Nellie McKay: A Lifetime of Community Advocacy
At 94 years old, long-time Bronx River Houses resident Nellie McKay is a community activist who has lived an extraordinary life of service and hard work that is the definition of what it means to be a person living their purpose.
Born in Elkton, Tennessee, in July 1929, Ms. McKay was one of 11 children in a family of sharecroppers. She learned the value of hard work early on, drying tobacco and picking hundreds of pounds of cotton a day alongside her parents and siblings. Despite the challenges of her upbringing, Ms. McKay always believed in herself and her potential – and that belief took her from Elkton to Nashville to Indianapolis to ultimately land in New York City in 1959.
Ms. McKay remembers being excited to finally live in the city she’d heard so many Black Southerners talk about but also being scared when she first arrived. “I packed all my clothes and went to the Theresa Hotel,” Ms. McKay recalled. “It’s near 125th Street. I went into my room, locked the door, and put all the furniture behind the door.”
Ten years after moving to New York, she, her late husband, and son Wadi moved into Bronx River Houses (her son is her youngest child and the only one who grew up at the development). Ms. McKay has two older daughters; Naeemah is 74 and Mattie, her middle child, passed away in 2014. She has a host of grandchildren and great-grandchildren that she loves to talk about.
Though she has faced trying times, hard work, education, and service have always helped her find fulfillment. Ms. McKay has had many jobs: nurse’s aide, nanny, housekeeper, in-home daycare operator, event planner, cook, and caterer. She spent 31 years as a housekeeper and cook for her employers, the Engels, who became like family. She worked for another family organizing and hosting parties. When her son started school, she kept busy with classes in the morning, took care of children at her home in the afternoons, and catered parties in the evening. She left Tennessee without a high school education but in New York completed her GED, certificates in medical training, catering school, college-level classes, and earned a bachelor’s degree.
She has been a vocal advocate for the residents of Bronx River Houses and is known for attending NYCHA board meetings to ensure resident voices were heard: “I had to take three buses to get to the meetings. I attend because I want them to know what we need.” She advocated for the ramp at her building, established the first garden at the development which won awards at NYCHA’s garden competitions, and was recently hard at work organizing a building meeting for residents, enlisting her granddaughter-in-law to act as a Spanish interpreter for the meeting.
She said she’ll continue her advocacy for as long as she can: “When I wake up in the morning, I ask God to give me strength and help me do the things I want to do for myself and other people.”
For Ms. McKay, activism extends outside the borders of Bronx River Houses. She was appointed a New York State Committeewoman in 1984 and served the entire Bronx community in that role for two decades. She volunteered for numerous organizations, including St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, where she worked with teenage mothers, and Middletown Prison, where she taught modeling and Black history to young women inmates.
Ms. McKay said she’d tell the young women in prison: “Get your education and get a job. It may not be the job you want, but if you make a bit of money, you don’t have to look over your shoulder. I just want you to keep going. I had people tell me I wasn’t going to be anything, that I had no potential, and try to knock me down. But I always rise up.”
Ms. McKay’s dedication to her community has not gone unnoticed. Her apartment walls are adorned with accolades from presidents Reagan, Clinton, Obama; Congressional and Council recognitions; and tokens of appreciation from various organizations. Joining these accolades are a mini museum of keepsakes, including World War II ration stamps and the pot that her mother used to cook groundhog in.
When she was 81, Ms. McKay published a memoir, “From Flour Sack Slips to Lingerie,” which tells her rich life story and is filled with interesting anecdotes such as learning to make Seder dinner for her employers and why she started wearing a gele – an African head tie – in the 1960s. The book leaves many lessons for the reader about resilience, community, and the importance of passing wisdom down through generations.
On the last page of her memoir, Ms. McKay reflected on her life’s work: “I have lived a life full of curiosity and life-long learning. I hope my story helps to give you a glimpse of an ordinary life, in my opinion, lived in an extraordinary way. Extraordinary, not because I am a millionaire or live in a fancy house but because every day that I awaken, I am filled with joy and hope and the possibility that one day the world will be united in love, compassion, and understanding. A life of service to others will become a life of service to yourself.”