Shooting Prompts Black Women to Open Up

Almost to a person, the professional black women who gathered at a library in Prince George's County yesterday wore blazers, heels or both. Nails were done, hair just so. The women, many of them attorneys or lobbyists, had convened to talk about personal struggles they said often seem taboo in their circles: financial difficulty, marital strife, depression.

Those subjects had a special resonance at yesterday's meeting of the "Sister Buddy Group" in New Carrollton. A week earlier, a friend of some of the members was fatally shot outside her church in Silver Spring. Police have charged the woman's estranged husband with murder.

Patricia Ann Simmons Kelly, 52, was a secretary at the law firm where Sophia A. Nelson, a leader of the Sister Buddy Group, worked as an attorney. Nelson said she hopes the confidential group meetings that began yesterday -- others were held in the District, Virginia and several other states -- would allow women to open up about their problems and offer each other advice.

"Pat's death hit us hard," she said. "We'll never know what happened, but for us it was a wake-up call."

The groups will meet once a month for a book club, bowling night, service project or any other event that allows members to talk about their lives -- and learn how to get professional help if they need it. Members will pay between $25 and $100 in annual dues to the organization that sponsors the groups, iask Inc., an organization that aims to build sisterhood among professional black women, particularly those who have never been married.

"We don't like to tell our business, not even to our friends," said Nelson, 42, president of iask.

Kelly lost her job at the law firm Holland & Knight in a round of layoffs Feb. 12, Nelson and others said. They described Kelly as a classy, hard-working woman who had a teenage daughter and was the family's breadwinner. Soon after losing her job, Kelly told her husband to move out of their home in Rockville, Nelson said. Kevin Kelly, 52, left for a while but arranged to meet his wife at People's Community Baptist Church on Feb. 22, police said. Police said Kelly has admitted shooting his wife in the parking lot during a Sunday church service.

"She always spoke of her husband in the same way I spoke of mine," said Gwyndia Thrash, 61, who also works at the firm and attended the meeting yesterday. "No one would have ever thought this could have happened to her."

Many black women are taught from a young age to be strong and not admit that they are depressed, lonely or stressed, or in an abusive relationship, several of the 18 women at the meeting said. If things are not going well personally, professionally or financially, many said, they continue to act like nothing is wrong, even to their closest friends.

"As my mom always said: 'Don't let them see you sweat,' " said Patricia Randle, 52, an attorney from Bowie. "If you're having problems, maybe you talk to your pastor. But even a good friend might not know about some things."