An unscripted life of faith

“I wish they were here to see what I’m doing,” Bobbie Green said, speaking about her parents, who met in a cotton field near Silver City, married in 1941 and raised nine children on a farm a few miles north of Las Cruces.

Shephard Green Sr. was a farmer and later a groundskeeper. The oldest child in his family, he dropped out of school at a young age after his father died at age 45.

“It was really difficult to be a young Black man without a father,” Bobbie Green said. “He worked the rest of his life. Even the day before he died (at age 85), he went to work. He went out exactly the way he wanted to. I never heard him complain.”

Shephard Green’s funeral was “fit for an elder statesman,” Bobbie Green said. “Everybody in Las Cruces showed up, even though he was simply a farmer with a third-grade education. He was my hero.”

Rosie Green, Bobbie’s mother, was a cook who worked for many years at the Aggie Snack Bar in NMSU’s Gerald Thomas Hall and later owned Rosie’s Snack Bar. 

“She raised a family of nine children “with extreme class and dignity and had it running like a well-oiled machine,” Green said. “She always knew how to do a lot with a little. She could take a few things in our refrigerator and make a gourmet meal. She planned every step of her life around her family.”

Shepard and Rosie Green’s seventh child, Bobbie, was born and raised in Las Cruces. She was the first Black child to attend MacArthur Elementary School, where, thanks to the teachers and staff, “I had the freedom to be a child,” she said, “not a Black child. Those were some of the best years of my life. I was encouraged to think, to speak, to act. It changed my life and made me the critical thinker I am today.”

Before moving to MacArthur Elementary, Bobbie attended East Picacho Elementary, but she had to walk to and from school, which concerned her mother. And Bobbie was often late getting home after school because she stopped at McKinney store to sing for the customers.

“They gave me candy,” Green said. “It was my first gig.”

Green later attended Alameda Junior High and graduated from Mayfield High School. She earned a BA in English from the University of Southern California, an MBA from City University in Seattle and a Ph.D. from Seattle University.

Green had a 15-year teaching career at NMSU, where she also served as interim director of Black Programs. She has been president of the Doña Ana County Branch of the NAACP since 2018 and director of the NMSU Gospel Choir since 2005.

Green learned to cook by watching her mother, who never used recipes. She learned to sing by ear, and her choir performs without sheet music because “it gets in the way (as they) clap and sway and move,” Green said.

“I learned to compete unscripted,” she said. “I am opposed to recipes. I’m a pragmatist and a person of faith. That’s where the optimism comes from. “

“Look at me. If I can do it,” she tells girls of color, leaving the “so can you” implied but unstated.

Every obstacle and denial she has encountered in life “was a blessing in disguise,” Green said. “There was always a better opportunity around the corner.”

Her parents (and ancestors) taught her about endurance and the value of hard work, Green said. “I am a product of that determination. I just want to be able to pass it on as it was passed on to me.”