My middle name, Hampton, bears the echo of a colonizer’s bloodline—my great-grandmother’s maiden name passed down through the patriarch’s side. Yet it was Mama Mary, our Big Mary, who came to me in spirit within my Phoenix home. She whispered of return, leading me to Charlotte, North Carolina—the soil where our people once toiled in chains. Since that homecoming, her presence has never left; she walks beside us still, a guardian of our freedom and our becoming.

My Mama Dee—Dorcas Mitchell—was a woman of grace and fire, both classy and sassy, a matriarch rooted in God. Mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and keeper of our herstory. Through her voice, the stories of our lineage flowed—passed down from Big Mary herself—each word a thread guiding me back to reclamation. She is the beloved sister of the late, great Rev. Dr. Timothy P. Mitchell. And even now, she’s holding her Sunny close, smiling from the realm where ancestors dwell.

My mother, Serena Michelle, known to us as Muffin.
From Mama Dee, she inherited the art of elegance—the grace to host, to gather, to make beauty look effortless. She carried the Queen’s etiquette and the New York City flair into the Valley of the Sun, shining as one of the warmest, most radiant First Ladies a Baptist church could ever be blessed with.
I love you, Mommy—and I honor every woman whose hands, prayers, and power carried me here.