For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)
SISTERLY LOVE FOR DANNEE
For Domita White, July 4, 2011 is the day that changed the overall landscape of her life.
So much, in fact, that White deemed it essential that she draw ever to closely to her God.
“I became involved in advocacy for the Epilepsy cause when my beloved brother, Dannee White, succumbed to this disorder on July 4, 2011 while I was on vacation in New York,” White, during an interview this week with Making Headline News said, recalling the memorable, life-altering developments that led to her featured endeavor.
Having discovered her brother unresponsive in his bed, White subsequently made peace with God amid his untimely demise, an awe-inspiring encounter that essentially paved the way toward her pressing and navigating toward her destiny.
“It was that same night that I gave my life to God and I made a vow that when I returned to North Carolina that I would serve Him and serve others,” White said. “Although I was my brother’s counselor, nurse, protector — as I had to literally fight for him — I never advocated for the cause.”
To White’s credit, that all changed after she laid her brother to rest.
A native of the Bronx, New York, White in 2012 established The Warriors 4 Epilepsy, her Cary, North Carolina-based organization she customarily utilizes as a strategic platform, of sorts, whereby she host events as an effective way to bring about and spread awareness.
“My main business ventures are the Epilepsy advocacy and prison advocacy,” White explained. “In 2013, I was introduced to the world of mass incarceration by my ex-brother-in-law who, at that time, had been incarcerated for nearly 20 years. He wanted me to engage various men and women from different federal prisons throughout the United States in order to sign petitions. I was very hesitant as for one, I had no clue about prison culture, and I just didn’t want to be involved. I had the mentality that ‘Prison didn’t affect me.’”
Thanks in large part to the fact that she had what was an empowering and life-changing experience with her Creator, White had ultimately changed her perception with regards to prison civilization.
White, in fact, fielded an email from a woman at the Federal Correctional Institution in Aliceville, Alabama, who expressed she aggressively had been seeking medical help for approximately eight months for chest pains as a result of two triple bypass surgeries.
“She told me that the medical staff would tell her to come back another day, and she said that sometimes they would slam the door in her face,” White recalled. “I was moved, but not enough to act.”
White had eventually become more convinced after the woman informed her that two of her children were in foster care and that their counselor refused to allow them to communicate with or visit her.
“I asked her if she maintained her parental rights and she said yes,” White said. “I told her that legally, they couldn’t do this. She then told me that she didn’t have it in her to fight and that more than her medical ailments, not being able to communicate with her children was killing her and she asked if I could help her.”
For White, it seemed at that point, God has strategically singled her out to exemplify to the woman some much-needed agape love.
ALL ON BEHALF OF DANNEE
“It was in that moment that God circumcised my heart, and He gave me the wisdom to contact the right people and to say the right things,” White said. “In a matter of days, her prison counselor told her to fill out the paperwork necessary for her children to come visit her.
“Not only has she been able to communicate with her children, but I also contacted the director of the medical department at the prison as well. She spread the news like wildfire, and it was in that moment that I realized what God purposed for me to do.”
To her credit, coupled with the divine God-mandated calling on her life, White hasn’t looked back since. If nothing else, she’s diligently devising ways to advance what undoubtedly has become a personal movement, of sorts.
“I love the fact that when I reach out to wardens at various facilities, or to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons in (Washington) D.C. on behalf of an incarcerated person, they think that I am a lawyer and I love it,” White said. “I know the power of the God that I serve, and He can move all mountains.”
An endeavor that services individuals and groups of all ages, White doesn’t shy away from the notion that her rising prison advocacy has become a national fixture.
“I communicate with over 300 men and women who are incarcerated in various federal prisons throughout the country,” White said. I write letters to their judges and lawyers. Sometimes, I communicate with their family members. I also counsel them, or I am just a virtual ear and shoulder for them to lean on, and vice versa, as they have become family to me.”
White’s advocating for Epilepsy dates to 2012, and her involvement in prison advocacy spans some seven years. Widely regarded as a youth mentor, spiritual counselor, book publisher, and business/event planner, White is the mastermind of a podcast called The Stones Will Cry Out, a platform she erected in 2019 specifically for the voices of men and women behind bars to be heard by the outside world.
“I started this because I used to co-host a podcast show called The Young Entrepreneurs Kids Under Pressure Radio Show where we would highlight young children who were doing remarkable things in their communities,” White said.
Though her brother acquired Epilepsy “as a result of hate,” White says, she’s determined to carry out his memory through The Warriors 4 Epilepsy.
“I would also like to emphasize that Epilepsy can happen to anyone, of any age, and at any time in their life,” White said. “It does not discriminate. It does not recognize race, color, gender, nor class. It can strike anyone regardless of whether they live in a cardboard box or in the most extravagant palace in the world.
“It is imperative for me to highlight, esteem and inspire others because I understand what it feels like to think that one is alone in this world,” White continued. “I experienced something as a child and I felt that I had no one to turn to…not even God, as church folks used to come at me about God from a place of fear and not love.”
Today, White would be the first to admit that her life-altering calling amid her brother’s death is centered on nothing short of love.
That much-needed agape love, to put it more precisely.
“At 13 (years of age), I was suicidal,” White said. “So, it is my mission to speak to any child and to reach them where they are. I make it my mission to always find ways and implement strategic structures to start from inside the court system, women’s shelters, community centers and detention centers in order to establish relationships before people get into more serious trouble.”
For more information on Cary, North Carolina-based Businesswoman/Author Domita White of The Warriors 4 Epilepsy, to order her book, schedule her for a public appearance, a book signing, or speaking engagement, call 877.221-4718, or connect with her via Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/domita.white.3. Also, send email to: [email protected].
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Andre Johnson is the award-winning Founder and Publisher for Making Headline News. A 2000 graduate of the University of Memphis School of Journalism and a former staff reporter of sports for the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper, Johnson covers the NBA Southwest Division from Dallas, Texas. To reach Johnson, send email to [email protected] or to [email protected]. Also, follow him on Twitter @AJ_Journalist.