Matriarch: Oprah's Book Club: A Memoir

by Tina Knowles

Ever since she had me, the last of her seven babies at age forty-four, my mother had been sickly.

My parents were older, closing in on fifty years old and already grandparents whose two oldest kids had moved out long before I showed up. They were tired, and I was tiring. I’m pretty sure I had ADHD, but people didn’t know what that was. So they just called you bad. My nickname at first was Dennis the Menace, after the little comic about a mischievous boy that ran in the Galveston Daily News.

These people, my people—my ancestors and my parents when they were young—were characters in a long drama that I was now a part of. Their struggles were not mine, but their lessons could be. This was my inheritance, these stories that people had done their best to erase or degrade to keep us from passing them down. So that we wouldn’t know our history and ourselves.

“I was told, ‘Be happy that you’re getting a birth certificate.’ Because, at one time, Black people didn’t even get birth certificates.”

“But pretty is as pretty does, Tenie.”

I am the daughter of Agnes, who was Odilia’s daughter, who was Célestine’s, who was Rosalie’s. My mom did not have the details found in the records of modern historians and genealogists. She had what had been passed down to her, which was, above all, the knowledge that these mothers held on to their daughters against all odds.

Éloi Réné Broussard came forward at the auction. A receipt shows he paid $1705 in cash for Célestine and her two children. His children. A relative of the widow put down money for Rosalie’s life, and she was taken from her daughter and grandchildren. I don’t know if they ever saw each other again.

Éloi was my great-grandfather. With all its awful complexity, that is who he was. Éloi acknowledged paternity of all of his children with Célestine and donated a small bit of land and livestock to her before his death in 1904. The way it’s been presented to me, Éloi acknowledging that he was the father of her children gave Tine some degree of security, even before the Civil War.

Célestine was enslaved, and she became free. And she got her kids free. They stayed together.

We all have this power to be matriarchs, to be women of the sacred practice of nurturing, guiding, protecting—foreseeing and remembering. The matriarch’s wisdom is ancient, for she is filled with the most enduring, ferocious love.

So my first gift to my daughter would be my name, Beyoncé. It didn’t matter how it was spelled when it was given to me, it was our name. Our history. The most valuable possession I had, and it was now mine to give. I’ve kept a word going.

My oldest sister, Selena, was twenty-seven years old when I was born, and she and her husband, John, had eight kids by the time she was thirty. My nieces and nephews were closer in age to me than my siblings, and they were my very best friends.

We were playing poor, none of us knowing we were actually very poor. Some of that comes from living in a neighborhood with so many people in the same boat—you don’t have people to feel less than in comparison. My parents made it seem like it was our choice to be thrifty. When they said “We can’t afford that” in response to some want or need, it seemed like it was a decision about what was worth putting our money toward, never lack.

As children, and even as we grow into adults, our mothers become synonymous with us. They exist for our needs. Many of us think we give them life, rather than understanding the truth that we owe our existence to them.

My mother always figured out ways to make what she had become enough. Dividing attention, food, money—all that care—into equal parts. The algebra of motherhood.

One of the many cruelties of racism is that mothers are made to be the guards of their children, enforcing rules that were designed to limit them. Constantly telling them what they cannot do for fear that if they don’t remember the box they were put in, they will be hurt or killed.

My family was on Pennies, but we were living like millionaires.

This was how much Texas prioritized Galveston: It was the first city in the state to have a bank, then a post office, and then the first in the state to get telephones and electricity in homes. For us, Galveston was home to Texas’s first public high school for Black children, Central High, and the first Black public library in the entire nation.

It wasn’t until visiting Weeks Island that I felt confronted by racism. The first time it was targeted so directly at me that the behavior didn’t have to be explained. Now, I was clear enough to connect the dots: There were rules. I could reel them off: the bus, the beach, and the one that said if you were walking on the sidewalk and a white person was walking by, you had to step off the sidewalk into the street. How many rules did I know, but not even know that I knew? And what did I not know that could hurt me at a place like Weeks Island?

All of us, Emmett Till too, had gone back in time and place, visiting the family we came from. But when you went to these little towns, all of a sudden you had to change who you were. I saw my cousins as “trained,” and I didn’t see why they didn’t see anything wrong with waiting outside a store. I didn’t understand then that it was survival.

walk. In an age-appropriate way, my mama told me that because she had been divorced, the Church said she wasn’t able to receive communion. It was a hard rule. This woman, the most devout Catholic in there, kneeling in prayer as she was considered unworthy of what everyone else was going up to the altar to share in. Meanwhile, she had to watch her ex-husband, Big Pop—who had had several wives—go up and take communion with no problem. Not to mention my daddy, who embarrassed us reeking with the after-smell of all that alcohol from the night before. And you know he could curse up a storm. Not hurting anybody, but compared to Saint Agnes? Who did so much for Holy Rosary? I felt that anger later, but at five, I just saw her getting the same message that Sister Fidelis said to my face: We didn’t belong.

A lesson was deeply ingrained right then: It made me feel so good to give up things that were very important to me.

And yet…I see how limited that hope was. She couldn’t dream for him beyond survival. Because she didn’t just teach him sewing: This was her way, and I didn’t know it at the time, of earning love. In her effort to keep us safe, she taught us we were only as loved as we made people feel, and the only way to prove our worth was to show our value to others. Knowing how to sew gave us opportunities and security, but in the end, it was still bartering. My mother would teach me so much, but this was another lesson it would take me almost my whole life to unlearn. —

I promised Flo over and over as we walked the whole way home that I wouldn’t tell. But as soon as I got in the house, this was me: “She went to that sit-in you told her not to go to!”

me. I would spend years dreaming of the witches and even more undoing the lessons taught a girl who would become a woman who was never enough.

confused. The two nuns came at us, taking me first by the wrist and grabbing one of the girls to pull us both into the cloakroom. They left the other girl outside. They made me and the other girl turn and raise our dresses up, which showed our underwear. And they began to hit us with sticks. This felt shameful, the trauma more twisted than I’d previously had at Holy Rosary. The nuns, starting with Sister Fidelis, had failed. They couldn’t break my spirit. When it was close, when even my mother weighed it down with her good intentions, something would show me to hold on: Johnny would try basketball and be brave enough to quit; Skip would grab the ruler that beat him; Flo would reach out her hand to take me to the sit-in. I would say, “Enough.”

would start public school in September—all of us in the family would. The next time a nun looked me in the eye and said, “You don’t belong here,” I answered quickly and firmly in my head: I belong anywhere I want to be.

“Tina,” Miss Olivier started. I braced myself as she looked as if she was searching for the words. “You are so smart.” No teacher had ever said anything positive to me before. When a teacher believes in you, that can sustain you for an entire lifetime. It can create a new foundation, and everything that went before can become fertilizer to grow on.

Motherhood was both the best and most important job of my life, and I was determined to do it well.

I knew what protected us: money. Pure and simple. But none of it was mine. What kept me and my daughter safe depended on a marriage I did not have faith in lasting. A man I was not sure of. We were so good half the time, a cosmic kind of love that made everything worth it, but then Mathew’s erratic behavior would take hold. I was caught in this dance with him, each doing the same steps over and over: He would cheat or act up, and I would say I’d had enough. He would beg for forgiveness, crying and promising to get better. For a time, things would be wonderful, so consistent and steady that I would think everything was behind us, and then, boom, the same thing would happen again. But this is what married people did, I told myself. My parents stayed together through everything.

The marriage was deteriorating faster than I could possibly find ways or even reasons to make it work—even with the pregnancy. Mathew’s infidelity became so out there for all to see that I could not possibly stay in the marriage. I had gotten used to these extremes—incredibly joyous half the time as we shared life’s adventure, then being disgusted and heartsick over how brazen his cheating could get. He was a wonderful father, but he had issues that did not make for a good husband then.

The baby’s Friday due date came and went. Now I’ll have it on a weekend, I thought, worrying I’d end up with some random doctor. Then the weekend passed, and each day was an eternity—all the way to the next Friday. Beyoncé could not wait to be a sister and kept staring at my huge stomach. “C’mon baby!” she said. “Come on out!” Mathew told Beyoncé the doctor had said that if I walked a lot, it might get the baby moving. “Okay, then,” she said, going to the door to put on her shoes. Do you know we marched for an hour? All over the neighborhood in the Texas sun, Mathew and me with Beyoncé leading us. She made up songs to keep us in rhythm, then switched it up with the Jackson 5 and then New Edition’s “Cool It Now.” “Anything?” she asked me at a corner. “No, Snoogums,” I said. “This baby has its own mind.” As I fanned my face, Beyoncé whispered to my belly, “I just want to meet you.” When we got back inside, Mathew and I called the doctor before he left for the day. “If I don’t have this baby by Monday,” I said, “I’m coming up there, and y’all gonna take this baby.”

Once Mathew and I got counseling, our family had the feeling of a fresh start. Beyoncé was our Snoogums, and now Solange was our Punkin’, all three of us doting on her. Mathew and I sang to the girls at home, the two of us harmonizing on Peaches & Herb’s “Reunited” and Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “You’re All I Need to Get By.” Even as a baby, Solange responded to words the way Beyoncé loved music. Beyoncé had never cared about me reading to her, but Solange was captivated early by books. Mathew and I read to her constantly, and even early on she would pick favorites.

the secret of good branding is belonging;

The staff started calling themselves Tina’s Girls, and they became an extension of my family. I had so much mother love to give that I wanted them to reach their full potential. The ones who worked at Headliners were taking home fifteen hundred to two thousand a week, unheard of in the late eighties. They were often making more than the women who could afford their services, and it allowed for a feeling of mutual respect.

sometimes people will put something down that you have or do because deep down they’re actually sad they can’t have what you have or do what you do. It’s called being jealous. You gotta understand that because you can’t let other people’s jealousy change your mind on how you really feel about something.”

A few minutes later, Beyoncé came from backstage to where we were sitting. “I’m hungry,” she announced, my seven-year-old coming back to earth and what mattered. “Okay,” I whispered, pulling her to sit on my lap. “We can get something after, but we gotta stay ’til it’s over.” “I just wanna get my trophy and go home and eat,” she said. I answered, “You don’t know if you won.” Beyoncé turned to face me, and raised one eyebrow in that way she still does. I shook my head like “watch yourself.” But she was right. She won.

I preferred people telling Beyoncé and Solange they were smart, and not just that they were pretty. The last thing I wanted was for them to get stuck on their own beauty.

We got back in our seats just in time for Beyoncé. Selena and I were now bone-sober nervous while she did the Interview onstage. But we saw the same transformation in her that Mathew and I had witnessed seeing her onstage the last time. She was poised, yet wholly herself. Then she had to do her Walk, which all those other girls had spent those years practicing. She did it so naturally, then hit that required little pivot-turn and looked back. She threw the judges a kiss. I saw the effect, a wave going over the crowd and the judges melting. No one had ever told her to do that. It was just the instinct of a born showperson.

“You know, you do deserve a thank-you from these women. They brought you in to be a lead singer.” I paused. She looked hopeful. “But…” Her head dropped—there went the hope. “…I’m not going to argue with these people, Bey, because you got an opportunity to take your voice lessons, and you don’t want to take them. So, if I were you, I would get busy with those sessions.”

As Beyoncé began working toward those goals, Solange was starting to discover her own gifts. I was very conscious that she not feel overshadowed.

I started taking Wednesday afternoons off to set aside alone time with Solange. As a mother, I know it is important to see when a child needs that extra bit of attention. “Solange’s Day,” as we called it, was a time she could just talk. Because this girl loved storytelling and had the most vivid imagination of any child I’d known.

One afternoon we realized Solange had slipped out of an open door. We all took over the place in a panic, enlisting everyone to look for her in the halls and the bathroom. “Solange! Solange!” we yelled. There was one last closed door to one of the studios. We walked in and found her sitting in a chair, smiling ear-to-ear and holding court as two young guys smoking Marin County’s entire supply of weed hung on her every word. “Hi,” said Solange, looking dreamier than usual. “This little girl is a trip, man,” one of the men said, smiling just as much as her. He looked to be around nineteen or twenty. “She’s been in here talking and dancing!” It was Tupac Shakur. He was there with Shock G, recording with Digital Underground, who the girls were more excited to see because of “The Humpty Dance.” “She’s really special,” Tupac told us as I hustled her out the door before she really got a contact high. “Come on, Punkin’,” I said to Solange, grabbing her hand as she turned to say in her Texas sweetness, “It was nice meeting you!” When Tupac got big, it was Beyoncé who recognized Solange’s buddy. I didn’t see anyone that cute in the studio, but she remembered him. “Solange was in there probably telling Pac all these stories about us.”

True wealth was measured in their ability to share blessings, feeling the honor of someone letting you care for them, and staying grateful that you even have anything to give.

There was still more I could do. I went to Pastors Rudy and Juanita Rasmus with the idea to offer the women we served free services at Headliners. I knew the power of self-esteem. I decided to invite about nine or ten each Wednesday and made a point to not isolate them or have them come in after hours. Our new trainees would care for them, not because I thought their time was less valuable, but to let them know the culture of Headliners. If they didn’t treat these women with dignity, I knew they didn’t deserve to be at my salon.

It got ridiculous when Mrs. Dick mentioned her husband. Harry. “Harry Dick?” said LeToya, disbelieving. “Mister Harry Dick,” corrected Mrs. Dick. LaTavia lost it. Kelly jumped up, waving her hand. “I can’t. I can’t.” Beyoncé followed her running out of the room as they burst, so unable to hold their laughter they fell onto the floor.

All of Destiny’s Child was in the car, racing over to Solange’s school to be on time for pickup. They had the radio on, of course, and were pulling up just as the DJ introduced a new song “from H-town’s own Destiny’s Child!” Columbia had released the song to urban radio to get buzz going for a November release. The girls started screaming—their first time on the radio. Kelly turned the radio up so everyone outside could hear the song, especially Solange, who came out of her school like she’d arranged the whole scene, picking her sisters’ single as her walkout song. They parked right there to get out and join Solange in dancing around the car. Doing the routine they’d practiced countless times, right there on a school day in Houston. They all called me at Headliners, each screaming, “Our song was on the radio!” all at once. I told Vernell, who told the whole salon. Before they hung up, Beyoncé said quietly into the phone, “Mama, it was on the radio.”

Chris’s and Eric’s heads popped up like little Siamese cats ready to see the show. They must have thought, Now she is gonna get it. “Oh, Mama,” Beyoncé said. “Mama?” Chris and Eric both said at the same time. “You’re her mother?” asked Eric. “Why didn’t you say something?” The guys started laughing, not at me, but at themselves. They confessed they had been freezing me out. “Our friend was supposed to do the hair and they canceled them,” said Chris. “They said that the director’s girlfriend was gonna do the hair.” I laughed. “Darren is about fifteen years younger than me,” I said. “You think I’m his sugar mama?” “You could be,” Eric said, looking me up and down. “I never heard of a hairstylist sugar mama, but okay.” That started a deep friendship that day, and Eric and Chris would later re-create their conversation from before we all met. “We are not giving this bitch any space. We gonna be so mean to her.” But our new friendship did not solve the problem at hand in that hair and makeup room.

Beyoncé needed more blond streaks. I did what I had to do: I looked at myself in the mirror, took a little scissors, and began to cut some highlights from my own hair, just enough here and there to glue into my daughter’s hair without leaving me bald-headed.

They had been at it awhile when I walked in to join them, and I saw there was a young woman sitting on the floor by the door quietly rewinding the cassette tape so the girls could start the song again. We smiled at each other, and she pressed Play on the tape. When Beyoncé came over, she said, “Aaliyah, this is my mama.” Aaliyah stood up and brushed her hair back as my mouth fell open. I just thought she was a friend of Fatima’s helping out. She was, but here was this superstar who was so humble. We got to chatting and after Mathew came in, Aaliyah asked permission to take the girls along to a video shoot that night. Mathew hadn’t recognized her either, so Beyoncé and Kelly were just humiliated as he went into full dad mode. “Well, how old are you?” he asked Aaliyah. Even when he realized who she was, he still asked, “Do you have your driver’s license? Okay, let me see.” Aaliyah laughed, showing her ID. “I’ll get ’em back,” she said. “I’ll get ’em back to you.” Aaliyah said it was very sweet that the girls were so protected. They all kept up their friendship, always excited just to be around this artist who proved you could be great—have hits and be in the movies—and stay so humble. Later, we would be devastated when we lost Aaliyah and Chris together in August 2001. Destiny’s Child was headlining MTV’s summer TRL Tour, and we were on a tour bus from Indiana to Chicago when we heard the news: A Cessna carrying Aaliyah, Chris, and seven other people had crashed leaving the ...