This week, Katie talks with Dr. Malaika Horne, a public policy scholar and author, and her sister Gwen Moor, curator at the Missouri History Museum, about their inspiring mother, Flora. 

Flora Horne was born in Mississippi to sharecropper parents in 1916. During the Great Migration of the 1930’s, she moved to St. Louis with her family. There, she married and raised six children at the height of the Jim Crow era. Although Flora was deprived of a full education, she instilled the values of learning in her children from a young age. To Flora, education was the wisest path to independence and prosperity. 

In this episode, Malaika and Gwen discuss the racism and violence that their family faced in the middle of the 20th century. They also discuss the many ways in which Flora rose above near-impossible circumstances to provide loving, nurturing homes for her children.

To learn more about Flora, her life,  and her children, you can find Malaika’s book here: Mother Wit: Exalting Motherhood While Honoring a Great Mother  

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)
Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry
Producer: Alice Hudson
Associate Producer: Sophie McNulty

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud on the Our Mothers Ourselves Web site.

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.