears. My grandmother will always be my inspiration, she was exceptionally resilient. I believe many of my good qualities came from her. Mama was my everything.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’ve been a storyteller all my life, but I didn’t always have as much time to devote to it as I might have liked. I was raising a family and making a living. When the COVID-19 pandemic changed our lives in 2020, I finally had the opportunity to work on my autobiographical novel, The House on Union Street. Presently, I am working on the final edits to the manuscript.
The COA Story
Color of Autumn is a small piece of my manuscript in progress, turned into a narrative short film that depicts a precocious eight-year-old Black girl who lives with her hardworking parents and her adoring, wise grandmother in a quaint house on the Southside of Chicago. Nestled within her neighborhood and focused on the comforts and stresses of her family’s hard-won middle class life, Dottie Grimsby has little awareness of racial tension or the isolation of segregation.
Color of Autumn shows a milestone moment from my sweeping story. It’s a moment of innocence lost. A look back in time that I hope can help us all look forward.
I was fortunate enough to find a creative team that was motivated to help me get my story on film and out into the world. We started with a beautiful table read, where we learned how much our message appealed to educators. We did some focus groups to make sure we were choosing the most impactful moments to bring to the screen. Then, we teamed up with our brilliant director, Aimi Sela, who brought a dramatic eye to our script and helped us refine it even more. We all believe this is a conversation starter and we’ve seen that in action at film festivals and other screenings. These real-time events solidifies our mission to move forward with our educational initiative.
COA AS AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL
Listening to the response from focus groups, educators, and DEI leaders, it became clear that COA should be developed into a school curriculum so that it could have a broader reach. Our team realized this impactful short film could serve as an educational companion and tool to aid teachers and students in classroom discussions about race and racism, and what to do about it.
Specifically, COA will become an educational tool to empower teachers in the classroom who want training and support materials to engage younger students in empathy-led discussions around hate speech. We believe this is needed now, more than ever.
We have been collaborating with our advisory board to create training materials for teachers and classroom curriculum materials for students, as a companion piece to view COA and engage in empathy-based discussion around its subject matter. This curriculum will be designed with young students in mind (4th-7th graders) and will be accessible to other age groups as well.
School curriculum is a timely and highly debated issue in the press and throughout communities across the United States. Black history–which is American history–is being threatened with suppression; being rewritten to follow an alternative, racist narrative; and/or being erased altogether. In telling the story of Young Dottie’s first experience with racism, Color of Autumn hopes to help school-aged children recognize racist harm when they see and hear it, and foster discussion (via supporting educational materials) to come up with age-appropriate strategies to address racism in their midst.
My team and I have some bold ideas moving forward. Once the film festivals are done, our laser focus will be on continuing development of curricula that will empower young people, parents, and educators. Bullying and hate speech is a universal concern that must be addressed and abolished for the betterment of our society.
What makes me the proudest…
I am so immensely proud of my young COA performers. They were so brave to take this on. Already they are making a difference in their communities. They’re my young changemakers equipped with the much needed powers of compassion and empathy.
As for me…
I intend to continue this work and write more about my lived experiences. I’m so grateful to live with restored hope that a better world is possible. Even if it means changing hearts and minds, one at a time. How wonderful is that?
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
It’s interesting how little people listen during a conversation. In my career as a financial aid administrator and working in corporate healthcare I learned that active listening is a critical skill. When working in a service provider role, Keep your personal biases and attitudes out of it. That’s how I was able to make a meaning difference. Whenever possible, leave a place better than you found it.
As a woman, I have been a caregiver to children, adults, and seniors. Culturally it’s expected. I made the mistake of ignoring my own needs and suffering burnout many times. Your body belongs to you. It is a sacred place and space that requires your love and respect. Caregiving requires self-replenishment.
Another lesson learned and it may be the most important. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Don’t waste time feeding petty grievances and anger toward people you believe may have wronged you. I am still haunted by a relative who desperately wanted to apologize to me for not speaking out about my mistreatment when I was a child. It was during his final hours when I witnessed him taking his final breaths of life. I’m so glad we got to reconnect months before and spent quality time together. Yet that will forever be a sad and heartbreaking memory.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
IF OUR WORK RESONATES WITH YOU OR YOUR ORGANIZATION, JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION THROUGH OUR FISCAL SPONSOR.
https://app.thefield.org/home/donation/crowd/view/159/Color-of-Autumn-Education-Intiatives
Please follow…
Color of Autumn
https://www.colorofautumn.com/
Instagram
@colorofautumnfilm
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://www.constancenicoleauthor.com/
- Instagram: @nicole.in.the.middle
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ariesista?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/constance-nicole-f-914860202/
Image Credits
COA Team & Family
