Welcome to My Memoir Blog  

 

In the wisdom of 20-20 hindsight and age, I see how the stories, and traditions I once rebelled against, helped buoy me through my childhood insecurities and fears.  I often felt like a misfit as my father's military career during the fifites and sixties moved us from pillar to post. Coming of age in civilian life during the Black Arts and Cultural Movements was a battle of personal identity and belonging as my early global experience and perspectives did not fit into any of my country's social, racial and cultural boxes.   

 

God used my love of nature, humanity, and stories to set me on an evolutionary path of healing, growth and transformation. God caused the universe to conspire with my  lifelong passion for reading  and writing and serendipitously open the doors to a distinguished career in journalism. I landed my first newspaper gig as a stringer at my hometown newspaper when I walked through the doors of the downtown building and asked to speak with the editor. 

 

In my early twenties, a college dropout, a mother, and unemployed, I acted on a vision God had deposited in my spirit. The day I felt the spiritual impulse to walk off the street of downtown Springifeld, Massachusetts and ask to write for the paer, I was not dressed for success or an interview. I wore jeans and a sweatshirt. Thus, began my adventure as an African American, and a woman navigating America's predominately white-male newsrooms in the late seventies into the early 21st century.  

 

I wore many hats for nearly 20 years at two major   newspapers in New England: general  assignment reporter, food and jazz critic, feature writer, and editorial page editor in Springfield and a writer on the editorial board at the Hartford Courant in Connecticut where I also wrote occasionally for Northeast Magazine. I am a former regional director and chapter president of the National Association of Black Journalists

 

 Following the still small voice of my Divine call, I crossed over into the world of philanthropy and nonprofits and served in leadership roles at mission-driven organizations dedicated to advancing the health, education and social well being of our communities.  In 2014, I founded Davenport Coaching Solutions, a strategic consulting firm that partners with  organizations and leaders to bring more impact and power to their communications and missions.    

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 I was ordained in 2022 at the age of 68 as a Deacon in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. 

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God, calling, and service are the silver threads of sacred stortyelling. They are interwoven in the fabric of life. Their shimmer and light turn the dark, rough patches of our garments into beautiful  works of art. When we find the silver threads, we can stitch the fragments of our lives together into narratives that are whole, telling a story of both shadow and light.      

Rev. Janet Davenport

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