There are many matriarchs who contribute to the richness of Black childhoods: the auntie, the church lady, big mama and the rest of ‘nem.

But there’s one Black woman taking care of the village who I feel like doesn’t get enough flowers. She sweetened and spiced our afternoons with her inventory of delectable snacks. Her home was a space where the Hot Cheetos, spicy (or Kool-Aid!) pickles and nachos were always hittin’ and the shelves were always stocked with sweets.

Let’s give it up for the candy ladies of our youth, y’all.

Honoring these women has become a priority for Taylor Walker, a born-and-raised Houston filmmaker whose resume includes editing and producing media for major networks such as MTV, A&E and Paramount+. Her short animated film “The Candy Lady” is an adorable illustration of Black girlhood. The plot follows the tenacious Kiki who learns an important lesson from her neighborhood candy lady while trying to find a way to satisfy her craving for her favorite snack: the frozen Kool-Aid cup. Walker and her crew are currently ironing out the details of the film. It will be ready for the 2024 film festival season.

Walker started thinking about the film during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Shelter-in-place policies spurred an epidemic of loneliness, and Walker as well as many others, were craving community. Creating “The Candy Lady” became a mission of hope during a dark time – a reminder of what we can do when we care for one another.

“In a lot of Southern communities, there’s the candy lady. There’s the mechanic. We were all very collectively sufficient,” Walker said. “I thought about my candy lady and I was like, ‘Let me make a story about this.’ Not only to document something that’s within our community, but to also show how we can thrive as a community.”

Walker’s childhood provided a well of inspiration for the animation. Multiple candy ladies satisfied her and her friends’ hunger with their menus of joy. Living closer to the Midwest meant Mexican candy was included in her mix of treats. While Flamin’ Hot Munchies was one of Walker’s favorite snacks, she also liked the sweet and spicy Lucas candy line.

Mrs. Charlotte and Mrs. Mary were two of her favorite candy ladies. Walker described them as women who carried themselves with softness and strength, meaning she could play with their children, but they didn’t play about their self-respect. The kids in the neighborhood knew not to talk or treat the candy ladies like they were one of their lil’ friends, but they still exuded the warmth of Black love that the children couldn’t get at any ol’ corner store.

Because it was more than just the candy, Walker said. In a nation where many food deserts are located in communities of color, candy ladies made feast out of famine and all it cost the children was maybe a dime or a quarter. They greeted the youth everyday and kept a watchful eye on them as they played together outside. Candy ladies contributed to the neighborhood’s ecosystem of Black care.

“The candy lady becomes like a mother figure in a way,” Walker said. “I feel like the candy lady knew everyone as a person. I think that’s important to Black communities because historically, we’ve been all that we have.”

Walker has pondered the history of candy ladies. She couldn’t find much information during her Google searches and researching sprees. But she has a hunch that the candy lady got her start by forging joy from a place of lack in the segregated South.

“We didn’t have access to a lot of the same things white people had access to, and also the jobs then weren’t like paying enough,” Walker theorized. “We just had to do what we could. So to make money, they sold candy. I think that’s also why the mechanic exists because they can make business without having to get all bureaucratic.”

Producing the “The Candy Lady” satisfied Walker’s creative itch to tell Southern Black stories. Walker’s aunt voices the candy lady and Kiki is voiced by a Black girl from Baton Rouge, La. Walker’s crew is made up of mostly Black southerners. One of the few exceptions is Aniboxx, the Black-owned, London-based animation studio Walker partnered with.

“I wanted to represent us both in front of and behind the ‘camera’ as much as possible,” Walker said.

Walker calls “The Candy Lady” a period piece “for the ‘99 and the 2000s” generation. This is the era of “Pop, Lock & Drop It,” “Chicken Noodle Soup,” and “Laffy Taffy,” when Walker and her friends snacked on the candy lady’s treats while spending most of their afternoons outside copying the choreography of the latest Hip Hop dance crazes.

Walker said that stories like “The Candy Lady” create a sense of home for those who may feel culturally isolated. That’s a feeling Walker knew well after she moved from her bustling, diverse hometown to the smaller, predominantly-white college town Ithaca, N.Y.

“I’ve studied abroad in Morocco, and I would say I had more of a culture shock in Ithaca than I did in Morocco,” Walker admitted.

Shows featuring Black casts like “Insecure,” “How To Get Away With Murder” and “Dear White People” added diversity in the TV lineup of Walker’s college years. While Walker liked those shows, she didn’t see her culture in them. Her predominantly-white courses didn’t pick up on the lack of depth in diversity.

“During that time, there were a lot of very baseline conversations that existed on campus,” Walker said. “It didn’t really dive deeper than, ‘Oh, we need more representation like in the media.’ But there are differences amongst Black people. So throwing any Black person on camera doesn’t necessarily represent me.”

Monolithing Blackness can endanger certain microcosms of Black culture. Walker wants to be part of the solution. Sometimes this shows up in the mood of her work. “The Candy Lady” has a more lighthearted feel than Walker’s 2020 documentary “And Don’t Forget I Love You,” a film honoring the legacy of Black silent movies by incorporating archival footage from the early to mid-1900s.

“We are a multifaceted people,” Walker said. “So for me, I want to capture all different parts of black culture — happy, sad, angry, all forms of it. So [”The Candy Lady”] is just a different shift in emotion.”

About 80 percent of Black silent films are considered lost, erasing a lot of the influence American Americans had during the founding days of the movie industry. This issue brings to life the importance of perceiving film as an artform that holds Black memory.

“In the Black community, we have oral history, but stories can be lost,” Walker said. “I pretty much want to use film as an archive so I can preserve these stories for future generations, but also for other people to be like, ‘You know what, that story is in my family, too.”

“The Candy Lady” has struck a core memory with many Black Americans. Fans of the upcoming film tell her stories about their own candy ladies and the different nicknames they gave their snacks. Those moments make her heart smile. Nostalgia has a way of summoning hope from the past. With many forms of chaos ripping and running in the world, Walker said it’s nice to know that candy ladies are still sweetening people’s day with their memories and even inspiring the next generation of a much needed profession.

“My friend who has two children said she wants to be the candy lady of her neighborhood,” Walker said. “A lot of our neighborhoods are not walkable. So it’s much easier to just be like, ‘Hey mama, I’m about to go across the street to ask the candy lady for a bag of chips’ than to be like,’Mama, can you take me to the store so I can go get me some chips?’”

The fandom does more than just chit-chat. They reached into their bag to support Walker, too. Sweet-toothed donors flocked to Walker’s Kickstarter in March 2022. When Taylor went to sleep the night of March 30th, she was sitting on $8,806 of raised funds. She woke up the next day to news of her reaching her $10,000 goal. The total is now eight percent over what Walker asked for.

Walker returned the favor with sweet rewards named after the delights the candy lady kept stocked in her home. A one dollar donation got you a “Warhead,” or a shoutout on “The Candy Lady’s” Twitter. Pledgers who invested $75 dollars scored “Starbursts,” which included Walker’s family Kool-Aid cup recipe. “Skittles” were for those who dropped $50, and they received a link to Walker’s early-2000s playlist and can view “The Candy Lady” 24-hours before it premiers.

“How’s that for ‘taste the rainbow,’” Walker wrote on the site.

The animation even attracted some appeal overseas. Walker was flown out to Germany to attend DOK Short N’ Sweet where she pitched “The Candy Lady” in front of an international panel of financers and distributors. She had to educate the audience on a few things about Black culture back in the United States, but people were receptive and talked about how much they loved her story even days after her pitch. This wasn’t just good news for Walker. The publicity keeps candy ladies’ legacies in people’s mouths. Walker could only recall one mention of a candy lady in a TV show. And that was for a brief moment in the now-canceled ABC series “The Wonder Years.”

But don’t worry. Walker is proud about taking the lead in this beloved aspect of Black history because the youth of yesterday and the youth of tomorrow deserve to know what Black care looks like.

“This is what the South is about,” Walker said. “One thing about us Black people, we know how to make something out of nothing. I think candy ladies exude the Black Southern spirit because they represent community and show Black resilience.”