Rita Williams-Garcia - She Persisted: Florence Griffith Joyner

Florence Griffith Joyner was an Olympic champion who won gold medals and broke world records as a sprinter. But before there was Florence Griffith Joyner, or Flo-Jo, there was a girl called Dee Dee.

Long before she was born, her newly married parents, Robert and Florence Delores Griffith, lived in a small town in the Mojave Desert, where their family grew. The Mojave Desert spans from southeastern Los Angeles, California, to parts of Nevada, Arizona and Utah, and the Griffith family lived in the area near Los Angeles. The Mojave Desert is a hot, dry, wide-open space with mountain ranges, sagebrush and red desert blooms on tops of prickly cactus plants. The calls of owls, coyotes and bobcats peppered the night air. In the daytime the Griffiths backyard was plentiful with lizards, snakes, slow-moving tortoises, fast jackrabbitsand kids!

In 1959, Christmas came early for the six Griffith children. On December 21st, Bobby, Weldon, Vivian, Kathleen, Robert and Elizabeth welcomed their seventh sibling, Delorez Florence Griffith, into the family.

Delorez Florence Griffith was named after her mother, Florence Delores. Mrs. Griffith wanted her daughter to be her own unique self. So, her first name, Delorez, had its own spelling, and Florence was her middle name. The Griffiths took to calling their newest family member Dee Dee.

Mrs. Griffith saw something special in each of her seven children. In Dee Dee she saw a child who seemed to float like a ballerina as she moved. But Dee Dee was also speedy and earned another nickname, Lightning, as she ran through the house.

Mr. and Mrs. Griffith found ways to keep their childrens minds and bodies active. Mrs. Griffith, a fast runner, played racing games with her children. She would line them up and call, Ready, set, go! Off theyd run! Even though Dee Dees brothers and sisters were older, that didnt stop Dee Dee from racing to win.

By the time Dee Dee was four, she had six brothers and four sistersmany who already attended school. Dee Dee looked forward to starting school with her siblings, but her mother had other plans for her childrens education. Much to Mrs. Griffiths disappointment, her children could only attend segregated schools for Black children. Her husband, an electrical technician, worked hard. But like his African American co-workers, Mr. Griffith struggled to earn a fair wage. These unfair practices only reminded Mrs. Griffith of the racial discrimination and segregation that she had grown up with in the South and hateful practices that were clearly present beyond the South, too.

Mrs. Griffith had had enough! She was tired of waiting for things to improve for her family and made a big decision. It was also a hard decision. She decided to leave the segregated desert town and separate from Mr. Griffith. Dee Dee loved her father so. It pained her to be apart from him. But her mother remained firm in her decision. Dee Dee, along with her ten siblings and mother, moved to Watts, California.

Watts was a low-income neighborhood in Los Angeles with few employment opportunities. In 1965, growing conflicts between the people of Watts, mainly African Americans, and the police, resulted in one of the largest riots of those times. On August 11, White police officers attempted to arrest a Black motorist who was suspected of drunk driving. A scuffle ensued between the man and the police. To the people in the neighborhood who had gathered and witnessed, the scuffle had turned quickly into police brutality, where the police use more force than they need to get someone to do what they tell them to do. The people of Watts felt they had lived with police brutality long enough. The uprising that resulted lasted for six days and was called the Watts Rebellion.

The Watts Rebellion had not yet happened when Dee Dee and her family moved to the Jordan Downs Projectspublic housing made affordable for low-income families. Mrs. Griffith knew of the problems that surrounded their neighborhood. She saw Jordan Downs as a first step on their way to better opportunities and told her children, Start walking.

Dee Dee was too busy keeping up with her siblings to know that they had moved to a low-income neighborhood. She saw pink townhouses with palm trees along the sidewalks. She darted between laundry that hung on clotheslines in the backyard. She played football with her brothers, and they played rough! Her older brothers wouldnt let her join in if she cried. So, Dee Dee ran lightning-fast with the football, and if she was tackled, she didnt cry.

In the evenings, Dee Dee gathered among her family to share thoughtsgood, bad or ordinary. Each week the Griffith children took turns reading from the Bible. At five, Dee Dee could read well and held her own in family discussions.