Gathering Together: Born to Be a Leader

When Barack Obama became president, Gertrude Wilks was overjoyed and filled with hope. She knew it was time to tell her story because it would inspire people to become active. "Now is the time for community people to get poor folks involved in helping themselves," she said. Gertrude Wilks grew up in a sharecropping family in Louisiana. She learned to be a community organizer from her strong Mother and Father. When Gertrude, her husband and their baby moved to California they found it not so golden either. When she discovered that black children in the community were not being educated by public schools she started a school for them. Its motto was "Our Children Can Learn" and they did.