Why Not Her: Linda Green

There’s a particular kind of silence Black women learn to carry. Not the kind that folds into invisibility — but the kind that tightens its belt, holds its head high, and moves forward anyway.

At seventeen, I couldn’t name it — seventeen years later, I live it.

No Crown, Still Queen 

I’ve been thinking about Ms. Green.

Assistant Principal. Interim Principal. Quiet force.

She carried no-nonsense auntie energy — the kind that could cut through chaos with just a glance.

Some days she was a mirror, other days a mother, often a disciplinarian — and always, always present.

She had the kind of presence that made you check your tone without her saying a word. She walked the halls like she built them. And in many ways, she did.

When I transferred into University Academy Charter High School in Jersey City, I was a late arrival, a transplant, a girl without shared middle school memories or old friendships in my pocket. But I found my place — eventually. One of those places was the school newspaper, where I became editor-in-chief. That little corner of the world gave me a voice.

A way to name what I saw, even when I didn’t yet know how to explain it.

And what I saw was this: Ms. Green was already running the school. She was the one circling the classrooms, checking in on teachers, straightening the seams of the day. She wasn’t waiting for permission. She was already doing the job. So when the principal’s seat opened, it felt like common sense — a foregone conclusion, even — that Ms. Green would officially become our principal. 

We were just waiting, or so I thought, for the grownups at the top to make official what was already fact on the ground. But then came the announcement. Someone else. Someone new.

Someone who didn’t know the smell of our hallways or the rhythm of our school bells.

Why not her?

In Her Office

That’s how I found myself in Ms. Green’s office, notebook in hand, not as a student in trouble, but as a student reporter assigned to cover the change in leadership. The irony wasn’t lost on me.

There I sat, across from a woman I admired, trying to summon the nerve to ask the question everyone was too polite to voice aloud. She met me where I was. She spoke in careful strokes:

“I’m here for the students.”

“That’s what matters.”

But her breath was tight. Her shoulders spoke before her mouth could form words. Her eyes flickered with a knowing that, at seventeen, I couldn’t yet decode. That office was thick with a kind of silence that didn’t ask to be filled — only respected.

Then Meets Now

It’s funny how time loops back, how memory knocks softly when you least expect it. Now, when I face my own closed doors, my own “not this time,” I think of her. When I need to summon grace in moments that scrape the heart raw, I remember Ms. Green’s measured pauses, the way she rearranged disappointment into dignity. 

Back then, I thought she was being professional. Now, I know she was protecting herself.

Back then, I thought she was composed. Now, I know she was grieving. She stayed until it was time to bow out with her head held high. Once again, the title went elsewhere. The recognition didn’t match the reality. And now, without even meaning to, I hear her voice in mine.

Careful. Measured. “I’m here to serve.”

I recognize that particular kind of silence — the one that holds you together when the world is determined to overlook you.

Back then, I wrote the story.

Now, I am the story.

That’s the thing about growing up — you begin to hear the echoes. You realize the people who carried you were carrying something, too. And some of the strongest women you’ve known were operating in rooms that were already rigged before they ever stepped inside.

Closing Reflection

I didn’t grow up alongside my classmates, but high school gave me something I carry to this day: the art of building a voice in borrowed spaces. And Ms. Green? She was part of that foundation. She wasn’t soft, but she was steadfast. Present, precise, and unshakable — she kept the school’s heartbeat steady, even when we didn’t yet know the language to name her labor.

Though Ms. Green has since passed on, I honor her memory and the quiet strength she modeled. I’m grateful for her leadership, her grace, her restraint. I carry this now — not as a wound, but as a witness.

Ms. Green showed me, early on, what it means to lead without applause, and how to endure disappointment with dignity. In the end, truth makes its own introduction. The story always outlives the silence.