Mattie Davis Blizzard

From house cleaning in high school to successful entrepreneurship in New York City!

Mattie is a dark-skinned person who thought she was mistreated by teachers and classmates within the Black Tuskegee community because of it while growing up.  She also did not enjoy her very controlled home environment. Desiring to leave Tuskegee as soon as possible after graduation, she arranged through an agency to take a live-in babysitting job with a wealthy White family in New York City. This practice was utilized extensively in the Jim Crow South by Black women who had limited means to escape the South with the promise of employment waiting for them. 

While the live-in job did not work out, Mattie found love and married.  She tells the story of “loving the New York lifestyle” and becoming the owner of several lucrative businesses. She carried the Tuskegee emphasis on education with her, having both her children graduate from high school and attend college.

Mattie is one of the classmates who returned home to Tuskegee after retiring and discusses with disappointment how her hometown has changed.