 We walk together down an important street. That street was Constitution Avenue and only 27% of the 52% of the American people voted for our president. America has gone to sleep. Collective talent and abilities should be utilized by all of us in order to try and help make this world a better place in which to live. Oh yeah. I was grooving. I was grooving to that because that is an amazing, amazing intro video. Big love to those who helped design that because that I think really gets at the heart of what we're talking about here this evening. I am the moderator and co-curator of the unbought and unbossed conversation series for this iteration of NBT at home for this election season. We've got a lot to talk about. So glad to have you here. Please feel free to drop some questions into the chat. We're going to have some questions to ask you. If you have some questions to ask us, let's get this conversation started for real. So welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm Chelsea D. This is unbought and unbossed a conversation series for NBT at home. So I would love to tell you a little bit about what this here thing is, what this series is about, and why it's in tandem with releases of a public service announcement commission series that is driven by Black women artists talking about the current issues that are facing us today and the urgency with which we should approach these things through art making. So that's a little bit about what we're going to be talking about today, but I would love to open up the conversation in the chat just to get that going. Yes. So let me say a little bit about these conversations and a little bit about the commission series. So every Wednesday, coming at you Wednesday on NBT's Facebook page and Instagram page, there will be the release of a commission. We kicked it off last week with the release of Dane Figueroa's Editi's Gut Wrenching. I mean, it was a punch to the gut of truth and poetry and movement. It's a beautiful video installation. Check it out. Visit NBT's website. It's really, really beautiful. It's titled 1920, 2020, or Processing Anxiety Around Voting. I feel useless. So check out these releases. They're coming at you every week leading up to the election. There's going to be a lot to talk about, a lot to think about. And this evening, we're going to be speaking with a few of the artists who contributed to our commission series. And we're going to be speaking with Candice Hoyes in just a moment who in partnership with her creative partner, Val Jean-T, released a commission yesterday. So we will be talking with them in a moment about that release as well. So without further ado, I would love to invite you all into out of the green room and into the conversation with Candice. How are you? I'm fine. How are you, Chelsea? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. We were actually just talking before we went live. We were just talking about really encouraging people to type into the chat. Let's get active. Let's get some questions and things going. Questions, comments, affirmations, add them to the comment section below. Mia is doing an amazing job behind the scenes with our banners. Check those out. They're scrolling. They've got some dope information on them. But yeah, actually a question I want to pose to the chat is, what are some anxieties folks are processing around voting? Like, what questions do you have? What concerns do you have? I mean, Dane's piece really articulated some things that I'm really struggling with. Candice, actually to start us off, do you want to answer this question? I mean, what anxieties are you processing? Yeah. You know, I think it's important for us to really stretch out in this space. This is a space that we have created, that NBT has created for intimacy, for vulnerability, for candor, and honesty. And in all honesty, I am anxious. I'm so concerned for Black voters. I'm especially concerned for Black voters. I think that we have a certain weight upon us in the face of what I consider fascism. Name it. That is, it's really something I haven't experienced in the same way in my lifetime. But I just want to start before I launch into my anxieties, I want to thank you, Chelsea, Jonathan, and Chade, you know, Nia, all of you at National Black Theater for creating this series. Because I think if we can move art into our innermost space, where we're allowed to rest and restore ourselves, it's a magical thing. And so I like this conversation. I hope that you all do ask some questions, because it will help us to direct it in a way that reflects all of us. It's not just, I don't want to come on to just reflect my own perspective, but really to learn from everyone. I've just been anxious. I think about misinformation and the way that it disaffects our community. I'm anxious about the way that my daughter is looking at democracy and trying to calculate what she should hope for after the election and how long this is going to go on. I'm of course concerned about the way the pandemic is disaffecting the health and safety of the Black community and our first responders. So many nurses, so many medical aides are women of color. So I think that my concerns are multifaceted in my anxieties. And at these times, I'm grateful that I can express myself through art and that I've had the experience in my career to find my way to a beautiful institution like National Black Theater, where I can make my art in community where I'm understood and affirmed. Yes, let's get into the overlap of art making and politics and civic engagement. And what does it mean to be an art maker at a time like this? He talks a little bit about your main art form. How would you describe yourself as an artist? I'd say I'm a multi-genre artist, a music artist at my core. And I've found that my self-definition has really unfolded or flowered as I've continued to work. I'm thinking about this interview that Donna Summer gave where she was talking about her career flowering. And so that video comes to my mind visually. I have a visual memory of her talking about that in the 70s. And the first time I saw her speaking in German. Did you know that Donna ever spoke German? I did not. I was today, today years old when I learned that. So I find that this is very relevant, although it seems like I like magical associations. I mean, they're often driven by my archival research. I'm a historian and an archival researcher. So when I was respectfully asked to join this group of women, I was delighted. Not just because I can't wait to see what we're all going to make. And I love our shared conversation, but I do love to be able to take the history and legacy of Shirley Chisholm and make something new. And I think it's funny, the memory I have of Donna Summer speaking German in the studio and talking about the direction, her imagination for her future is very relevant actually to my view of the current political situation. I think that we're very defined by borders and a sense of citizenship, which is outmoded. And I think that the way to liberation is to vote. And furthermore, it's to do so many other things like extending ourselves beyond the borders and the limitations where we're expected to be, the spaces we're expected to be, to find new languages. For me, it's musical language. And for her is music, German. I guess I speak, you know, in multiple contexts as well. But I think that, you know, that that's a big part of like my inspiration is imagining a liberated black future. And that's what I guess shapes, if whether I'm producing, I'm singing, I'm composing, I'm writing, or I'm in collaboration with other artists, I'd say that characterizes my style. Yeah. I mean, I mean, there's just, there's just so much, there's so much in what you just said about magical. So I'm making, I feel like some magical associations that I'm trying to quickly make sense. But you know, first of all, this, this, this, this definition of citizenship that you said is outmoded, like that's not even how we define ourselves anymore. And then to, to use our imaginations to envision a liberated black future, I mean, it's really at the base of why the creative team and MBT wanted to have these conversation series, wanted to have this commission series, wanted to partner with, wanted to partner to create 100 years, 100 women that was so much a part of this conversation of how are we defining citizenship? How are we asserting our citizenship? I think about Shirley Chisholm's run for president is a really an assertion of her citizenship. It wasn't, you know, just one huge gimmick, even though it may have been perceived as such, it is someone saying, I'm a part of this and I'm going to contribute. And something that we, that's indeed intro video for this series is a little clip of her saying, we need to use everyone's talents, we need to use, there has to be a contribution from everyone in order for us to build this liberated future. So everything that you're talking about and thinking about, I feel like is at the root of why it was so important for us to have this conversation series now, particularly at this point in, in our democracy. And you mentioned fascism, which has really been at the forefront of my mind, because I'm thinking about the designation of Antifa as a domestic terror organization. And like, how are we defining words and movements and ideas, you know, in a way that is not outmoded? How are we, how are we plugging into what people are feeling and meeting today in this, in this moment? And how can we be of service and of use to that? So, I mean, and you, I think you, you actually, you might be able to answer this. Do you see like throughout, you've studied black women's political activism throughout American history, and just, just black women being drivers of political movements throughout American history? Where do you see the black artists, the black woman artists in that trajectory, like in these cycles of time? Where, where, where do we fit in? I mean, it's huge. It's a beautiful question. I love a huge question. We, we, we encompassed that though, we can, we can hold that, that of a question. It's a wonderful question. I think there's, we ask, we're looking at the, we're asking the fearless questions. We are not afraid if we don't have a compact, minute answer or a finite answer. So, where do I see art? I think that there is a innate in, inborn expression that, that is, can be used. The voice is the first, well, I'd say this, the voice is the first instrument. And that's what I was describing. I was trying to describe how I see the voice. And of course, I'm partial to the voice because that's my primary instrument. But I use my voice as long as I've used my voice to sing, I've used my voice to protest. And I think because the voice is the, the first, the very first instrument, everything else is outside of you. And maybe the drum or so is next. I don't, I would say so. Um, which is why Val and I love to make music. I think there is something that is fundamental, that we tap into and spiritual. Um, Chelsea, did you want me to speak to, you said, where do I feel it fits into this long history of resistance, artistry? I think that, uh, sojourner truth as a public speaker and her extraordinary rhetorical and philosophical, spiritual, political gifts. I think the very, um, ability, uh, and tradition of storytelling and rich folkloric storytelling that descended, uh, from, you know, nations and, and, and, and communities in Africa and, and through the middle passage to the United States and was elaborated. I think of field songs. I think of work songs. I think of spirituals and I get, I'm bodily affected. I'm in goosebumps when I, when I let my spirit fly to those, those recollections of, of, uh, stories I've experienced now, but you know, um, obviously it's, it harkens to a time I wasn't here on the earth, but I think I, I always keep it there. I think there, um, someone was, I was in this group yesterday, a Facebook group of opera singers, a mixed company, uh, ethnically and a teacher was asking, is it appropriate to keep it in a nutshell? She was asking, is it appropriate for me to encourage my white students to sing spirituals and other songs just because they feel they're beautiful? And generally the opinion was, if it's a beautiful piece of art, you should encourage the student to take it up. And I wasn't, that didn't sit well with me. And I, I first posited that I, it is my mission to amplify, um, histories that are, have been suppressed and intentionally erased. And that's part of my duty, the way I see artistry. But I think that more important, oh, there was also a reference to a black student who had objected to white students in the studio singing these works. And the teacher referenced that as well. And I said, you know, rather than actually, let's look at a different question rather than saying my black student raised an objection. I said, what are you doing to deepen the understanding of the work itself? Before you talk about who it belongs to and who can, who can use it for different reasons to get through the discomfort of the protests over George Floyd or to get through the discomfort of being a teenager, introduce the material, introduce the music with cultural context and history. Have you done that work before you start to quote a black student who it doesn't sound like you understood where she was coming from? Because you're referencing her. It's not your own question. You're looking, you're asking me about the appearance of things. And I'm saying we engage with music that has a historical and political context at the depth and level of our understanding of the historical and political context. That's how it's not about your complexion. It's not about, it's about your understanding. It's about your understanding. Why do you want to speak to these spirituals? And we can't be as musicians, colleagues and educators and activists, we can't shy away from engaging with people about their level of understanding. You're talking about finding the language to label something terrorism or to label something protest or legitimate or illegitimate. Understanding is the basis for all of those questions and they don't have easy answers like you said, but those are the most productive questions. Right. Absolutely. I mean I really love this, I love this conversation about creating a context using history and using, you know, I've really been in a lot of conversations with other teaching artists and other arts organizations that are trying to figure out how to be as what is the word, there's like a special phrase they're using now culturally competent or That's interesting. Yeah, there's language that we're using. New language. New language, new language that we're giving to the idea of basically celebrating the excellence of communities of color and the histories of excellence within these communities, you know what I mean, anyways. Without appropriating. Without appropriating, you know, and I mean that's a really, America is good for a co-op. So it's like how do you, it's a constant unearthing. It's a constant digging and constantly like recontextualizing things for folks. I also wanted to speak to something about the voice as an instrument and creativity and artistry not just being reserved for people who have trained in the art form itself, like that you can have a generative spirit, a creative spirit that is going to help propel you through moments. I think of severe political anxiety and I'm thinking of a specific story with Fannie Lou Hamer on her way to register voters with a group of folks and getting into a very tense moment and her singing and her song being what, you know, it just this sound coming out of her soothing the entire bus and getting them to a place of stability and I think a reserve of strength that allowed for them to complete what they were what they were out there to do against immense opposition. So yeah, I just want to throw it out there because that's a story where I think like, oh my I'm gonna catch that then. I'm gonna catch that and keep it right here because I left off when we were listening to the songs we were listening we were tracing the the journey of a musical expression through our struggle. I think the last thing I might have uttered was work songs insist you're picking up where I should have kept talking was to say, you know, we are predominantly caretakers to the end that that that is so much a part of as Black women our history that we see so many Black and brown women disaffected by COVID right now because of how much of that space we occupy and I think the the the music of the Black church spirituals music as worship as testimony and bearing witness and and the and the way that we express that also to the children we raise and the children we nurse and we care for to the extent that a lullaby as you said can soothe and appeal to the sensibilities of of people in a different way than like a protest a shouted protest I love that so I mean yes it there's so much like we're so endlessly creative as Black Black artists so and and I'm even just saying that what you just said made me think of some of the chants I've heard at protests if I if I haven't been in physical attendance I'll you know I do my doom scrolling yes what I do at night I didn't know that was the word see the language the language so it's it's a thing but I definitely had been had been hearing these chants or these like sometimes it's like a remix of a popular song you're inserting these political demands within the confines of like the newest popular song oh me is me has got us with a with a with something with a banner down here rolling doom scrolling scrolling through twitter reading all the bad news I can't tell you I think I have actually watched multiple uprisings in different cities in real time via twitter and my doom scrolling on twitter just like tracking things as they happen I mean it's watching watching instances wind their way up through the media culture into the mainstream news you know and just watching that process repeatedly anyways doom scrolling thank you Nia for defining that for me the doom scrolling sometimes is I have so many friends who are who are artists and activists and writers and seeing people misrepresent what they say and just being so closely connected to the sacrifice involved in doing this this type of work and bearing your personal story oftentimes to bear witness to injustice and seeing people you know manipulate and twist their words so that like sometimes that's the thing that can be like the hardest for me to I mean what you said just made me think about something magical association I'm going to connect it to pleasure activism I'm going to put a pin in that for a quick second and talk about the the protest chance that I mean Toshi Reagan when we were our last converse nbt at home convo series Toshi mentioned you know there's just so much creativity happening around the the protest chance and that people are not necessarily singing work songs or spirituals as we would we have come to think of protest music based on our understanding of the 60s and 50s and 70s the protest that were happening then but the things that are happening now the slight wraps oh there's just like so much like rock music and no music that people are like screaming in the streets that I'm like again that's that Fannie Lou Hamer that's that we are sonically engaging in protest you know together collectively and that is that is all legitimate that's Mahalia Jackson singing come sunday at the march on washington that's abby lincoln and max roach recording we insist I mean so many harry bell just sonic sonic revolution is is a is a is such a huge part of a part of this thing you wonder singing happy birthday how many forms I did not realize that that was a part of a larger campaign that song was you also thought well here I am if I in my playlist and my cv wonder playlist is or your vinyls you got all your vinyls whatever your choice your your your delight is and you know so many albums when would he ever have time to launch a decades long campaign to make dr king's birthday a holiday like I agree with you I think you know we we have a great capacity and I think that we watch a debate like this week and it's soul soul crushing and we feel this confinement and this pressure at the same time this overwhelm and we're trying to keep our minds focused on strategy and be not just strategic but encompassing many systems of oppression in our in our response and in our choices you know and in our questions because when you're getting these flood of lies and deceit and trickery you really have to be so it puts you in a state of wanting to ask very pointed and specific questions about you know how we're going to accomplish this abolition and by what you know what strategy and what means and I think that it's important when you're under that kind of confinement and pressure to remember that we are empowered and that we are the answer we are the people we are looking for and waiting for and and just to to sustain that hope the hope that was won by our ancestors all those names that we just uttered like since we started this call we've called the name of like at least 20 ancestors who say that our vote matters and who you know helped us secure and sustain this vote and you know even now a lot of my anxiety is coming from like the voter suppression and the information about early voting yep and uh it really connects to the the same poll taxes and voter suppression trickery yeah they came after reconstruction I was like looking a lot about Ida B. Wells uh early this week because I would just wanted to look again at how she started organizing I guess I was inspired by what we're all doing together at National Black Theater thinking about how she did manage to organize so many women to get the vote out you know threat life-threatening circumstances I'm so glad you bring up Ida as well because this is the year this is the centennial of the ratification of the 19th amendment which MBT partnered with a a host of organizations to create the 100 years 100 women projects and something that was really amazing about speaking is realized that these were on a decades-long campaign against something that was so deeply rooted in the culture which is it's laughable that that there could be feminine autonomy like you know that that's completely unnatural and un-American right how we can label things so the decades-long campaign to get the vote was sustained by art making was sustained by people engaging was sustained by folks like Ida B. Wells who were just so long-visioning you know what I mean editing papers creating organizations getting the word out you talk about talk about using that voice talk about asserting your citizenship and the risks that are attended with that but I think I've been thinking a lot about suffragettes and how we're expanding our understanding of who the suffragettes were and who were who were these who were the political leaders you know Ida B. Wells just had a whole mosaic displayed of her at Union Station to celebrate the centennial and her within this portrait of Ida B. Wells there are just thousands of images of suffragettes and you see the time it took for that campaign to to pay off and even even now we see ourselves in a position where I mean you mentioned the essential work that Black women are doing that are putting us at that higher risk of exposure to COVID-19 and thinking about you know gender from a frame of gender how women are placed in really close proximity to others because of the care work that we that it's assumed that we are all better suited for you know what I mean and how that is it is all trickling into something that is causing the Washington Post just released the article yesterday about this recession being the most unequal in U.S. history because of who it is impacting and and who it is impacting are those who got the vote in 1920 and here we find ourselves a hundred years later and and and those gains are being severely threatened so how are we sustaining how do we sustain the campaign towards liberation I think it's art I also think it's pleasure I also think I'm starting to wonder you know hmm maybe there's some information information that we can download from what brings us joy and what and what sustains our light and what sustains our our desire to stay alive you know what I mean so I've been reading a lot of Audre Lorde recently a lot of Adrienne Adrienne Marie and really thinking about well how to sustain this how how how can I work from a place of just infinite abundant reserves and resources so Candice my question to you is where are you finding joy where are you oh hi hi sorry I'm late you're right you're right on time you are right on time because we were actually just about to talk about um pleasure and joy and and sustaining sustaining um the campaign towards liberation the campaign towards our our freedom of being unbought and unbossed what is really generating the energy to do that and so my can't my question to Candice and maybe Shola you can jump in um is what is what's giving you joy what's bringing you pleasure what what are what what's what's keeping you here wanting to to be present and and fight this fight so I embed the joy and profound black imagination in any song that I write and I it's it's because I just finished I just finished recording an album that I've mostly thank you thank you I'm excited about it but as I'm reflecting on how to describe it it's I realized that I being an archivist is very connected to my childhood sense of play and being a songwriter and a singer is all connected to a childhood sense of play and what I've learned uh that I've been able to capture best is that it continues to drive my creativity as an adult and uh on Black Women's Equal Payday which was August 13th I put out a song a new song called Zora's Moon which is inspired by Zora Neale Hurston and a story that she told on the radio in 1943 about um running at night and feeling like the moon is following her which is something I always thought when I was a child but I never would have thought it was something worthy of repeating on national radio and the story that she she uh she memorializes in dust tracks on a road it's in the beginning of but I had read it and I hadn't to hear her tell it on the radio made me realize how how wide the world is and how wide it was in 1943 and how wide it was when she was five or six running through Eatonville Florida and saying that's my moon I took the archival sample and built the song around it and so every time I've been talking about that song in the last few weeks since it came out I have to tell people who Zora Neale Hurston is a lot of them don't know a lot of them have not read her yet or and then that trip is where my joy is I enjoy that and I enjoy sharing you know my childhood memory of that and it's all in the song so I I make sure that all my work is um enmeshed with my inherent joy and visioning uh you know the I guess a a more um just vision of uh of where I I believe we're headed as black people so every time I every time I play that's what I'm tapping into and it comes across in in this project for me as well it's that's what I want to uh exude beautiful I love that you have you evoke the sense of play every time you play shala that was beautiful so it's shala though like like a soft like a shawl shawla like a shawl shawla it's a Nigerian name uh so my parents shortened it so Americans could say it um but you know I really relate uh to what both of you actually have been saying you know I mean I think even in times of devastation to be able to find love and to have um imagination um you know because that that is what Zora had when you can't when you don't have knowledge but to have imagination to believe in um a future for yourself and the expansiveness of that right the moon is for me and you know for me what I like to be able to do is you know having grown up in the 70s free to be you and me I felt I grew up very entitled I had no idea we weren't supposed to be entitled and then I wondered like why history didn't reflect that yes yes so I like to take that Afrofuturistic lens and look back and to identify our foremothers and fathers um who in their moment had a sense of imagination so I call kind of the work you you know creating historical imagination so it's anchored in truth right it's anchored in truth um and it allows us to reclaim the lost legacy um and the our lost sense of selves through enslavement right yeah it's our stories it's who we are and where we come from and so many of us can't tell our story our family stories right yeah in terms of the broader culture we're not fed with our sense of belonging our our our thread in this great democratic uh great democracy this experiment right you know I mean we leave grade school thinking yeah we were enslaved and we were pretty passive about it right and then we marched nonviolently and god you know i'm leaving us exactly that literally history is written in a way where agency is given to someone else at every turn you know even Martin Luther King who was a complete activist right is is hallmarked um as a dreamer it wasn't just passive dreaming it was the the kind of dreaming that opens up your mind to um and and forces action and I think if we can yeah so I love what I hold on to those are the stories I try and tell my children it's like what do you tell them how do you explain what's going on black lives matter yes that seems so obvious and yet it's not and controversial right how is it controversial but it you know I mean I could go on I mean it's controversial because when we got here we were written into the constitution as less than and it's our work it's been our work to overcome it yeah we we intentionally chose a piece um when Val and I were creating for this commission um we we we called well the name of our pieces stand up and be counted and I'm shawly you're really like the perfect uh on this topic uh so yeah we wanted to uh explore a speech that she gave in 74 with the experience of having run um you know and and uh we were very moved by the way she spoke about representation actually because you know Chelsea you were asking me like about kind of fundamentally and historically what I think are like the moment of inception for where music activism music and activism like kind of intersect and I was telling you I think in the voice the cry of the voice which can be music or protest I think uh we found this one speech in 74 where uh representative Chisholm was talking about how uh voting as an aspect and citizenship as an aspect of representation and um so what you're talking about Charlotte I think uh really resonated with me as we were shaping this piece of uh there's always a sense that we're voting and I think we do vote because we've there's been such an erasure of our our our import and our um all of the gains that we've made as black people and also especially as black women in mobilizing this nation um in making this a nation of women voting and I think that is also why like even though I looked I was I've been very concerned like everyone else about how this this election is going to go I think it's like over 50 percent maybe 55 55 percent of eligible black women voters voted in in 2018 and we're such a reliable voting block and always have been and yet it's huge and yet Breonna Taylor and yet we struggle to even assert the language much less the justice that we deserve in in being feeling protected as citizens you know even at rest and I guess I'm ranging wildly to why I should say but um yeah I think that it's the she was speaking about representation as like a fundamental aspect of and it just hit this deep nerve for us enough so the piece came directly out of that part of the speech and I would I actually want to kind of start to dive into into the archives and how the archives are being used and I also Shala could you just describe for folks who may not be familiar like what is your main art form and what's your connection to Shirley Chisholm just for folks out there who don't know sure sure sure sure so I am I guess a storyteller to a certain degree right I am best known as a filmmaker a documentary filmmaker having made a film about Shirley Chisholm in her run for president um where you know I tracked her down she was still around so she tells the story and I think that's an important part a component right literally it was like the 72 election we don't think about Shirley Chisholm but here was this woman who was the first black woman elected to congress and she was running for the democratic ticket and she made it all the way to the convention and history wrote about it as like a as a publicity stunt when in fact she had an incredibly smart strategy and she understood what power was in the context in other words delegate votes and how you would get to the convention and you would bargain with delegates not just like oh do the right thing support women's rights support black rights support purple rights she said you know that's not that's not what they care about it's like delegate votes so Chisholm 72 unbought and unbossed if you haven't seen it go out and you can and I think iTunes the library it's it's around and considering the importance of voting and the importance of participating in politics by at least voting if not running it will inspire you um I've also made a film about Angela Davis the philosopher and activist and I run the the film and audio archive at the Schaumburg Center for Research and Black Culture and so yeah Candice I was resonating with what you were saying about archives so you know archives is how we well Arturo Schaumburg called his collection of 10 000 items um it was 10 000 items by the time it was 1925 and the library buys the collection of 1926 and he's collecting at a time when people don't think black history exists so he writes in this essay the Negro digs up his past and names those items right and you can google it the Negro digs up his past and he names those items as vindicating evidences and I'm like I just thought that was so profound he was not going to argue with you over the worth of whether black history existed or not he was just going to collect the evidences and the Schaumburg Center is like we say it's 11 million but I think it's close to the 13 million vindicating evidences of black history and culture from across the diaspora so it's and when you hear somebody's voice right and when you see a piece of footage and you see how they move and then you read their words they become real and if black history is about reclaiming our legacy our stories because we've been there and we've been fighting the good fight from the very beginning yeah from the very beginning absolutely oh yeah uh how exciting so actually let's get into our topic of of conversation today which is Shirley and Jason and I wanted to actually share a quote from a speech of hers at Howard University that she did in 1969 and then we'll just talk a little bit about our ideas around Shirley and what she did and why we're collectively drawn to her bid for the presidency and her assertion of her citizenship and yeah so we'll get into that but the quote goes like this she says while nothing is easy for the black man in america neither is anything impossible like old man river we are moving along and we will continue to move resolutely until our goal of unequivocal unequivocal equality is attained we must not be docile we must not be resigned nor must we be inwardly bitter we must see ourselves in an entirely new perspective and we cannot sit in our homes waiting for someone to reach out and do things for us every tomorrow has two handles we can take hold of the end handle of anxiety or the handle of fate and the first battle is one my brothers and sisters when we fight for belief in ourselves and found that it has come to us while we are still battling so that's a quote i wanted to start us off with we actually had a moment earlier in the in the broadcast where we were talking oh alexa stop alexa's like yes yes more chism quotes like this might help you with your conversation let me give you context you raise the frequency with that though yes you picked up on it i mean we talked earlier about you know this handle of anxiety and processing we asked asked our viewers to give some responses in the chat about it processing anxiety around voting one of our commissions done by dain figuero ididi is all is her piece is centered on processing anxiety around voting so i feel like this is a quote that she's really getting at you know this sense of agency this sense of you determining what you're going to do and that these things are both present always and and making your own choice so it's a start us off uh shalla can what can you frame for us what do you think surely meant when she said to be unbought and unbossed what was she was she referring to the delegate kind of machinations or just was it a you know what do you think what do you think that was uh phrase me yeah um i i think what she meant well it was her motto for her campaign when she ran for congress in 1968 and became elected the first black woman to congress right because of over rice laws in the 60s so it was it was a campaign slogan but i also think it was because it was the way she lived her life you know it's sometimes taken as something that is angry or strident and she wasn't that way even though many of the clips have her being you know uh right more than like black power but you know um but she was quietly persistent in working towards her goals of equality and what is kind of amazing is in in the 60s you know women were not equal you couldn't get a credit card in your own name right let alone open a bank account let alone whatever and here she is like i'm gonna run for congress and she wins nobody thought she would and in 1972 she's like i'm gonna run for president but she's like yeah full stop because i can do it it wasn't a joke to her yeah and it's that ability to um you know be true to your i don't know destiny your vision without letting all the weight of the naysayers and the the negativity crush you yeah yeah and you know i mean in some ways it relates back to the earlier part of the conversation and i think one of the ways in which she did it is through love like she had her core group of people and she had her husband and she had they were her you know safe spaces they could tell the truth and she could cry i guess if she needed to or be herself and then that would build up her teflon right to the world and i think sometimes especially as women of color we can take on the i'm i'm so tough it doesn't bother me i'm so tough and it's exhausting to do that um and and so somehow to remember that we yes we deserve love and we deserve partnership in our work we deserve partnership at home and wholeness in that way um and i think that's the secret that so many people who've achieved a lot have they have yeah wow i mean i'm just thinking like how can i apply this to my life like i'm really thinking structurally how to do this kandace are you i feel like you have a thought i do okay you know i all my work i i am always pursuing the underlying history around even a song idea that is i you know my idea i am always curious about what i already knew before it presented itself as an idea that relates to it so that i a sense of i guess a sense of context for myself and i was spending time with surely chism as i was making this piece and discovered some um uh archival footage of her at home playing the piano and uh other footage of her reading her own poetry um because i think on some level chelsea i was asking the same question like how did she nourish herself in a world that was like clearly structurally you know pushing against her in many ways and how did she envision the you know the very hefty and significant things that she was about to do like and she and uh i think watching that just kind of really made sense to me that it's like uh it's the the second part of what you said after the handles and the quote about as you're doing it you'll find the courage that you need what was the what was it that you said there do you mind she says yeah no no i don't mind running it back uh uh oh she says every tomorrow has two handles we can take hold of the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith and the first battle is one my brothers and sisters when we fight for belief in ourselves and find it has come to us while we are still battling when you're why i feel like when you're writing poetry and when you're playing music and you're making music that is the process is it is coming the belief in yourself is coming to you uh one once you're in course yeah yeah in the midst of uh innate belief in yourself is like the first step and then the rest is a flow out of that yes yes i mean anything that connects you to that flow it could be cooking swimming writing poetry playing percussion any of those things could be the thing for you that's what i think chelsea right i mean because if we're agents if we are agents with autonomy with with the ability to assert ourselves then we have to keep the flow of energy to do that open so i love this this image of like keeping that flow open so that we're able to just translate what needs to be done efficiently confidently and resolutely which is something that you know watching surely in the documentary shala i just could feel like a steel rod of like knowing and feeling secure in that knowing that i was like oh that's so refreshing to see her stand there and just claim space you know what i mean just i can't say it enough asserting her her citizenship and and throwing her i don't i forget who's the news host who said you know throwing her her bonnet into the ring you know that was wilter krunkite that was that was wilter krunkite you know and i just which is a funny line if you know what chism is right and i just one of the battles over even making that film was with some of the funders and how to start the film like do people know about her who who is she is she relevant because that film came out in in 2004 so i was thinking about it at the turn of the century and it was before we could even imagine a black person as president right like that was like some alien science fiction stuff my first neuter is what happened in our lifetime and so i remember there was a series of executives who said you know you need to just take the whole opening sequence out and start with walter krunkite and he says a hat no a bonnet was tossed into the presidential ring today that of mrs surely chism congresswoman surely chism and i thought to myself this is my first film these are executives they have all the power but if this is the only way to tell stories i'm not doing it it took me a moment right because if you're gonna tell a story about somebody who dares to assert their complete citizenship rights and run for president i think they can be as a black woman the leader of the free world right when i start it with a white guy making fun of her yeah like what does that say the frame it's not a joke great yeah and so that would that became a you know so so i didn't do that well i think that is like in in white culture and mainstream culture the the reaction of wanting to laugh their way through discomfort is uh it's of norm in this it's very american and i think i mean i was actually part of my the research that i was doing to um this year has been also for myself and my sense of understanding is like some of the um the the racist cartoons that were used to suppress the black vote and you just message that we're uh not worthy of of our vote and uh i think that that there's a like a impulse of racist impulse that's a part of white supremacy to try to suppress our legitimacy um through making fun of it i i i would have had the same reaction shalla you bring up a really important point about voting that i think surely chism also understood so one of the reason that she wins her congressional race and nobody believes she can is she actually studied who was voting and they were all women like her this is a photograph of her with in her cat glasses and her pill hat a pill box hat and you know she's dealing with all these other women and they're they're dressed exactly the same way they worked really hard during the week and that was like the sunday you know outfits or whatever um and so she was running against james farmer who was a civil rights activist well known as part of a part of core um and you know the guys of the civil rights movement and the new york times was like surely what who and i'm not even gonna write about this there weren't any journalists that fought because they couldn't even imagine that she would win and she went about her business of having coffees well james was out there like with dashiki guys and dashikis and on tom tom's and like and then she won and it was a surprise to everybody except her team who was like well we knew we were looking at the voters the people who were registered to vote right districts right so it was she used in that sense of her the invisibility that comes with um being um black and a woman and asserting like it you're either completely ignored or you're somehow offending somebody by exercising your rights like and i love that she just exploits that blind spot and just goes really efficiently towards her goal and it's like i'm totally aware that you underestimate me and i'm gonna use that actually yeah i think when people talk about the power of the white gaze that's understanding that and having a sense of that and how pervasive it is is what can empower you to be adept in using your vote and adept in uh making your art and i think you know shella i don't know if you caught this but i um i just put out a song called zora's moon and in it i was telling chelsea the the first like 40 seconds is a sample of zora neale herston archival sample um at the top of the song you know and then and then it spins out from that and i got pushed back on that as well from colleagues like you know more label centric people about the audacity of putting an archival uh message you know or impression at the top instead of like hooking people with a something um gimmicky i guess for me what i i engage people directly with the truth of it and the uh intensity of the vulnerability and the um timelessness of it of the sound of her voice and the joy in it and i think that's the i think there are different uh ways to appeal with your art and they were suggesting some one hook that is maybe commercial or gimmick oriented and you were well i don't want to speak for you but what i feel in your work and i hope to push in mind is operating on a deeper level uh of um just connecting across generations i think what miss what representative chism said about um you know finding your what did she say i wrote it self self i guess self-confidence or sense of self in the action i think when your action is also informed by where you come from which for her it was as well i've heard her speak so even though as you said shala like we were missing a lot of our own histories but she she knew i mean education was very big in her family and her parents came from Barbados and so i think there was a sensibility of how her civic participation civic participation was earned yeah and i think it also fascinated me about herston when i work in herston i'm always thinking about how eatenville florida was this utopic society that was black led and incorporate one of the i think the first incorporated black town in the united states and what it's like to grow up and see and i think it's an experience that chism had as well um in an african setting to have a lot of leadership that are people of color black people i should say um you know teaching you and and in shaping you and i think that's like a special privilege as well when you're talking about uh other folks of her generation who grew up in segregated schools and amidst the jim crow regime so i think those those things of what you see and in early age also informed but i'm now i'm straight i'm off from where i was saying but i think i felt the same i got the same kind of resistance in my work about calling upon archives and that's why i liked this commission very much because it's at the very center of it there was no i didn't have to reverse my car into the spot um thinking about to connecting the past to the present um surely describes herself as issue driven and so something i'm curious about from to hear from both of you is what do you think you know if they're if if there were one issue that you think was most urgent or multiple issues that you think are most urgent to be addressed this election cycle uh what do you what what are those things what's at the forefront of of of your mind right now going into this season or being in this season as we're thinking about you know who who to vote war and how to deal with the outcomes of that and dealing with society leading up to that so what are the issues oh yeah that that that is that's too big a question i mean um you know it more than ever it's about justice and the um use of your vote to support the people who are going to take our tax dollars and apply the ways that make justice a reality i mean that's the thing about politics is it's not just like an exercise it's not a popularity contest it's actually we are and especially on in terms of our local elections but also the presidency we're electing people who represent us and who are going to take our tax dollars and decide how to use them and create laws for which we all live by if we think about it that way it's so deep and we just don't vote or we give it away or we you know we say it doesn't matter and it does and the establishment wants it us not to vote right why voter turnout is so low i mean except for black women 55 percent is really high and you know and and it's probably because it's this our story is people keep telling us we can't vote 15th amendment happens oh black men can vote and then those those are rolled back with black codes and poll taxes etc 19th amendment women can vote oh yeah just white women sorry ladies women of color and so we're still working we're still pushing we're still fighting we were there you know club ladies and through the civil rights movement the civil rights movement we undergird it right financially i mean yes absolutely in terms of our intellect in terms of our finances in terms of our strategy in terms of our bodies right and work um and so we don't get to vote until the voting rights act of 1965 think about that it's profound um and you know so we do we do that responsibility various very seriously and you know and then there's other societal things that keep up you know black men from voting sometimes but yeah justice i feel like and i often think you know if you got you have you got to have the consent of the governed and when there is that we're at such a tipping point where it's like if you're not going to respect any of the laws that you apply to us do we still have to give you the consent to govern us and my concern is to to continue to chip away at the justice that people feel they they deserve to not give them that or to not make any effort towards doing that it's a really destabilizing force so i think just getting justice is such a huge part of how we're going to repair heal moving forward can this what do you think issues facing us i would say my answer the most like imperative agenda for this election is social justice i would say it in the same way i think um the industrial prison complex and the privatization of prisons has to be abolished um there needs to be uh social justice in the area of of climate change and which communities are disaffected time and again um you know as we look at flint and we look at so many so many communities flint is just it's a just a super clear example of how our community has been you know just just sort of terrorized by by environmental issues that that make our children so vulnerable um educational justice needs to be a priority um clearly i think that we should be mindful of the courts i've from what i read yes it's an understatement um but i think that in the last election that was less of a conversation and less of an agenda uh on progressive you know among the progressives and it's something that the republican party is always good at mobilizing their vote around um so a consciousness of of um how the judiciary you know plays into you the the rights we're able to uh to enjoy but i think that for me what i'm the lesson that i'm learning is that all elections are local and um when i look back and i was reflecting on this night where we get to talk about the history of the black woman's vote i was thinking so much and i've been spending time with um a book called to join my freedom by tara hunter one of the formative books on critical race theory and black studies that i i received in college and it's like well worn and dog-eared for me where hunter talks about the washer women and the washer women movement um black women who organized and sort of created the paradigm that was taken up by the the white feminist movement of organizing and um certainly like we've said like was part of the underpinning of the civil rights movement i heard chism say that uh in another interview that she was the ghost writer of the civil rights movement um so i think about the writer and i think about the ghost part presentation and visibility and all those things are local issues how can we feel visible how can we feel her how can we feel like we're participating in the process and not feel like it's so abstract and above us and beyond you know our sense of efficacy as as individuals well keep it local work in your community um to do what you can do within your reach and your circle of influence and i think no matter what our you know role is you don't have to be an elected official to have um a circle of influence and to act and show up where you say you know you need to be and uh that's that's why i always that's what i'm thinking right now i just feel like i'm doing everything that i can do in my circle of influence i can't change what happened you know the other night on tv uh but i can do do what i can do yeah so i think if everyone can can feel that way about this vote we can get somewhere and no matter what happens in this election i think we recommit to organizing the way we we have and in new ways that we we're still imagining yeah oh shawla go ahead yeah i was i i was just thinking you know um one of the silver linings i mean they're about the covid-19 situation is that it slowed all of us down um and we have to think about the things that are important um and so much of life had been spent like rushing around and getting to events and whatever um and the work that um chism did and that you're referring to kandace and chelsea right that they're organizing the work is not fabulous it's you know it's roll your sleeves up pull a chair up it's committing and it's committing to yourself um and it's committing to your community and by that committing committing to the future um and you know we have to kind of think about it and remember that not everything has to be so fabulous right to get where we need to go but sometimes it's it is at work doesn't mean there can't be pleasure right yeah right we gotta slow it down and time for it um and it's not something you can just you know put off right i agree with you i think that when we talk about this this election it has to be how you live your life right yeah it has to be a practice like being a musician like being an athlete like you know our activism can't just be voting every four years right it is what is your practice how does how do you how do you honor it daily weekly etc yeah chelsea was when we first got on she said how are you dealing with anxiety and how do you view it in this moment and i know she asked you a similar question and i think like the day the being very candid and asking a question like that is just always the right place to start um candor and vulnerability are underlying parts of this and you know we've been as a as a community we've been traumatized in so many ways there has to be expansive spaces like this where art and activism can meet where personal witnessing i mean you the three of us have read and all of us here um in conversation tonight everyone who's watching we've read so many incredibly powerful testimonies of um by by black writers filmmakers um songwriters dancers you know uh speaking to their own experience and the structural um you know the structural circumstances that that shape our reality um that requires a degree of vulnerability a slowing down and connecting how things sit with you um to be able to find the language to say it and to be able to disavow any lies or or or you know mistruths being told about you while you're trying to do what you need to do and um i think we feel with this pandemic like i said before a sense of confinement and a sense of um pressure um in we can tap into the other aspects of it and and uh i think that's yeah i think that's that's a big part of this election for me too it's like how will this knowing that i'm committed no matter what a like result is yeah i mean this is such a beautiful segue into you know thinking about commitment thinking about an embodied practice an everyday practice um and also the legacy of black women's activism nbt has partnered with michelle obama's when we all vote which is a nonprofit nonpartisan organization of which this conversation series is you know we're we're really trying to get the word out about what people can do to really embody this practice of getting on the chism trail and asserting that citizenship you know really really reckoning with with stepping into the public square and letting it be known what has to happen um and so what i'm going to be doing every time we have one of these live conversations of which there are two more um we're going to have a voter to do and today's voter to do is register to vote and when we all vote has a link there that takes you to a place where you can easily register to vote so assert that citizenship y'all and this is not just every four years this is something that you can be doing for those of us in the community who can't and this is something that can be made into a practice so voter to do register to vote that's going to be step one for tonight oh yes and we've got it dropped into the chat there for you to click and make that as easy as possible we are coming to the end of our time together and this has just been such a really fruitful generative conversation a really great kickoff to the unbought and unbought conversation series to really be unpacking this legacy um and i have another quote that i would like to share of shirley's to close us out and i would love to get you all's reaction to this and i probably have some closing messages just i need to do they ask any questions anybody else oh do we have any dude let's see let's see what do we what do we've got going in the comments and and and you know don't forget um that chism wrote two books um on bot and the good fight um and so it's never bad to go back to the to the to the source yes to learn something uh about her life and then of course um chism 72 unbought and unboss the documentary you can always um watch that check it out um okay so let me find this quote that i wanted to share a bit here and actually while you're doing that i will yeah one of the pleasures of working at an archive is you find all of these discoveries that are not processed or unearthed and a little over a year ago we discovered that we had audio of surely chism on the campaign trail in 1968 nobody else has this victory speech you know in the room and somebody thought okay i have my cassette recorder i'm going to record this and did and it's it's it's it's it's incredible um there's nothing like listening to somebody's voice right as they're in the moment um of victory or in the fight yeah i love that if we all have to come by the the the movie image and report sound division check out so many gems so many gems i mean so much vindicating evidences i can't can't describe i can't describe i know i like i love i think that one of the things that's special for me about being an artist right now is that i can avail myself of digital histories and i feel like it's something that was hard one not just the the stories and the victories but the fact that we have it the access to this information and history at our fingertips in i just want to thank you at national black theater for engaging us as artists and creating a space for us to make stand up and be counted and it just meant so much to us in this moment to have a lot what just to let you all in into the process national black theater commissioned us artists to make a piece of our own design inspired by unbought and unbossed and the legacy of shirley chism and just we worked collaboratively to create these video presentations i hope you will follow national black theater on instagram and view our pieces um my piece with val g gt um stand up and be counted was released yesterday so please check that out and share questions and thoughts and reactions because we're we're here for this communal conversation this sister circle so please drop a comment on that check it out to share it i want to thank when we all vote as well for um being a sponsor and support of our vision and like joining with us to empower the community to vote and if you would like to follow me and listen to zora's moon you can find that new single on all those streaming platforms if you love zora if you don't know zora and want to meet her um through me you can check that out wherever you listen to music ah beautiful that's a beautiful closing i mean that should be the closing of this whole thing but um i'm going to share this quote with you from shirley chism this is from the same speech at howard university 1969 she says we must not allow petty things to color our lives and simulate them into vast proportions of evil to dwell on every slight and clutch it to our breast and nourish it will corrode our thinking we're on the move now and as frederick douglas said power conceives nothing without a struggle it never has and it never will so i think that is a great place for us to kind of put a bow on our conversation about asserting your citizenship remaining unbought and unbossing your life um and just the perspective that we are going to move through this this season with the joy and love respect for ourselves and and constantly and embodied practice of building community and being engaged citizens because we got it like that and it's our job um i'm so so grateful to you candice and to you shahla for joining me this evening and for joining mbt in this process shahla you actually did um a commission for the 100 years 100 women project and um i just really want to shout that out because it was such a beautiful um how would you describe yeah please oh sure you know um i first of all i was very honored to be um one of the hundred artists commissioned to kind of grapple with what that ninth that that anniversary meant um as a black woman and i was thinking about it covid happened and so you know a filmmaker always wants to go out and do interviews and run around and collect images and we couldn't right so i changed it so that i said i want to do the piece that reflects this moment and all hundred artists so i asked every one of the artists to um send me a video i asked a series of questions i did uh you know i directed via video what and it was like zoom calls etc and also to share something about their process of creating that work and what they were thinking of and reflecting on in this moment and all of that i mashed it up into a hundred years a hundred women and hopefully what the piece does is it reflects not only um the 19th amendment the anniversary and the complicated nature of that and the kind of rewriting of the moment we need to do to include women of color but also the beautiful artists and what they were thinking about and reflecting on and it was everything from dancers to musicians to poets to uh you know uh to painters to photographers and it was real such a such a pleasure such such a pleasure so yeah and you have to link down there the link i was gonna say and it's only seven minutes long vogue even did a nice write-up of the whole project and included the link of that piece um and so i was always thinking about what it would be like in the in another hundred years so when 200 women are reflecting on the 200th anniversary and so we created the archive the film and i the archive that was collected from all the artists to make the film i love we got to build the archive we've got to we've got to have the vindicating evidences of our existence because we've been here we this is we've got the receipts for this you know what i mean um let's not look away from the truth of what this is so i am so proud to stand in community with y'all as we as we do this as we do this we're in my next my next move is a video for zora's moon which is coming out in another few weeks too so i agree with that work the visual archive the living archive and just being living monuments is critical yes well i mean i love that your whole community just rang out like a constellation so that that pieces up on on nbt website you said yep yeah gotta check that out check it out it's it is i mean you feel the power of a hundred years 100 women you feel like we are coming into this into this century with like rolling really deep like we've got so much ancestral backing us up it's not either funny and your peace scholar just really encapsulated that hour so a portrait of again in a big way in a little way right the detail is practical exactly the microcosm of all of the pieces moving together you know it's it's like it's like a good quilt yes a good visual story is so important just manifesting it into something something that can that can just kind of live independently of you like that is so powerful that's really cool we are making the archive as we live it y'all and i'm so honored to be doing it with with y'all thank you for joining me this evening you can follow us on instagram on facebook check out our website share share share share share share share the wonderful commissions that these artists are creating to talk about what's happening now what's happening with us and how we're visioning our future forward i am chelsea d i am signing out for this evening sending you much love much love much love thank you to shawla thank you to kandace thank you to mia thank you thank you love love to you all good night