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Transcript
Mercedes J Williams, born on Monday, January 25th, 1988. I’m originally from the Hill District. I’ve lived all over the Hill district. Every part you can think of I’ve almost lived in it. So the Hill District is becoming a beautiful, vibrant place and you’re talking about a lot of entrepreneurs. A lot of millennials, a lot of new businesses. I mean, shopping save was huge. The fact that there is a coffee shop on center that’s huge, but it also still embarks some of the historic stuff. The fact that August Wilson’s house still sits there as a historical landmark. The Hill House Association, but even zoned 2 police station, which I remember growing up. Hill District is changing, and I think it’s changing for the better. When you go back to the history of the Hill District, you can see it’s rich in culture. You can see, you know, the old thing is I used to sit there. You could see the jitney stations. You could see the old Crawford Grill and I like the fact that some of that stuff is still sitting there, I just hope and pray that we can get the money to revitalize the Hill District in its entirety, but I can see it changing, I can see it’s moving.
Pittsburgh as a whole was evolving as a city, so I’m kind of glad that the Hill District is not being left behind like some other communities but there’s no place in the world like the Hill District. I always say perception versus reality. The way people perceive me is not the way I am in real life. People perceive me as a child, as an aggressor, as maybe some would even say, I had somebody say this to me last week thst when I was a kid, that I was a bully, that I was a know at all, and that wasn’t really it. I think it was just so much pent up frustration and so many other areas of my life that I didn’t know how to use healthy avenues or channels to express myself. So as a result, you know, I mean, I might have done something that wasn’t nice. I might have been the nicest person in the world, but I think also the people who knew me and understood me. perceived me as a spontaneous intelligence spirit. Even you know, the biggest bears have the softest inside. So I have a huge heart. I just don’t wear it on my sleeve.
I had the most amazing high school experience now granted, there was some bad there was an occasional fighting and there was occasional cliques and gossip and who was gonna wear what to the prom? Who was gonna ask who to homecoming? Typical high school stuff but I graduated from Shelley High School, the Schenley High School, and it was just four years of just a diverse balance of learning, fun, socializing with a whole bunch of guys and girls, and it was called a melting pot. People came from all over the city, so you got to know people that you would never typically know. When I was in high school, my lead motivator was and still is my mom. She’s always been a matriarch of the family and we kind of always looked up to her. Because she was an accident and still is an excellent role model, just about perseverance is the only thing I can think of when you think of her story. So to think about how now my life is a little bit synonymous or reflective of hers, it makes me want to look at the light towards the end of the tunnel.
I would say right now my role models are the people that I look to are sitting right here in front of you as my children. I want life to be better for them and as a result that means we making some sacrifices, we making some hard decisions so that when they grow up to be my age, they could sit in the same seat I’m sitting in that says it was also my mother who taught me how to keep fighting, to be the best person I could be.
When I was in high school, I had applied to 17 different Co. Just I got accepted to all of them and I got 2 full time scholarships. I got a full time scholarship from a Bible college and I can’t really remember where it is because I right there I was at that point I had already started ministers in training class at Mount Merritt and I actually ended up finishing my ministers in training class at now my home church, Macedonia but I was thinking about, going into theology, or at least I wanted to know more. I knew I was young. I knew that I believe God existed, but I was just all like I gotta get a deeper understanding of what this religion means and that because my mom and my grandma told me to go to church because I needed a deeper understanding. So as a result, I got a full scholarship to a Bible college and then I also got a full scholarship to Clarion. I didn’t take either of those full scholarships. I went to Atlanta. You know, being hot, thinking I was cute, and I went to Clark Atlanta University and they gave me $0.00 to go. So I just finished paying off the Student Loans that I owe back from 1 freshman semester at Clark Atlanta University in 2005. So just think about this 2018, thirteen years later. So that was my biggest regret. I wish I would have went to that Bible College. I wish I would have went to Clarion and I would have alleviated the entire cost of college altogether. Student loans are a tricky vicious entity that need to be stopped, but that’s my biggest regret. I wish I would have went to a school because then I would have been set up a little bit better in life or to me I would have.
Lift as we climb. If you see a project, start a go fund me page, revitalize something to start a garden and to figure out how you can get more resources there and work with your school Principles to figure out how you can find a better communicative route between the families in the Hill District and the school. There’s so many ways to get involved. I want you to get involved and get invested into the Hill District. Stay involved and stay invested. I always say to myself, there’s so much more I could be doing with the Hill District. It’s one thing to praise and worship there. It’s another thing to also make sure that I frequent the business is there and it’s also about black ownership. Being a black entrepreneur, that’s also important. I hate to say it, but whites, Asians, Middle Easterns, anybody that doesn’t look like us will come in there and take it up. We don’t own Two Cousins. We don’t own Shop and Save. We’ll own PNC Bank. We don’t own Dollar Bank that’s inside the Shop and Save. We don’t own none of that. The last two stores in that shopping center that Mister D’s not owned by us and then that convenience store also not owned by us. So it’s important to own our own and be able to say not only is this mines, but I’m a continue to put the dollars in so that I can see the response from it.