 Good morning, good afternoon, and those of you that are watching in the recording. Welcome to our celebration of Juneteenth Day. Thank you for joining us for our nation's U.S. federal holiday. We are honored to sponsor this event as part of our commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion. EDI is really everyone's responsibility in getting to know our diverse cultures and lived experiences as a core part of what it means to call ourselves America. We're delighted to have with us a nationally-renowned storyteller, Benny Tate Wilken, just a little bit about Benny. Benny is one of the founders of the American Library Association's Black Caucus, and it's been a writer, lecturer, librarian, and professional storyteller. She was public services administrator for Orange County Public Library, the first minority services coordinator for Los Angeles County Public Library, and also children's specialist for LA Public Library. She has taught graduate-level courses on children's literature, youth services, and outreach services, public librarianship storytelling for several library schools, including UCLA, UC Berkeley, CSU Fullerton, Columbia University, and then University of Hawaii. We must definitely have Benny join us at the SDSUI School as well. She's also known for mentoring African-American and other library school students of color, which has been a focus of her career, and in the 1990s, Wilken, or Benny, was invited to evaluate LA's Office of Library Outreach Services and offer guidance for its future growth. In a 2018, LA invited her to participate in a conference session on the future of libraries. Finally, she was also among the inaugural group of librarians interviewed as part of the People's California Library Leader Memory Project. Benny also continues to use her creative talents as a speaker and storyteller, her book African-American Librarians in the Far West, Pioneers and Trailblazers, celebrates early African-American librarians. Benny has received achievement awards from California Librarians Black Caucus, the LA Black Caucus, and the First National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color, and proud to say as a CLA board member, Benny Tate Wilken was inducted into the California Library Hall of Fame in 2019. So it gives me a great pleasure to introduce Benny, and Benny is going to help us celebrate Juneteenth Day. Thank you, Benny. Thank you, Dr. Chow. I'm not sure I know that person you introduced. Oh, Juneteenth celebrates freedom, Juneteenth, Juneteenth, June 19th was the day. Two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African captains in Texas learned that they were free. Who knows why there was a delay? Juneteenth celebrates freedom, Juneteenth, Juneteenth, June 19th was the day. The people gathered together, drank strawberry wine, sang songs, played games, told stories. They had come a mighty long way. Juneteenth celebrates freedom, Juneteenth, Juneteenth, June 19th was the day. Still work to be done for peace and justice, pause to remember the Stony Road to Freedom on this national holiday. Juneteenth celebrates freedom, Juneteenth, Juneteenth, June 19th was the day. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to San Jose State University School of Information Celebration of Freedom. We celebrate the date that African captives in Texas learned about the Emancipation Proclamation issued two years earlier. After the Civil War was won, troops were sent to Galveston, Texas, declaring that all those enslaved must be released. This is a time to consider the complicated system of bondage instituted in our nation to celebrate the lives and contributions and the woes suffered by African Americans. So let us begin with our first story. They say that African people could fly, just step up on the air and fly. And that is until slavery, when they were brought to America in boats and they were made to work from sun up to sun down with little food and little water. Many of them forgot the magic of flying. But on one plantation, there was an old man named Toby who remembered the magic and he remembered the magic words. And he spent every day teaching people to recover the magic of flying. One person on that plantation was named Sarah. Toby had taught her the magic. And one day she had a baby. They made her go back to the fields soon after that baby was born. There was one called the Overseer. He was the one with the whip. If you weren't working hard enough, he would whip you just like an animal. Sarah had her baby strapped to her back. And he noticed that she slowed down when the baby cried. He came over and talked to her and said, stop that baby from crying. Get to work. Of course she couldn't stop the baby from crying. He took that whip, whipped Sarah and her baby. She called out to Toby and said, Toby, it's time. It's time for me to fly. She called out the words that Toby had taught her. And she stepped up on the air and flew. The Overseer noticed it and just didn't know what was happening. He came with his gun and tried to shoot. But Sarah repeated those words. Kungale, kumbubayale, and she flew. The next day was one of those really, really hot days. And many of those captives were getting sick and falling to the ground because they were not given enough water. And it was simply too hot to be working in the fields. One by one they fell. Even the young ones were falling. Toby said to himself, now it's time. And he went out to the middle of the field. And he said, raise your heads. Repeat the magic. And all who knew the magic yelled. Kungale, kumbubayale, one after another. Kungale, kumbubayale, and they stepped up on the air and they flew. He had taught so many that the group of them made it seem like there was darkness. Because they covered the sun coming through the clouds. Kungale, kumbubayale. Those who didn't know the magic could only watch. The overseer came with his gun. That's him. It's him. He started and said the overseer pointing to Toby. Toby said, I'm sorry to those who were left. It's time for me to go, but don't worry. One day, all who believe in freedom will fly. And with that, in his deep voice, he yelled, kumbubayale, kumbubayale. And he stepped on the air. And he flew. He looked down on the others and said, one day, all will be free. That story is called The People Could Fly. For those who don't know, the code word flying was used in a lot of stories and songs. It was an escape signal. Flying also meant it's time to run away. Now, our second story also takes place in plantation life partially. But it also documents the system of sharecropping, which was a substitute for slavery. There was a captive whose name was Jim. Now, Jim had been saving up his money to buy his freedom when the word came that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed and captives could be free. He took that jar of coins, which he had kept hidden and gathered up what few things he had and started out on the roads of North Carolina to find his way. While he was traveling, he came to a place where there was a for sale sign, said for sale, cheap. Jim asked around and found out he had enough money in that jar to buy that place. It was just a little shack with a small plot of land around it. But he bought it and he moved in. He cleaned it up, swept it. He even dug a dry cellar where he could put canned goods. With the help of neighbors, he dug a well so he could have fresh water. He bought himself some chickens and he planted himself a garden. Well, soon that little bit of money he had was gone. And he knew he had to find work. Well, he knew about old Thompson, who owned all the farmland for miles around. And he went to Thompson and he said, I want to work. Thompson said, well, well, you can work like the rest of them. And at the end of the harvest, I'll pay you according to how much you work and how many crops you bring in. Oh, Jim accepted the offer. And he was strong. He worked very, very hard at the end of the harvest. Thompson came knocked on his door, said, here, here's your part. He gave him a measly little amount of money. And Jim looked at it and said, is that all? Thompson said, yeah, well, you know, I had to buy the feed. And I had to buy the fertilizer. And that was deducted. And I had to buy this. And I had to buy that. And so that's it. And he says, oh, but I also brought you this. And he pulled out this big toesack full of black eyed peas. Now, for those of you who don't speak Southern, a toesack is a burlap bag. So he dragged this bag of black eyed peas up to Jim's door. Jim just shook his head, pulled those peas inside, looked at that little money, and went about it his day. This went on time after time, harvest after harvest. Same thing. Very little money. But he always brought that toesack full of black eyed peas. Well, times got hard because there was a drought. And none of the farmers, including old Thompson, could make any money. That drought lasted a long, long time. Everybody was having a hard time. They didn't have food. They didn't have water. But Jim was a single man. And guess what? By this time, he had a whole cell full of black eyed peas. He had canned some of them and put them on shells to use whenever he needed them. So he got out all those peas. And he started making soup with them. He made something by pounding them that was like flour. And he made some turnover simulation of bread. And because he was single, he rationed his water from his well. And he had enough to keep him and his animals alive. So he suffered a little less than most and stayed strong. Well, when that drought was over, old Thompson came knocking on the door. Jimmy said, it's late. But I think we still have time to plant some corn. And we can harvest it before harvest time is over. You're going to join the rest of us? Jim joined in, worked harder than most. Remember, others had suffered. Jim was still pretty strong. So he worked very, very hard. Sure enough, they had a really good crop. And when harvest time came, this time, old Thompson didn't have any money. So he said, all of you will get your portion. He came to Jim with this little wagon full of corn and said, here's your portion. You can take it into the market and sell it. Jim looked at it, shook his head, hitched up his mule, and went into the market, sold that little corn. He was standing there talking to some friends. When he looked up and down the road came old Thompson. With a wagon pile so high with corn, it looked like it might fall off. When he got closer to the market, Jim heard him, get up there, get up there mules. And he was whipping those mules, get up there, get up there. But those mules were kind of sickly. They had been through that drought, hadn't been fed well. Well, they got almost up to the market. And those mules stopped right in the middle of their tracks and wouldn't move anymore. Old Thompson got out his whip, started whipping some more. Jim walked out to that wagon and said to old Thompson, ain't no need of whipping those mules to death. In case you see they sick, he unhitched those mules, picked up that hitch and pulled that wagon by himself right up to that market. Old Thompson yelled out, hey, look at that. Look at that fool. He's stronger than a mule. Jim turned to him and said, no, sir, I ain't nothing but a man. I ain't nothing but a man. They tell me old Thompson died penniless. He didn't survive that drought, but Jim survived. He bought a little bit more land and a little bit more land until he became one of the richest African Americans in that part of eastern North Carolina. The people who heard about all those sacks of black eyed peas decided black eyed peas must be lucky. And so now if you visit the homes of many African Americans on New Year's Eve, you will find that they are eating black eyed peas. I do. That story is called The Legend of the Black Eyed Peas. I wrote it in my first stage station because I couldn't find anything which documented why African Americans, all of the people I know, eat black eyed peas on New Year's Eve and New Year's. I did find one reference to an African tribe that used black eyed peas in a ritual and they use it representing the eyes of God. The next one is a story porn. And I think the porn speaks for itself. See what you think. Yard rooms, yard rooms, children hide behind mama's skirts under beds in their rooms. Scared of that woman come to sell her homemade rooms. Skins the color raw peanuts, cheeks and lips red and bright. Frizzled yellow-brown hair under a hat glows at dawn of morning sunlight. Blueish gray eyes seen a smile as she calls for all to hear. Yard rooms, yard rooms to sail, the crowds gather and draw near. The people who live in the river bottoms know yard room mama well. She comes ever so often from the woods with her homemade wares to sail. Her rooms tied with spiral knots, clean better than a rake and for just one dime dirt paintings she'll make. First mama waters down the ground and with the broom she starts drawing ancient lines, swirls and circles. Soon each yard is a work of art. She pours on bottle colors made from paint, plants and clay. The paints her own creation add luster to each display. The people are proud of their yards. The beauty design won't last. But museum art can't surpass these echoes from the past. Finished, mama stands up smiling, admires fulfillment of her calling, packs up her tools and promises. Be back when the leaves are falling, rides her wagon to her shack. Deep in the forest mystery and say she crazy. They live there all alone and nobody knows her life history. Well, folks walk the neighborhood, admire paintings from ancient times and they sing a song about that woman sharing beauty for just one dime. Yadru mama brings patterns in the sand, using nothing but the broom in her hand. She stands tall when all her work is done. She knows life like beauty will soon be gone. Yard brooms, yard brooms, yard brooms for sale. I wrote that story about a woman I experienced in my childhood who really did sell homemade yard brooms. But we were afraid of her. And I want to remind you that there may be people who look differently, sound differently, act differently. But consider that those same people may be the ones who could bring beauty into your life. Now we want to take a little time to do what I call the heritage handshake. When we do this live, what I have people do is turn to the person next to them, shake their hand, and mention to them the name of someone of African-American heritage who has had an influence on their lives, always brought beauty into their lives as Yardru mama did to the people in the river bottoms. So I'm going to ask all of you to turn to the chat and put in the name of an African-American, can be somebody famous, but it could be somebody who's your neighbor, or your friend, or a member of your family, someone who's had an impact on your life. I can mention my heritage handshake. Mine goes to a family, Ruitt and Rhonda Foster and their son, Alex. Ruitt and Rhonda lost their young son, Evan, at the age of seven years old in the crossfire of gang violence. They didn't hate, they didn't rant. They turned their sorrow into a prison ministry and into speaking for nonviolence. And so my handshake goes out to Ruitt and Rhonda Foster and their son, Alex. And you may look them up on the internet and find out more about this wonderful couple. They have brought a lot of beauty into our lives, both my husband and myself. So put in your names as soon as you can. Now we'll move on to a humorous story. This story comes from the Gullah-Ghichi people. They lived and worked on the Gullah Islands off the coast of North and South Carolina. Most of them were brought in from Senegal and West Africa because they had great skill in raising rice. And on those islands, rice was raised on the plantations. Brea Rabbit set out one morning to visit his friend, Brea Partridge. He found Partridge up in the tree. Hello, Brea Partridge. How are you doing this morning? Brea Partridge, look like you ain't got no head. Where your head? Partridge says, hello, Brea Rabbit. I ain't got no head. You ain't got no head. No, ain't got none. Don't need it. I had my wife cut it off. Tola just cut it off. She cut your head off. Yeah, she cut it off. See, I'm fine. I didn't need it. Brea Rabbit scratched his head. Partridge, Partridge, I don't understand. He left scratching his head. Partridge bird has lost his head. Where'd it go? Where'd it go? Brea Rabbit went home, thought about it. Then he called to his wife and he says, come here, wife. Go out there and get the axe. Get the axe. Yeah, go get it. She went out there and she got the axe. She brought it back in. Brea Rabbit laid his head down on the table. Said, now I want you to cut my head off. Cut your head off. Are you crazy? No, I just left Partridge. He cut his off. If he can cut his off, I can cut mine off. Now take that axe and cut my head off. Go ahead, do what I tell you. Ms. Rabbit raised that axe and brought it down gently on Rabbit's neck. He says, oh, that hurt. He jumps up, runs to get him a bandage to put on his neck. Rabbit tried to lose his head, but he can't do. But he can't do. Rabbit's wife put on her Sunday to go to meet and hat. Went out through the woods to find Partridge. She found him. She says, Partridge, take your head out from under your wings. I know you hide your head under your wings all the time. Partridge popped his head out and says, you know it. Now I know it, but that stupid husband of yours didn't know it. She says, yeah, I know why you tell him. He could cut his head off. Well, truth is, Ms. Rabbit, I've been had my eyes on you for a long, long time. You're so beautiful. I thought if I could get rid of Rabbit, maybe you'd marry me. Marry you, Partridge. You already got a wife. I know I got a wife. Oh, hi, Terry. But listen, I got two wings. I got two wings right now. I got two wings. They take care of me. I take care of them. So I figured. I ought to be able to take care of two wives. Partridge wanted Rabbit dead because he wanted his wife. He wanted his wife. Ms. Rabbit said, oh, Partridge, shame on you. Shame on you. And she started back home. And she's saying, Partridge may have lost his head, but he sure ain't dead. He sure ain't dead. Partridge may have lost his head, but he sure ain't dead. That story is called Brewer Rabbit and the Partridge. You might want to do some study of the Gullagichi people. Many of the descendants of slaves still live in South Carolina, and they have a Gullagichi festival every year where they sing songs, tell stories from the old times, and it is said that they are the one group of African Americans who have retained most of their African heritage and culture. And when they visited Senegal, they found that they could communicate quite well. So look them up, the Gullagichi people of North South Carolina and Florida. Now our last story, I chose in light of recent violence, this story reminds us not only of poverty throughout the African diaspora, but hopefully it also reminds us that we must save and celebrate the children. In a small Haitian village, they lived a little girl named Naomi. She lived with her mother and father and her little brother Tiefrey. They lived in a hut with a thatched roof, and it was Naomi and Tiefrey's job each day to go down to the lake to draw water for the house because there was no running water in their home. So one day, Naomi left the little hut with her pale, went down this long winding pathway to the lake, and she was sitting there with her pale, playing with a little ring she had on her finger. And she dropped it. She had been told never to go into the water. She lost her favorite ring, and she started to cry. And then she looked up, and there was a big red fish, and he talked to her. He said, why is a beautiful little girl like you crying? Naomi was indeed beautiful. She was brown like the cocoa beans. She had bright eyes, shaped like almonds, and her hair, close cropped around her face nicely, with the shape of her face. So the fish said, why are you here? I've come to draw water, said Naomi. I brought my pale. There's no water in our house, but I can get you clear water. First, I'll get your ring. He went, fish dove down, got the ring. He said, now put your pale in my mouth, and I'll get you clear water from the middle of the lake. The water here is too muddy. And with that, he took the pale in his mouth, swam out to the middle of the lake, and brought back a pale of clear water. He and Naomi talked, and he said to her, the next time you come, sing this song. Zan, zan, zan, zan, they zan, they zan, zan, zan, they zan, they zan, and I'll come. And I'll take your pale like I did today, and bring you back clear water. Well, this went on for some time until Naomi's mother noticed that when she drew water, it was crystal clear. And T. Frey was bringing home muddy water. She scolded T. Frey that she said, if Naomi can find clear water, so can you. So T. Frey decided, I've got to see how she does it. And the next time it was Naomi's turn, he hid behind the tree, and he watched. He heard her sing, zan, zan, zan, they zan, they zan. And he saw the fish take her pale, go out, and bring back water. He heard them talk. They even talked about things like love. Well, he told his mother this story. She said, T. Frey, if you are lying, you will certainly be punished. But she went with him the next time it was Naomi's turn. And she hid with him behind the tree. And she said, oh, my goodness is true. Someone has put a spell on my child. We must get rid of that fish. And so she told her husband, and they plotted to get rid of the fish. The next day it was Naomi's turn to go to the water. But instead, they sent her into the market to sell cocoa beans. She climbed on a little donkey with bags of cocoa beans hanging over the donkey's flank, rode down that pathway to the lake. And she stopped. She said, I think I'll speak to Faisal. She yelled out the little song to Faisal. And Faisal came up and said, oh, Naomi, you rode the donkey. Where's your pail? She said, I don't have my pail. I don't know. I just have a strange feeling. And I just wanted to speak to you. Faisal said, I feel strange also. Listen, Naomi, do you have a handkerchief? She said, yes, in my pocket. He said, when you get in the market, if you see one tiny drop of blood on that handkerchief, come to me right away, because you'll know something awful is happening. Offer Naomi into the marketplace where she sold cocoa beans. Some horses came by, raised some dust. She sneezed, reached in her pocket, and looked at her handkerchief. And sure enough, there were drops of blood. She threw down the cocoa beans, climbed on that donkey, and rode as fast as she could back to the lake. She called out, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan. Over and over, she called until her voice was weak. Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan. She finally gave up. Climbed on that little donkey and rode up that pathway to the hut. And when she opened the door, she realized that the worst had happened to Zanzan, hanging to dry in the rafters of the house. You've heard of people crying pools of tears. Naomi sat at the edge of that little hut. She cried, and cried, and cried, and cried. And she thought she might not cry anymore, but she cried and cried until a quick sand formed around her. And she began to sing away, singing Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan. Tiefrey came around the corner of the house and saw Naomi there and said, Naomi, what are you doing? What's happening? And he ran as fast as he could and tried to save her. But all he could grab was one lock of her hair. They say at the corner of that hut grew some reeds. And when the winds came, the winds would blow those reeds into a tinkling sound. And some say you could hear Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan, Zanzan. That story is called Zanzan. I found it many years ago in a collection of stories from the Americas. It's available in libraries under different titles, one of them of Naomi and the Singing Bones. Now, we usually end our programs again when they're live with a song that I like to sing because they said that at the end of slavery, an old lady like me stood up and shouted, come on, children. Stand up. We're going to stomp down freedom today. Well, when people plant seeds, they stomp them down. They stomp them down into the ground to make sure that they stay. So that's where the stomp down comes from. But she started singing, stomp it down, stomp it down. We're going to stomp down freedom today. Stomp it down, stomp it down. Now join me. Stomp it down, stomp it down. We're going to stomp down freedom today. Stomp it down, stomp it down. We're going to stomp down freedom today. And I hope that's what we're going to do. We're going to plant the seeds of freedom wherever we are and remember the scourge of slavery. Thank you for joining us. And now I'm going to return it to Dr. Chow who will lead our seminar. Benny, thank you so much. That was incredible. And I wish we would all be together because we could sing that together, right? I just absolutely love to stop down for you. And you know what's great is the diversity that is represented here in different experiences and how together we again define what we are today. So I just, again, so thankful for you joining us and all that you shared with us today. Now, that being said, for everyone attending, this is a great opportunity to engage with bidding in terms of questions. So I definitely have a few myself, but I'd like to open it up for questions. To Benny, to discuss more about her experience and how she perceives, I think I'm going to talk to Benny about how she perceives us moving forward as a nation. Any questions for Benny? And one of the things I would like to applaud you is I really love how a number of times you said you just wrote it. That there was a scarcity of the stories and themes and values that you really felt needed to be expressed and you just did it, right? And I think I get compliments to you for, certainly, when we think about 100 represented minorities, that's always one of the first things that comes up, right? We have content that is needed to tell the stories that we want to tell. And again, compliments to you for not waiting for someone else, but doing it yourself, right? Thank you. I encourage everyone to tell their stories. A lot of African-American history has been written, but there's so much that has been lost, stolen and strayed. There was a movie by that name that came out in the early 1980s, and it's true. There's so much that we don't know. We don't really know all the details about Juneteenth. We don't really know exactly what happened in terms of Texas being a rebel state and not following through on the Emancipation Proclamation until after the Civil War was over, there needs to be some study done there, and there needs to be study done in many areas of African-American culture. And also, as I said earlier, a lot of changes come from ordinary people and our associations with our ordinary people. So we must learn to tell our stories to each other and to our communities as well. Wonderful. Well, so let me ask you a few questions, Vinnie. So I think one of the questions that we talked about before we began today was how to increase the number of African-American and Black MLS candidates and certainly librarians. What are your thoughts on that? How do we increase the number of Black, Graphic and American librarians? Well, one of the things is to promote African-American images. And even if you don't have African-Americans in the library school who can get out and recruit with an African-American film, go to high schools. A lot of times high schoolers haven't considered information services as a viable job for them. And once they learn about it, they may come along. I think we wait too late when we wait for the graduates from graduate schools, from college to come into graduate school, but we must start encouraging and exciting young people at the high school level about what librarians do so that they can get it on their minds and then they'll start searching for ways to become a part of the information arena. And they don't know that the jobs are not just jobs in libraries, but they are jobs with the technology. They are jobs with the different information services. So I think that that's where it has to begin. And young people respond to other African-American images. Find them somehow. You don't have to be African-American yourself but present African-American images to which these young people can relate. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's a great point. And I think there's- And we must also encourage more scholarships. The American Library Association has a good scholarship fund, but it needs to be expanded and it also needs to be promulgated more widely in the different colleges to let people know that there is some money to support people who are going into librarianship or into information services. Vinny, are you still in California? I'm in Las Vegas. Ah, Las Vegas, okay. Well, so as I mentioned to you, we have been talking to San Francisco Public Libraries about, again, building from within. So let me follow up with you about that because I think certainly building out the diversity from within is a lot to be said about that. And Anthony Vanir has mentioned, so he had mentioned Vinny that you were an instructor for him when he was getting his degree at UC Berkeley. Anthony, you wanna share any thoughts there? I had a great time with the students at Berkeley. That was an absolutely wonderful tenure there. Anthony, did you wanna say something? I didn't realize I had the mic, good. Well, I mean, I recall when being a library school student, I think we all, especially at the earlier stages of our careers, we want to do the right thing. We want to feel that we are addressing the needs that society has presented to us no matter what role we're in, whether it's a library or a medical clinic or what have you, but in librarianship anyway, other than the rhetoric, I was someone who did not find a lot of supportive resources to figure out what needs were and how libraries as an institution could address them. And Vinny was a ferocious voice of bringing that to the faculty and the curriculum at the time. And it was a powerful moment when she was able to present us some of those paths forward. And it was something that continues to this day to inspire me to look for those needs and to try to find institutional resources to align behind them. I don't know how widely experienced that notion is in library schools. We're trying hard at San Jose State. You never fully succeed, but I know we're trying. But when you come in with all of the piss and vinegar of an energy and don't find a way to direct it in ways that you find professionally satisfying or socially important, it can be deflating. And so I just wanted to say, again, as I have before, thanks to Vinny for the role that she played there and the impact that she had on our students when we were graduate students there. Thank you, Anthony. As I said, I had a great time at Berkeley and that's one of the things that we have to have some people of color on the faculty. I was the one person of color at Berkeley and every minority, no matter what culture they represented made a beeline for my office. And I don't think faculty realized that there is a level of communication and understanding that minorities have across cultures and that is being the other. And so that when you have a faculty member you have a faculty member representing a different culture and particularly in this case, African-American culture, they can translate the feelings of those students who also feel like the other. Yeah, that is a great point. And I think anyone that has an experience, discrimination and racism, it's an experience that impacts you forever. And I think as Benny said, it's just being able to understand what that feels like when you are treated like the other, it's just a feeling that it's horrible and really a feeling that no one can forget. So I want, yeah, no one for you. And I think it definitely forms a natural collaboration and family for people that have experienced that. Barbara, Bernie, has a question about sharing some stories. Where is a good place to store our stories? That's what she asked. Well, that's one of the wonderful things about technology, although I have some issues with Facebook and some of the social media and the ills there, we won't get into that. But nowadays, it's possible for an individual to have their own blog. There are some that are free. And what I would do would be to start a blog, if you have stories to tell, start a blog and start telling them and tell your friends about it. And by word of mouth, people will begin to read and hear your stories. And also people who can do it could get a YouTube channel. I used to tell people to put their stories on tape. You can still do it on CDs and DVDs. But now we have generations of young people who are used to these computers. They're used to the virtual world. And they're going to turn to the virtual world a lot faster than they are to the printed word and the word on CD. So if I had stories to tell, I happen to know this Barbara Burnley. And I remember and regret so much that her aunt, Anne Rosen, who came from Russia through the war years in Poland spoke five languages and told many stories about that life. I never recorded them. And boy, I regret that so much. Yeah. Well, Benny, as you were mentioning, certainly if the San Jose State High School can help with that, everything from adding it to our workflow to gather stories, to record them, to put them on our YouTube channel, to put them on our website, we'd be honored to do that. I mean, I know that other repositories exist, but one of the privileges and really I think requirements for our school is because we're so large, I think we have a responsibility to educate our students across the board, especially focusing on equity, diversity, inclusion. So I think Barbara, Benny, let's definitely talk about that. We'd be happy to host and add and of course, again, that there are resources out there, we'd be happy to put it in our space to make sure that we disseminate that for all of our students and alumni. So yeah, I think also, Benny, talking about that, that's certainly, I believe, where libraries are going in terms of being able to record and digitize those recordings as far as memories and also, I believe in spaces that don't even exist right now, like virtual reality. So we actually have a grant looking at doing that for Northern Cheyenne in Montana, where we're going to be recording, archiving, sharing in virtual reality, which allows us to send that 3D, three-dimensional experience, their language and culture. So I do think that's a great point and what I've been told by everyone is just record anything and everything at the highest quality you can, because there's going to be technology in 10 to 20 years that we don't even, you can't even imagine that we'll be able to at least display or share your video. Yeah, that's true. The technology is advancing in leaps and bounds. However, I'm kind of glad in a way, but in other ways, not so glad that institutions are much slower to advance and to be able to utilize the technological tools to the advancement of the species. In other words, the technology sort of has an entity into itself and for itself, and it's up to those of us who are in professions like librarianship to utilize the tools of technology for the good of mankind. And that's what libraries have always been about, getting the information out there so that people can learn, can experience each other, learn about each other, and all of that. So that's where it's important for schools like yours to focus. And also, I think it's important for schools of information to recognize the past like Juneteenth and the past in terms of information and library services, and that there wasn't an equity there, and that where there was the attempt to equity, there was a lot of racism embedded in the very stuff that we were promulgating. Some of it, to which we even gave awards. I wrote a book about the Newberry Award. The images of African-Americans in Newberry Awards, and I got responses from people saying, I never knew that, for instance, just one sample. The Little House on the Prairie series of books. They're like Apple Pie and Motherhood, and they've gotten a lot so much. And they've gotten lots of awards. But I pointed out to them that embedded in, I can't remember which one of the titles now, embedded in one of those titles was a very unnecessary scene where the father put on blackface. And it was a circumstance of laughter. This is a book that we've given awards to. And unless we pay attention to those kinds of things, those embedded negatives pass on from generation to generation. The language passes on the negative language, and we don't change it. And you may have noticed, for instance, that I am deliberately trying in my storytelling now not to call people slaves. I'm calling them whenever I can, captives, because that's what they were. They didn't come to America slaves, they came as captives. And it takes on a different thinner using just that different word, captive, rather than slave. Am I making sense? Yeah, no, I think that is a fantastic point. And you're right, the nuances that are used or accepted in our vernacular or cultural perspective is critical to analyze it and challenge. Yeah, and challenge it. Yeah, because certainly in the Asian-American community, the same thing, right? Absolutely. Yeah, that's progress. I think it's progress for all of us. So the final question I have been is, how do non-African-American members of the community and in particular libraries better support the African-American community and non-traditional, traditional holidays like you, TK, how do we better support and embrace the African-American community and in particular through libraries? Well, I think by doing the very thing that we were talking about here, a lot of people are not going to have the facility to record having once or twice a year in a particular city, a time of cultural reference and bringing in the African-American community who can tell you about being in the middle of the Watts riots. You know, from their perspective, you realize that, well, I'm old. Most young people now don't even know what that was all about. They don't know what the Watts revolts were about. And but there are still adults around who can tell those stories and tell them vividly. So choosing some subjects and in the libraries, inviting people to come in and tell their stories and making that a part of the collection. The Library of Congress has a lot of stuff, but there's no way they can record all of local history. And I think that's where the job of libraries is going to be essential in the future because local history doesn't have that draw. You know, it isn't sexy, but it's important. And I think libraries could focus on being the point where that stuff is gathered and kept for the benefit of generations to come. Yeah, Benny, I appreciate that. And I think an idea formed as you were talking, I think that for next year, so this is my first year as a new director, for next year, for both Black History Month and Juneteenth Day, what we really need to do is use our wide network to collect more stories. So I think that, you know, because I love your point about the local stories, right? And so because our students are all across the country and most of them are in libraries, I think that we could leverage that network to gather stories from either African-American librarians or members of the African-American community that they're serving all across the country. So I think, yeah, that's definitely something, Alfredo, remind me, we'll have to do that. In spite of the fact that we, you know, those of us who pushed in the early days for more literature about Blacks and other cultures, education is still white-centric. And so because it's white-centric, so much essential information gets lost and our educated leaders then go on, they become corporate heads and then they wonder why they don't know how to communicate with people of color, you know, because they have been educated in a white-centric world and they haven't had that access to live people. Not everybody's gonna have a neighbor or gonna be able to meet a Black person or a person who's Chinese. But when you have effective stories, they come across and people identify with them. And you know, there's so much information out there that librarians could assist in making available to communities and to reinforce communities and to reinforce a connection across cultures in communities. Yeah, and I wanna kind of conclude with that thought. Benny, I remember when we were talking about the first Juneteenth Day in North Carolina when I, last year, one of the jokes that me and my colleague had was she asked me, she was African-American, how many African-American friends do you have? My joke to her is how many Asian-American friends do you have? And of course we were like, well, we have each other at least, right? But I think that the point being is, like you said, Benny, the value of libraries is that they can provide perspectives that otherwise might not be part of the world view or the life of a lot of the patrons that we have. Because as Benny mentioned, maybe they don't have that many African-American friends. Maybe they don't have that many Asian-American friends. Maybe they're whatever race they are, libraries can be kind of the arbiter of providing different contexts and perceptions from a world view or a life view that otherwise they don't have, right? And we know, Benny, that mass media is not great. So if you don't have an African-American friend and you don't have an Asian-American friend and all you see is the media. Yeah, and all you see is the media. Yeah, absolutely. And what we learned is we're more alike than different. Absolutely. We're talking about Chinese right here. When I was a minority services coordinator, Susanna, wherever you are, I love you. Susanna Chi was my assistant. And she took me down to Chinatown and I said, I said, oh, there's chicken feet. I haven't had those in years. And she says, you know how to eat chicken feet. She says, I knew you were a little bit Chinese. That is fantastic. Well, I wanna thank special thanks to Benny for her amazing and uplifting songs, storytelling and particularly sharing that the point and educational and cultural context of your stories and songs, quite incredible. Juneteenth Day reminds us of the momentous step forward, however, towards freedom, but we have much work to do. Full recording it. Yep. We have much work to do. And I wanna end by saying happy Juneteenth and I wanna say Ubuntu and Bishop Tutu defined that it as my humanity is inextricably interwoven with yours. Oh, I like that. It can be sweet. Takes up and sends them back to me. That is beautiful, Benny. Beautiful. So a full recording and transcription will be available. So we will put that on our website as well as a YouTube channel. So look for that in the next week or two. And also please join us for our Pride Day Symposium, which will be on June 30th from 10 to noon at the Pacific time. And again, we cannot be more proud of hosting and working with Benny. Benny, I think we're gonna have a lot of great conversations in the future. We thank you so much for joining us. Have an excellent rest of your Juneteenth Day and take care and be well.