Reflections: Celebrating Black History Month – Charkes C. Nesbitt

As part of Jackson Health System’s observance of Black History Month, members of our team share their reflections on the important history of the black community at Jackson and in South Florida.

Rather than tell you where my story begins, I’ll begin where my mother’s story ends – right here at Jackson.

In 1999, my mother, who was homeless, died of complications from AIDS at Jackson Memorial Hospital – the very same hospital where she gave birth to me in 1977.

She suffered her entire life from a deep depression that brought her feelings of worthlessness and mental instability. Like a poisonous plague it consumed her at her very core, ripping away her motherly instincts and making it nearly impossible for her to attend to the basic needs of her 13 children.

My story forsakes the history and environment I was brought into. My story – this story – is one told by a black woman making her own history.

I took my first breath of life on a cool January 1.  A New Year’s baby, I was one of the lucky few born on such a special day. Both of my parents had children from previous relationships. However, I was their first child – the oldest of the 10 siblings that they would soon have together.

During my first few years of life, I grew up in the foster care system. My mother’s deep depression and instability made her an unfit parent, and my father was rarely involved.

My father eventually regained custody of my siblings and me, and moved us into the projects in Liberty City – not far from Jackson Memorial Hospital.

I recall living in a small house near Northwest 14th Avenue and 60th Street, then relocating to another nearby house on Northwest 15th Avenue and 69th Street. My one stable home became the James E. Scott housing projects, an area then tormented by drugs, violence, prostitution, and sheer hopelessness.

From an early age, I cared for my younger siblings, washing their clothes, making them dinner, and disciplining them. It was a role that I came into naturally, a substitution for the maternal figure that they desperately needed, especially in the chaotic environment that surrounded us.

That chaos was the only world I knew, the world I desperately tried to hide from them.

I quickly realized that education was my key to a better life – for me and for my brothers and sisters. It was a way to break away from the detrimental cycle of poverty and crime that surrounded us, and find a better world to grow in.

I made sure my grades were excellent and avoided the negative elements that were rooted in my neighborhood. Although I was zoned to attend Miami Northwestern Senior High School near Liberty City, I was able to enroll in G. Holmes Braddock Senior High – a school 21 miles away in west Miami-Dade County.

Despite being surrounded by high school dropouts who were my neighbors, I wanted nothing more than to go to college and further my education.

I had developed an interest in dance from Florene Lithcutt Nichols, a dance school owner and instructor who did charitable work in the community. But, college scholarships were limited, and I didn’t have the luxury of paying out-of-pocket tuition, nor would my father have entertained the idea.

So I did what I had done all my life: found a way to move forward.

Not having much to lose, I forged my father’s signature on all of my college and student loan applications. And soon after I did, I was accepted to historic Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach.

It was there that I received my Bachelor of Science in nursing, which was then followed by a master’s degree from the University of Florida, and a career as an acute-care nurse practitioner.

And now, coming full circle, I write this story as associate director of clinical documentation improvement, in the very same hospital I was born in, and where my mother died.

I think of her often, wondering what would have become of my life had she been there to raise all of her children. Would I have been as strong and resilient? Would I have traveled 21 miles every day to attend a better school? Would I have raised my younger siblings?

But no matter what I ask myself, I am always grateful for the experiences and lessons afforded to me because of the unfortunate circumstances of her life. I found strength in my hardships and they allowed me to remain positioned and disciplined regardless of the wind and the waves that threatened my stability.

Being part of the Jackson family is an honor.

I proudly serve the people of Miami-Dade County in the hospital that has always been part of my life, the only hospital I visited growing up in the Liberty City projects.

Charkes C. Nesbitt, RN, BSN, MSN, ARNP
Associate Director Clinical Documentation Improvement
Jackson Health System