We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tiffany Green-Abdullah a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tiffany, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?
I hope that my legacy will be helping others be successful through my work in architecture, education, writing, and community development.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Becoming an author started when I was seven years old. I was attending Wadsworth Elementary school on the southside of Chicago IL. Periodically, we would have bookmobile sales at the school advertised through newspapers. I was an early reader and consumed books by the week. So on this particular book mobile sale, I purchased my first journal. This began my life as a writer allowing me to describe my environment. Journaling was and continues to be therapeutic for me to break down the world around me and strengthen my emotional intelligence.
In 2003, I was appointed Senior Policy Aide to the Vice President of the Minneapolis city council. One of the opportunities as a policy aid was just be on the committee for the development of a new police substation in the heart of Minneapolis. They needed someone to pick out paint colors and furniture and such. I love interior design so I put myself up to the challenge. That opportunity let me see that I could have a career in design. After the police substation opened and everyone was so impressed with the design, I contacted a local architecture firm who was designing the Cristo Rey School in my ward. I met with the CEO, Randy Fielding. We discussed my background in policy, event planning, and my passion for design. After that conversation, he offered me a consulting contract to work for Fielding Nair International, world renown educational architects. My first assignment was to Project Manage a training for a dozen or so educators from Victoria Australia to visit Minneapolis in mid-January to tour innovative schools and begin charette ideas for schools in Australia. That’s how I got into architecture. Fast forward five years when I meet my husband, Tariq Abdullah, who is an architect. We have been married 13 years now but after 10 years of marriage, I joined his firm as the Chief Operating Officer. I’ve been in that role for nearly 3 years now.
The biggest challenge in my journey to becoming an author is time. Figuring out when to write was the first hurdle. I tried at night but I was exhausted from long days of dropping my son at school, working in our downtown Atlanta office, school pickup, dinner, and getting my son to bed. So nights did not work. I remembered a story Toni Morrison told in her 2019 documentary, “The Pieces I am” where she described being a single mother and publisher who was writing. She would get up at 4:30 am to write before her work day began and her sons woke up. I tried it out and it worked. Bingo, that was the sweet spot. I started writing from 4:30 am to 7 am and was able to complete my book. I did this 5-6 times a week. Now, whenever I have to write, that is when I do it. I have no distractions. The house is quiet and the birds are not even chirping yet.
The only mistake I made was underestimating how long it would take to complete the research and writing. It took me a year longer than was originally planned. I took the African AncestryDNA test and which took 3 months to be completed at the top of 2021. The book needed additional time and the lesson is to give your writing the time it needs or you will have regrets about rushing it out. Also learning where my ancestral DNA is from was worth the delay. I discovered I share maternal genetic ancestry with the Balanta people of Guinea Bissau, the Mende and Temne people living in Sierra Leone, and the Mandinka people living in Senegal. This gives me so much pride and goals for my travels. I also hope to get my dual citizenship where possible.
I love reading Octavia Butler for her science fiction and dystopic view of the future. I also was greatly influenced by Isabella Wilkerson’s, “Warmth of Other Suns” about African Americans and the great migration. Over the course of 2020-2022, I am a student of Dr. Greg Carr, head of Africana studies at Howard. He has a youtube class that meets on Saturdays. I started attending in May 2020, which swelled my library to include books about African American history, critical race theory, etc.
I am developing my bean pie business. I sell bean pies and the bean pie book. My goal is to get the pies into commercial stores such as whole foods and coffee shops and bakeries around Atlanta and through e-commerce sales. One can purchase right now from my website, thebeanpie.com. I am also working on some formulas for new bean pie products.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
My husband and I are very passionate about innovative education. In 2014, we began developing The Community Academy for Architecture and Design (TCAAD.org). Our goal was to develop learning with the end in mind. Our teaching model prizes student discovery, understanding, and development. A design-minded approach to learning gives a fuller understanding to the nature of each design and improves the community.
The Mission Of TCAAD Is To Expose Students To Architecture And Design In A Learner-Centered Environment, Which Promotes Creativity, Critical Thinking, And Develops Community Conscious Leaders.
The Ultimate Vision Of TCAAD Is To Partner With Communities To Develop Thriving Children And Sustainable Neighborhoods Using Architecture And Design-Thinking As A Conduit For Positive Inner-Generational Transformation.
We received our charter school approval in 2018. We intended to open the school in DeKalb County in 2020 but as your readers are more than aware, the pandemic required pivots for schools and changed the fate of TCAAD. A start-up charter school under the best of circumstances is challenging to open and run successfully so during a pandemic when 40% of African American-run businesses closed their doors. We made the painful decision to relinquish our charter and not open the school. This impacted 350 students in a community where high achieving schools are limited. It has been two years since we have pivoted but we are beginning to engage new potential board members and national advisory members to begin ramping up again for developing more programming for “young designers” in the US and internationally. We have not decided if we will do a full school or just extracurricular programming.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is helping people by sharing my story. My book, The Bean Pie, A Remembering of our Family’s Faith, Fortitude, and Forgiveness speaks to the challenges of Black American families that can resonate with any family. The Bean Pie, A Remembering is a multi-generational memoir. What the readers can expect is a moving, provocative, and empowering story of four generations of women having to confront issues of gender, race, religion, mental illness, and the healing power of love, revealing how we turned our pain into power. The challenges were different in each generation but it was their faith and fortitude that really helped them through the struggles to see their family still growing from 1910 at the opening to 2021. The theme of spirituality and its importance in overcoming trauma is a major theme in the book for any family
The theme of migration is throughout the book as a way to find stability and flee from troubled environments.
The theme of love as a healing force is throughout the book but particularly in chapters 8-12.
It is rewarding to talk to readers and have my family’s stories resonate with them and allow them to begin a healing process by recognizing our struggles as similar to theirs.
Contact Info:
- Website: tiffanygreenabdullah.com
- Instagram: tiffanygreenabdullah and thebeanpiebook
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanygreen/
- Twitter: @tiffanygreenabd
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpqPwR8AtccMWiOUYG6RVHA
Image Credits
All photos are owned by Tiffany Green-Abdullah