They're tiny pink reminders that someday there may be a cure for breast cancer.
Seventy-five-year-old Jessie Williams of Montgomery spends hours, often late into the night, crafting miniature rocking chairs from the simplest of household tools -- clothespins.
And now Williams, a breast cancer survivor, is rocking those chairs for a cause dear to her heart. With the help of her son, Larry Williams, she has painted her signature chairs pink and is giving them away, along with an envelope.
The envelope is a reminder for people to donate money to SISTAs (Sisters in Survivorship Through Action and Support) CanSurvive Coalition. It's an organization that spreads breast cancer awareness to women throughout the black community, with emphasis on preventive and clinical breast self-exams and mammograms.
An estimated 192,370 new cases of breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in 2009, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). Breast cancer will kill an estimated 40,610 people this year. The racial gap behind those figures has been well-documented.
Between 2000 and 2004, 132.5 of every 100,000 white women in the U.S. were diagnosed with breast cancer, compared with 118.3 of every 100,000 black women, according to the ACS. But during the same time period, breast cancer killed 33.8 of every 100,000 black women, compared with 25 of every 100,000 white women.
Though Larry Williams is still recovering from major heart surgery he had in July, the pink chairs were his idea, and he has even been the one transforming the chairs into pink.
"He said, 'Mama, why don't you paint these rocking chairs pink for October?'" she said. Since then, he's been painting diligently, and the pink chairs -- along with the accompanying envelope -- will soon be in the hands of friends, acquaintances, maybe anyone Williams happens to encounter.
For years Williams has become known for her signature clothes pin chairs, giving them away to friends, fellow church members, her doctors and even strangers. But this is in no way her only claim to fame.
In 1956, she began working with local dentist Dr. Morris Capouya, who died last month. With that job, she said, she became the city's first black dental hygienist to work for a white dentist, and one of the first 10 practicing black hygienists in the state. Some patients would see her in the office and when she approached them to do a cleaning they would bluntly state, "No."
They did not want to work with a black dental hygienist.
But she said it wasn't long before they changed their minds.
"They found out I knew what I was doing."
Soon after she became a hygienist, she befriended the young boy who, after he got out of school for the day, would teach her to craft the little wooden rocking chairs. As they got to know each other, Williams told him all about dentistry, in which he had expressed an interest.
That boy went on to study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
"He's a dentist now, thanks to me, and him, and God," Williams said.
But she in turn got something back from him. Crafting the chairs has become a passion, her unique way of sharing.
She'll often work on her chairs until 2 or 3 in the morning, especially for important occasions. All the high school and college graduates in her church receive one of her rocking chairs.
And this month, the chairs are helping her spread the word about breast cancer, which profoundly affected Williams' life after her diagnosis in 1995. A routine mammogram seemed normal, but she was the one who spotted a problem area. After working in a dentist's office for so many decades, after all, she knew how to read an X-ray. She came in for another examination, and that's when she received her diagnosis, early enough for treatment, early enough to win the battle.
SISTAS has united her with women who have endured the same thing, and together they're spreading the word about early detection.
As small as they seem, the pink rocking chairs aim to make a big difference -- to "rock for a cure," as she puts it. And she feels as much gratitude as she receives.
"There is joy in just knowing that you can do something. I knew one lady who was in the last stages of breast cancer, and I visited her and gave her one of the rocking chairs," she said. "Her family told me they still treasure that." To see more of the Montgomery Advertiser, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Montgomery Advertiser, Ala. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Copyright (C) 2009, Montgomery Advertiser, Ala.