Oprah she is not.
“There’s nothing special about me,” said Vanessa Walker, while sitting in the living room of her North County home.
Currently a payroll consultant who has worked for AT&T (formerly Southwestern Bell) for nearly 30 years, Walker was more interested in promoting her faith, family and the work of her church – Shalom Church (City of Peace) – than herself.
But even in her modesty she had to own up to her success as a single mother raising three boys, now ages 26, 23 and 20. Two of her sons are college graduates – Charles Walker II from SIUE and Terrance Walker from UMSL – and her youngest, Christian Walker, is approaching his third year at Webster University.
“I have to really give the credit to God,” Walker said. “To be honest, when I was first divorced, I didn’t think I could do it – but God showed me differently.”
Eighteen years after her divorce, Walker saw that her struggles and sacrifices were not in vain as she watched her toddlers grow into strong black men.
“I started with the oldest,” Walker said. “I thought, ‘If I could just get him right, then he could help me with the other two,’ and I believe that’s what happened.”
Charles is now an accountant and married with a young son of his own. Terrance, son number two, is preparing for graduate studies in Arizona this fall after completing dual degrees in Spanish and psychology at UMSL.
Her boys defy odds, statistics and stereotypes that bombard the black community about their men. She used those negatives as teaching tools for her sons.
“I told them how they are going to be looked at because they are three black males walking down the street. They are going to be met with some obstacles,” Walker said.
“I reminded them that, as black males, they not only have to know what the other knows, they have to know more (and do more) in order to outshine.”
And so they did.
While having three sons succeed in college (simultaneously, for a few years) comes with bragging rights and family pride, there are also serious emotional and financial burdens that come with the territory.
But prayer, scholarships and loans (shared by mothers and sons) and an all-for-one mantra allowed them to be victorious.
“I didn’t go to a four-year college, but I was determined that they were going,” Walker said. “If I had to go to the poorhouse to put them through college I would do it. I told them we are in this together.”
With her sons clearly on the path to success, Walker now applies the valuable experience she obtained through raising them for the good of her church as instructor for the teens of Shalom Church (City of Peace).
“We have to fight for our kids to keep them on the right track and to keep them thinking straight,” Walker said.
The lessons she learned along the way now allow her to help other single mothers who walk in her shoes.
“Some young woman who has a child can look at me and know that I am not feeding her something off of the top of my head,” Walker said.
“You don’t have to be Oprah to make a difference. One child’s life saved from the streets and from gangs is better than none at all.”
