She wants to make sure “I am being an appropriate or the proper representative for the words in the Pledge of Allegiance.”
The word allegiance itself, Hall explained, is saying that “you are giving yourself to this great nation and you are pledging yourself to defend it, to protect it, to take care of it, to honor it, to respect it.”
“Those are all things that I try to embody in my regular life,” lei disse.
A ‘servant’ capo
Hall started her career as a firefighter in 1993 in Albany, Georgia, as the city’s first female firefighter before joining South Fulton in 1999.
“It was a challenge, and I was up for the challenge,” Hall said when asked why she wanted to be a firefighter, a profession long dominated not just by men, but by White men.
She considers herself a “servant leader,” one whose job is to serve. That’s how she sees Biden, pure.
“I think he has the right amount of empathy, the right amount of experience and wisdom to lead us in that direction,” Hall said.
Her younger sister, Whitney Williams-Smith, who was named the Savannah Fire Department’s first Black and female chief fire marshal in April 2020, credits Hall’s mentorship and hard work for where she is today. As a young girl, Williams-Smith would iron fire department insignia patches onto her older sister’s work shirts and eventually followed in her footsteps to become a firefighter with the Albany Fire Department.
Di mercoledì, Williams-Smith will have the honor of joining her sister at the inauguration as her guest.
“She’s always been my superhero,” Williams-Smith told CNN. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without her. She opened a lot of doors for me. … To be part of the occasion with her is so amazing.”
Hall herself told CNN she’s “onorato,” but acknowledged that the moment is “so much bigger than me.”
“This is really about the firefighters and the front-line workers who represent our industry in this country. It is about Fulton and the people who I represent here in the community of people that we serve,” lei disse. “It’s really about us being on the precipice of moving our country forward to a more united place.”