Beth Pearson

Fictional Characters...Most Badass Black Women (33 items)
list by omnivorousrex

Bethany "Beth" Pearson (née Clarke) is the wife of Randall Pearson and mother of Deja, Tess, and Annie Pearson. She is portrayed by Susan Kelechi Watson.
Beth experiences a blow to her confidence when she loses the job she had for twelve years. At around this same time, Randall announces that he is running for office in William's old home district. She interviews for similar positions, but she gets teary-eyed as she tries to discuss her background. She does some soul-searching.

Her mother calls and says she's bruised her hip, so Beth and cousin Zoe go to see her mother in DC. On this trip, she has a tough confrontation with her mother and a tearful admission to her father's old chair in the living room. She realizes she needs to get back to her childhood dreams of being a dancer. She needs to reclaim the person her late father called "our little island girl, who danced before she could walk."

Beth, originally Bethany Clarke, studied ballet at a gifted school. It costs a lot and there are four other children in their house, but the policeman Abe Clarke and high school principal Carol make it work to support their daughter's dream.

In Bethany's late teens, the competition at dance school has increased. Her father, Abe Clarke, reveals he has lung cancer and dies not long after. Carol had a tough talk with Bethany after his passing. She told Bethany to she had to be practical and give up her dance dreams.

She couldn't afford her daughter starving in NYC trying to make it at something that just wasn't meant to be. She would go to a regular high school to graduate from and find a college to go to. While checking out colleges, Bethany fills out a nametag. The first one she writes says "Bethany." Then she crumples it up and writes a new one that says "Beth."

As she turns to meet other people, she has a chance encounter with seventeen-year-old Randall Pearson, who she ends up dating and marrying.