In the early 70s there was a surge in the use of LSD. Thousands of people used the hallucinogenic for ‘spiritual reasons,’ while others used it simply because it was a fad. The government did not take the use of LSD lightly, and they cracked down hard, making many arrests and giving servere conviction sentences. By the late 70s, the popularity of LSD decreased, but the usage opiates such as heroin started to increase in poor neighborhoods. With the emergence of such a cheap drug, hundreds of people were becoming addicted to heroin. Sadly, many of those addicts were pregnant women. The babies that were born to the addicts often died from a harrowing combination of withdrawal and malnourishment. These babies were born into situations that seemed hopeless. This was until Clara Hale, a sixty-four year old black women living in Harlem, decided to take in these babies out of the pure goodness of her heart. She nursed the babies back to life using the most holistic approaches. Clara Hale is a modern-day hero because her selflessness and compassion enabled her to save hundreds to children’s lives.
‘A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.’ Throughout her life, Clara Hale faced many difficult obstacles that she impressively prevailed through. When Clara was a child, her Father was tragically murdered, leaving her mother with barely any money and four young children to raise. Years later, Clara’s mother died from cancer, making Clara’s brothers and sisters dropout of school to get jobs. However Clara knew the value of education and did not want to let her mother’s death to stop her from continuing her education. So in 1923 Clara graduated from high school, the first in her family do so. After highschool, Clara married her highschool sweetheart, Thomas Hale. They moved to Harlem and had three children: Lorraine, Nathan, and adoptive son, Kenneth. Just as life seemed to be getting easier for Clara, her husband was diagnosed with cancer and died only a short couple of months later. Although the death of Thomas deeply saddened Clara, she knew she had to be strong for her children. Clara made her house a daycare to support her family. The children at the daycare loved her so much that they did not want to go home prompting her to open up a twenty four hour daycare where children only went home on the weekends.
Living in Harlem, she sadly saw many homeless kids who faces starvation. In order to deter this from happening further, Clara offered parenting classes to new mothers and found permanent homes for homeless children. Clara did this purley out of goodwill, and through this heroic action, she saved many children’s lives.
Knowing that there were still countless children that needed to find homes, Clara decided to become a licensed foster parent at the age of sixty. From here, Clara took in eight kids at a time, where she was only paid 2 dollars per child. After thirty five years of running a daycare, and four years of being a foster parent, Clara decided to retire at the age of sixty four. However just as she was enjoying the relaxation of retirement, her world turned upside down.
A heroin addict left her baby on the front steps of Clara’s house. The baby was going through withdrawal and was clearly malnourished. Clara took in the baby after her daughter, Lorraine, told her she sent the addict her way because she knew the bay would die in his mother’s care. Just six months after taking in the first drug addicted baby, Clara was housing twenty two babies. There was a reason that there were so many babies in Clara’s care.
Harlem was facing a serious heroin epidemic. Mixon stated that, ‘New York City alone has records of some 40,000 heroin addicts, and the number is rises between 7,000 and 9,000 a year.’ New York City special prosecutor, Sterling Johnson, announced that Harlem was the ‘drug-trafficking center of the nation.’ Dozens of crack babies were being born each day with little to no hope of living. However when word got around that Clara was taking in these babies for free, her house became a hotspot for baby drop offs.
Clara was disheartened when she heard the babies shriek from withdrawal but knew that she was the only person who could save them from death. Clara took a very holistic and strict approach when it came to nursing these babies back to health . When babies cried, she would have to cradle the baby until he or she stopped crying, no medicine was to be administered to the baby. The mothers who gave their babies to Clara had to check themselves into rehab and once a week would be required to visit their babies. Although Clara’s approach seemed harsh, ‘ Ninety per cent of the time, she was able to reunite a cleaned-up child with a cleaned-up mom.’ Although her work was saving hundreds of children’s lives, many people fought against her.
Many bureaucrats ordered her to give children over to child protective services. Clara refused as she knew child protective services would not give the same motherly love she gave the children. She was relentless when it came to fighting against these bureaucrats. She turned to Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton. Percy not only got the bureaucrats to lay off of her but also got, ‘government funding and helped secure a W. 122ns St. brownstones that in 1975 became the Hale House.’ The Hale House had multiple nurseries, a dining room, kitchen, and a playground. The workers there included volunteers and Clara’s daughter Lorraine, who went to college to get a degree in psychology to help better understand the children’s behaviors.
As the 80s emerged do did two new epidemics: crack and AIDS. Many babies were born with either born with aids, a drug addiction to crack, or both. The Hale House stated to gain many more children due to this epidemic. While some workers urged Clara not to take in these babies as it was very expensive to keep up with the care, Clara refused to let money decide whether a baby died or not. The Hale house provided as much medical care it could to the babies and their parents, however there was not a lot they could do to treat them as there was no cure What the Hale House really offered was the love and comfort a hospital could not give. While Clara and the volunteers at the Hale House knew that most of the babies they took in had a short life expectancy, that did not stop Clara for nurturing them. Clara also made the parent or parents of the babies go to rehab for 18 months. This proved to be a successful tactic because ‘in 1989, after 20 years of operation, only 12 of the many hundreds of children who had passed through the doors of Hale House had had to be placed for adoption.’
Clara’s heroism was recognized all throughout the country. In 1984, PResident Ronald Reagan invited Clara Hale to the White House. He said during his State of the Union address that Clara, ‘was a true american hero.’ Just five years after being recognized by Ronald Reagan, she was given the Harry S. Truman Award for Public Service. After given these honors, Clara became very ill and weak. Clara became too frail to cradle the babies she loved dearly, which frustrated Clara as she refused to stop working. She sadly died of complications from a stroke on December 18, 1992 in New York City. Throughout her life she is credited for taking in and saving over 1,000 babies. Her legacy continues to live on as the Hale House is still in operation and continues to take in hundreds of babies.