From Picking Cotton to Running a Nonprofit, Mamie Jackson Remains an Inspiration

February is known as Black History Month and Studio City Patch is using this space to focus on profiles about African-American people who work and play in Studio City. Check back every day for new stories about people who have lived here for decades, teachers, activists and the new generation of black youth.

grew up in the segregated South in Mobile, Alabama. She was the baby in a family of nine children—three of them died before she was born. She knew what it meant to be black in America.

“I picked cotton, I picked okra, I worked from sun-up to sun-down for a dollar or two, and it’s hot in Alabama,” Mamie said. “I know hard work.”

In her 57 years she’s seen hardship and racism. She once weighed 350 pounds and lost 185 pounds. Then, she found out she needed a kidney. She also found out that if she had known more information, she perhaps wouldn’t have needed that kidney and would not be on dialysis today.

“I am now devoting my life to educating people about preventative care, because maybe someone may not have to go through what I’ve gone through,” Mamie said.

She moved to Studio City, not far off of Ventura Boulevard, where she always felt comfortable. “I don’t have to worry about getting shot while walking to my car at night,” she said. “I have never experienced racism in Studio City, that’s why I stay here. There’s no one hollering the N-word. People here are highly educated.”

Highly educated, perhaps, but when she founded her non-profit , she purposefully didn’t put her face on her brochure because she wasn’t sure prospective donors would take her seriously because she was black.

That really never happened, and her group has been a success in holding at least five events a year with nurses, doctors, nutritionists and other health care providers offering free screenings and diagnoses for minorities at risk. She has been honored with a Special Recognition from the City of Los Angeles for her public policy work, the Outstanding Community Service Award with One Faith Fellowship, Partner of the Year Award for Service from the Computer Tech for Humanity and the Inspire Award from One Legacy. She served on the Jimmy Carter Work Project, the U.S. Olympic Organizing Committee, the National Kidney Foundation and many other organizations.

And this past Martin Luther King Jr. Day, she rode in the parade on the One Legacy parade float.

“Now that was lovely, to be in that parade, that was a good time,” she recalled.

They know Mamie at the , her favorite local eatery, and they know she has to watch what she’s eating. Vegetables are good, she doesn’t eat much meat, and hasn’t eaten bananas or oranges in four years. Too many potato chips could put her in the hospital.

For 47 years she has lived with chronic diseases—kidney disease, high blood pressure and diabetes—and she has studied them intently for three decades. She was born with small kidneys, and was diagnosed in 1991 with ESRD—end stage renal disease. In 1996, she had a transplant from a kidney by a 6-year-old girl.

Two years later she founded NORD, opened an office in Studio City, and has never taken a salary from the organization. In 2008, her kidney failed after complications from non-kidney related surgery. Now she is back on the waiting list.

Mamie gets all her work done despite 21 hours a week of dialysis. She points out that 350,000 Americans are also on dialysis, and that every 17 minutes someone dies from one of these diseases, and unnecessarily so.

“You won’t change habits and behavior, but it’s important to at least present the information,” Mamie said.

Asians, Latinos, African-Americans and Hawaiians are particularly susceptible to chronic renal disease, and diabetic African-Americans are four times more likely than whites to contract the illness. By targeting groups with high incidences of heart attacks, obesity, diabetes and kidney disease then lives could be saved.

At the moment, Mamie’s organization has a good number of volunteers, lawyers who are helping with advice and interns doing office work. She said she is seeking grants of about $200,000 to continue doing the outreach she is doing.

She developed a four-part program: A.P.E.R. standing for Awareness, Prevention, Education and Research, all as an early-warning system for  diverse communities.

Her activism started from walking with her family in civil rights marches in the South. She remembers as a child, her first confrontation with racism was with a young girl who asked her if she could wash off her color.

“I remember things like that very clearly,” Mamie said. “I’ve been black all my life and I sometimes had to turn a blind eye toward racism.”

In 1971 she moved to Barstow from the South with a singing and dancing group, and Mamie also played percussion.

“We were good, real good,” Mamie said. “We rehearsed five or six hours a day.”

When the band didn't quite make it, she got a job at a bank and was the only African-American on the job. She was transferred to Los Angeles when things got too racist.

“I believe that racism is learned, and if you never hear it from parents, then you don’t learn it,” Mamie said. “It’s about how you treat other people, what you do with your life and treating everyone with respect.”

Black History Month is important to her because she remembers when there was no such thing. Things have improved by electing a black president, but Barack Obama’s upcoming election only seems to stir up more overt racism, she said.

“This country is still the best in the world, but we have a long way to go in America,” she said.

“I just want to have strength to get through another day.”

Her life has been an inspiration to many, and documented in an award-winning documentary: “Mamie Jackson—Life on Dialysis.” She shrugs about being a role model, saying, “I just do what I can do.”

Her mother had only an eighth grade education. Mamie managed to get a master’s degree.

“My mother always said that it takes one person to change the world,” Mamie said. “I hope I’ve made her a little proud.”