Tales of black women who made a difference

YOUNGSTOWN — A calling from God moved Monica Beasley-Martin to become a minister.

A calling to work with children motivated her to become a teacher.

A calling to share her theatrical skills inspired her to become a storyteller.

The skills of preaching and teaching combine with her dramatic talent as she weaves her tales as a storyteller.

The Youngstown woman entertained a small group who attended a storytelling presentation today night as part of a meeting of the Friends of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, 305 Wick Ave. The characters in her tale were black women who made a difference:

•   Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and former slave.

• Jarena Lee, the first woman preacher in the African Methodist Episocopal Church.

• Rosa Parks, “mother of the civil rights movement.” Her refusal to give her seat to a white man sparked a bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., and led to desegregation of buses.

• Angela Davis, social activist from the 1960s and 1970s.

During costume changes, the storyteller’s son, Brandon Martin, 21, a theater manager at Youngstown State University, tap-danced as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and gave a speech as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The storyteller’s background in individual areas contributes to the whole of her work.

As the Rev. Mrs. Beasley-Martin, she is pastor of Sheridan African Methodist Episcopal Church in East Liverpool. Before she responded to the religious calling, she was a gospel music disc jockey. “I felt God was calling me to do something more,” she recalled.

She sought out the advice of her grandfather, the Rev. Henry Smith, who has since died at 100. He was the oldest member of Third Baptist Church.

He resisted his calling at first,” Mrs. Beasley-Martin said. But she remembered that he told her, “God has called you to preach.”

Mrs. Beasley-Martin preached her first sermon June 19, 1988, at the nondenominational Harvest and Home Ministry. Her grandmother and mother were affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and so she decided she would be as well. She took classes through the North Ohio Conference of the AME Church in Cleveland and earned a master of theology degree from Vision Christian University.

She was ordained a deacon in 1992 and an itinerant elder in 1994. She has been assigned to Sheridan since 2005.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in theater at Ohio State University. She has worked regularly as a substitute teacher in Youngstown schools since the late 1990s.

It was after attending a storytelling workshop led by Jocelyn Dabney that she knew she had found her niche. Dabney is a co-founder of Preserving and Sharing Stories and Tales of Youngstown. “I fell in love,” Mrs. Beasley-Martin said. “This was a means of expanding what I already was doing in acting.

“I feel I was called to theater as much as I was called to preaching,” she said. “This keeps me young ... there is a lot of interaction with people.”

She will perform in a traveling drama by Staughton Lynd and Gary Anderson, “Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising.” It will be presented April 11-29 in seven Ohio cities by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.