| An Interview with Dr. Debbie Jones: The Touch |
wanted to know what that moment really meant for me. So from that point on, I went and read everything I could read about him and
about what he stood for. That’s why the more I read about him, the more I understood the weight of that touch, that moment when he
touched my life. I knew that even though we were in abject poverty, something meaningful had to come of my life.”
“In that moment, I knew that my life had to count for something,” Jones continued. “I would not be an inner-city statistic. I would not be a
statistic of poverty. I knew in that moment that although I didn’t know what I would be, I knew I had to live a life that was worthy of my
mother’s sacrifice because she sacrificed her opportunity with him and she gave it to me. That is why I say this is a story about a mother’
s sacrifice. Out of her eight kids, she picked me to have that moment. How is it that in that moment, he would touch me? He touched my
life in a meaningful way. Words defy me when I want to tell you how it had to have changed the trajectory of my life because whenever I
had to make choices, I had to think that I had to make a choice that was worthy of that moment. The choices that I made along the way
had to be worthy and with integrity with that moment. I couldn’t get involved in the gangs and the drugs and the prostitution and the
issues of life that come from growing up in central city Chicago, growing up in housing projects, the public housing of Chicago, growing
up in abject poverty.”
When Jones speaks to middle and high school students touring the hospital, she will often have them touch her hand that touched Dr.
King’s, look them in the eye and ask them what they intend to do with their lives.
“I’ve been living my purpose and gosh that feels so good,” Jones exclaimed. “That is what I want for the students, that they will find their
purpose and their passion and they can live it, not what people expect of them, but what they know their highest calling for themselves
is. This is where you have to push past what people are saying and what they are expecting from you. That’s why you have to hold onto
something greater than yourself so that you can figure out what that greatness in you is and then walk it out. It takes someone like King
to touch you in some kind of way or to see a physician whom you would never expect to be there. Many of the students from the central
city have never had the opportunity to meet a female physician of color. So I like to get personal with them and let them know that I am
like any other woman and aunt and mother who sees them and loves them and has faith in them and cares about them and wants the
best for them. I point that out to them because sometimes I know that I’m not going to see them again, but I have to leave them with
enough that will make them reach and strive hard, to find that passion, find that purpose in their lives and walk it out.”
“They have to know that the circumstances that you start in don’t define who you are or who you will be,” Jones emphasized. “And that
can be a difficult lesson for someone who is very young. But somebody has to tell you that. It’s hard for you to see that when you are
afraid to go out, when there isn’t enough food in the house, when the house is cold or when you don’t have a house to stay in. It’s hard to
see that somewhere out of all of that, there is greatness in you.”
While people think about the impact that Dr. Martin Luther King had through marches and advocacy in the civil rights movement, he also
had an impact on lives on a personal basis, an impact that has continued to help long after King died.
about what he stood for. That’s why the more I read about him, the more I understood the weight of that touch, that moment when he
touched my life. I knew that even though we were in abject poverty, something meaningful had to come of my life.”
“In that moment, I knew that my life had to count for something,” Jones continued. “I would not be an inner-city statistic. I would not be a
statistic of poverty. I knew in that moment that although I didn’t know what I would be, I knew I had to live a life that was worthy of my
mother’s sacrifice because she sacrificed her opportunity with him and she gave it to me. That is why I say this is a story about a mother’
s sacrifice. Out of her eight kids, she picked me to have that moment. How is it that in that moment, he would touch me? He touched my
life in a meaningful way. Words defy me when I want to tell you how it had to have changed the trajectory of my life because whenever I
had to make choices, I had to think that I had to make a choice that was worthy of that moment. The choices that I made along the way
had to be worthy and with integrity with that moment. I couldn’t get involved in the gangs and the drugs and the prostitution and the
issues of life that come from growing up in central city Chicago, growing up in housing projects, the public housing of Chicago, growing
up in abject poverty.”
When Jones speaks to middle and high school students touring the hospital, she will often have them touch her hand that touched Dr.
King’s, look them in the eye and ask them what they intend to do with their lives.
“I’ve been living my purpose and gosh that feels so good,” Jones exclaimed. “That is what I want for the students, that they will find their
purpose and their passion and they can live it, not what people expect of them, but what they know their highest calling for themselves
is. This is where you have to push past what people are saying and what they are expecting from you. That’s why you have to hold onto
something greater than yourself so that you can figure out what that greatness in you is and then walk it out. It takes someone like King
to touch you in some kind of way or to see a physician whom you would never expect to be there. Many of the students from the central
city have never had the opportunity to meet a female physician of color. So I like to get personal with them and let them know that I am
like any other woman and aunt and mother who sees them and loves them and has faith in them and cares about them and wants the
best for them. I point that out to them because sometimes I know that I’m not going to see them again, but I have to leave them with
enough that will make them reach and strive hard, to find that passion, find that purpose in their lives and walk it out.”
“They have to know that the circumstances that you start in don’t define who you are or who you will be,” Jones emphasized. “And that
can be a difficult lesson for someone who is very young. But somebody has to tell you that. It’s hard for you to see that when you are
afraid to go out, when there isn’t enough food in the house, when the house is cold or when you don’t have a house to stay in. It’s hard to
see that somewhere out of all of that, there is greatness in you.”
While people think about the impact that Dr. Martin Luther King had through marches and advocacy in the civil rights movement, he also
had an impact on lives on a personal basis, an impact that has continued to help long after King died.
| Dr. Debbie Jones (R), a hospitalist at St. Mary’s Hospital, with her patient Jaleen Foley. Dr. Martin Luther King Dr. changed the trajectory of Jones’ life when she was a little girl in Chicago. |
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 2 of 2
By all of the statistical analyses and the stereotypes that the poor are
burdened with in our society, Dr. Debbie Jones, a hospitalist at St. Mary’s
Hospital, should be a single parent on welfare on the south side of Chicago.
But because of luck, the will of her mother and the touch that she felt from
someone special, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jones proved the statisticians
and the pundits wrong and made something of her life that benefits
hundreds of people each year.
After Jones briefly met King when her mother hoisted her up to shake King’
s hand at the apartment King moved into for six months in Chicago, Jones
feels that the trajectory of her life was altered.
“All the choices that I made along the way, I had to make them in integrity
with that moment,” Jones emphasized. “I couldn’t take the cheap way out. I
couldn’t take the easy way out. And I read much of his writings, if not all of
them. There may be writings that I don’t know about. But from that moment, I
Part 2 of 2
By all of the statistical analyses and the stereotypes that the poor are
burdened with in our society, Dr. Debbie Jones, a hospitalist at St. Mary’s
Hospital, should be a single parent on welfare on the south side of Chicago.
But because of luck, the will of her mother and the touch that she felt from
someone special, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jones proved the statisticians
and the pundits wrong and made something of her life that benefits
hundreds of people each year.
After Jones briefly met King when her mother hoisted her up to shake King’
s hand at the apartment King moved into for six months in Chicago, Jones
feels that the trajectory of her life was altered.
“All the choices that I made along the way, I had to make them in integrity
with that moment,” Jones emphasized. “I couldn’t take the cheap way out. I
couldn’t take the easy way out. And I read much of his writings, if not all of
them. There may be writings that I don’t know about. But from that moment, I