Equity Kids Celebrates
Inelle Cox Bagwell’s 90th Birthday - May 8th!
From deep family roots in West Texas to donning a flak jacket in Sarajevo, Inelle Cox Bagwell “ain’t had no humdrum life.” Equity Kids is delighted to create this webpage to help celebrate Inelle’s 90th birthday! We’re grateful to her for not only being a primary spark and founder of Equity Kids, but for also encouraging her friends and family to donate to Equity Kids
in lieu of birthday gifts.
Read below for a bit about the life Inelle has composed (so far!) and her forever imprint on this organization.
Growing Up in A Jim Crow Town
Inelle’s grandparents moved from the Oklahoma Indian Territory to Mobeetie, Texas – considered to be the first town in the Texas Panhandle – as part of the Federal Land Grant program in the early 1900’s. Her grandparents, staunch Methodists, valued education and later moved to nearby Clarendon, Texas, a town founded by the Methodist Church in order to establish a residential high school and a college, so that their daughters could be educated. Inelle was aware growing up in Clarendon that the community was divided by a railroad separating the White and Black populations. Her father worked in the post office, and her mother taught high school English. They instilled in their children a respect for all regardless of where they lived. However, the message from the larger community to the children of White families was to try to make friends with the children in the Black side of the tracks would not be safe, “someone would be hurt.”
Ladelle and Inelle Cox, Clarendon, TX
Ages 4 and 2
Raising Kids and Consciences
After college, Inelle moved to Claude, Texas to teach high school English, where she met and married Don Bagwell. The next years were devoted to taking care of the home, assisting with the family business (Weeks and Bagwell Grain Elevators) and raising two sons, Gary and Kyle, and one daughter, Linda. Once her children headed to college, Inelle returned to school for a master’s degree in counseling and served on the board of several nonprofits in Amarillo - Habitat for Humanity, the Rape Crisis and Domestic Violence Center, and the Wesley Community Center. She was also employed as the Director of the Domestic Violence Center and Shelter.
Inelle with her three children
Inelle soon became more active with the United Methodist Women (UMW) and moved from president of the local unit to officer roles at the district, conference, and eventually national level. It was during this time that she first met Pat Clark who had come to Amarillo to speak about her work with Habitat for Humanity in Zaire. Pat soon became a lifelong friend and much later Inelle’s partner. In 1988 she was elected to the international UMW Board of Directors and The General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church. Among other responsibilities there, she served as Chair of the Section of Christian Social Relations of United Methodist Women, and she was one of two individuals sent to Bosnia Herzegovina to observe the impact of UMW relief efforts, necessitated by the ethnic cleansing and genocide efforts of the Bosnian Serbs. This included supporting both Muslim and Croat women coming out of rape camps, family settlements, and field trauma centers.
Inelle with partner, Pat Clark
Inelle represented UMW at the 4th World United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing which she attended with Pat. She was later a vital part of the Reconciling Ministries Network whose goal was full participation of LGBTQ+ people in the life and leadership of the Church and in the Church Within A Church Movement. Inelle also served on the Board and as Board Vice-Chair of the Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville, Tennessee, which works on racial justice, women’s empowerment, and transformative education.
At Scarritt Bennett Center
Kicking Off Equity Kids
Equity Kids grew out of the experiences Inelle and Pat, and their racially blended family, shared during the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. After a painful Facebook post by one of Pat’s (Black) sons, the (White) Bagwell family began to share joint readings about race and come together for Zoom discussions. All of the Bagwells, including five grandchildren and spouses, participated. They read and discussed personal racism, dealing with differences, and the ongoing effects of systemic racism. They felt it was important to do this work on their own, without relying on a family member of color. Out of these meetings, as a way of moving forward, the idea of Equity Kids was born!
Reflecting now, Inelle states, “I believe that it is an almost sacred act of caring and affirmation to be challenged by my friends/family with different ethnic identities and backgrounds, but it is never easy. I am aware of my tendency to ‘look the other way’, but it is a call to myself and others that we be willing to go deeper and be receptive to difficult learnings. This journey to learn more about each other is never-ending if one commits to it.”
Bagwell & Clark family get-together