 T20, the fierce urgency of now. Thank you so much for joining us. Before we get started, let's have our language justice partners, Bancha Lenguas, walk us through our language justice access. Sorry, Maria Lucia, you're on mute. Buenas tardes, mi nombre es Maria Luisa, mi pronombe es ella y estoy aquí hoy con mi compa y co-interprete Judith, sus pronombres ella y ella. Somos miembros del colectivo de justicia de lenguaje, Bancha Lenguas, basado aquí en Bulbancha Luiciana. Y Bulbancha es la palabra chocto, que significa la tierra donde se habla muchos idiomas. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Maria Luisa, my pronouns are she, her. And I'm joined today by my comrade and co-interpreter, Judith, whose pronouns are she, her, they, them. We are members of Bancha Lenguas, language justice collective based in Bulbancha Luiciana. Bulbancha is the Choctaw word, which means the land where many languages are spoken. Hoy proveeremos interpretación simultánea de inglés al español y del español al inglés, como parte de nuestro esfuerzo por crear espacios multilingües. Tonight we'll be providing simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish and Spanish to English as part of our effort to create multilingual spaces. To create this space together, please speak at a slow and steady pace. If you're speaking too fast, you'll see us make this hand signal, which means to slow down, speak loudly and clearly. If you have headphones with a mic, please feel free to use them. We'll make this hand signal if we can't hear you and we may also send a message to the chat. Keep your mic on mute when you're not speaking. One speaker at a time, interpreters can only interpret one voice at a time and we don't wanna be in a position to have to privilege one voice over another. Para crear este espacio juntes, por favor, habla en un paso lento y constante. Si estás hablando muy rápido, nos verás hacer esta señal de manos que significa, perdón, esta señal de manos que significa que hables más de espacio. Hablen voz alta y clara y si tienes audífonos con micrófono, utilícalos. Haremos esta señal con la mano si no podemos escucharte. Puede ser que también te enviemos un mensaje al chat. Mantén tu micrófono en silencio si no estás hablando y una persona a la vez, por favor. Les interprete, solo pueden interpretar una voz a la vez. No queremos estar en la posición de tener que decidir cuál voz privilegiar sobre la otra. And now for the logistics for selecting a language once the interpretation platform is turned on. If you're using a computer, you'll see a globe icon at the bottom of your screen with the word interpretation. Click on that and select the channel with the language of your choice, English or Spanish. For a smartphone or a tablet, you're gonna look for three dots that read more. Click on that to make your selection. And when you make your selection, you'll see an option to mute original audio to hear only the voice of the interpreter. To hear the original audio, you may leave that unmuted and you can change your selection at any time. And now for the logistics for selecting a language once the interpretation platform is turned on. If you're using a computer, you'll see the globe icon at the bottom of your screen with the word interpretation. Click on that and select the language preferred English or Spanish. For a smartphone or a tablet, you're gonna look for three dots that read more. Click on that to make your selection. When you make your selection, you'll see an option to mute original audio to hear only the voice of the interpreter. If you want to hear the original audio, you can remove it from the silent mode. And you can also change your selection at any time. Thank you for helping us create this space together. Thank you for helping us create this space together. Thank you, Boncha. For growing with us. We appreciate all that you're doing. Hi, I'm Amy, Amy McCoy. Our pronouns are she and hers. I am the Oracle of Synthesis for Roots on Roots staff. I am an African-American woman with a light colored silvery top with a cream headband. And I am Zooming in from the land of the Muskogee Creek Nations, also known as Atlanta, Georgia. And my name is Melissa Cardona. I go by Mel. My pronouns are they, them, she, hers interchangeably. I'm calling in from the land of Bulbancha, also known as New Orleans, Louisiana. The original people of here are Chakta, Huma, Chikimaya, Adaí, Cado, Hushata, Four Winds tribe, and many more. My people are from Colombia, Socio, Parceros. I currently have a white bandana on my head, and then I have my hair loose today. And I have a bright floral shirt with orange background, which I wear when I'm very excited. Alternate Roots is supported by the generous donations from our members, private individuals, and funders, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Ford, Mellon, Sirdna, and the Doris Duke Foundation. Alternate Roots supports artists in the South US who are working to eliminate all forms of oppression. We invite you to be active in the chat stream. If you're having other tech issues, reach out in the chat and we'll have somebody assist you. Our gender equity group reminds us to all change our names in the chat with our pronouns. And now for our land acknowledgement. As you're adding your pronouns to your profile name, drop in the chat where you're zooming in from. If you know the name of the indigenous peoples where stewards of land you're currently occupying, drop that info in the chat too. If not, we invite you to learn more about the land acknowledgement. One website, nativeland.ca is one, but there are many. It's N-A-T-I-B-E dash L-A-N-D dot C-A. Community agreements. Quick reminder, that's not, no matter how Roots convenes, whether in physical space or virtual, we do so under the guidance of our community agreements. We'll drop the link into the chat for your reference. For our wellness. Our wellness team reminds us to take care of ourselves while we're in this virtual space. So grab some water, snack as needed, take breaks, and be good to your body during Roots week. All right, that ends the announcement, y'all. Let's get this session started. Today, we have the Extraordinary Eldritch Panel with members of our partner in action cohort, Lucy Peters and Mark Mason. You know who that is? Yes, that's great. Okay, awesome. Everybody, we're so happy to be here. It's an honor to be here. It's a blessing to be here. Today is my grandma's birthday. Georgia Bode Thomason, and she is having a heavily-earned day-to-day, she would have been 100 and 100 days, it was an honor to do this on these days, dedicated to her. And so it's a blessing to be here. My name is Lucy Peters-Moine, and my pronouns are she, her, and hers. And I'm the founder of Root, Women Healing and Empowering Women. It's a reentry program addressing the fact that our women have been outwashed and our men going to prison and looking at other intercepting issues like domestic violence policies. So we're partnered with Mark Fury. I'm here in the Houston, Texas, by way of the Boogie Down Bronx. So my name is Mark Newsome. I also go by Mark Fury. That's my artist's name. He, him, his. And I'm a filmmaker, photographer, and I do a lot of public art and social practice projects. And it's an honor to be partnered with Lucy Peters-Moine to bring this project to you, Extraordinary Elders. So the Extraordinary Elders' Film Project, the purpose of it was for us to honor our elders, provide a safe space for youth to interview them and to make sure that their stories all too often do not leave with them. We are, you know, since doing this project, we have had three elders already transition. And other elders that are in COVID, another elder who's dealing with Alzheimer's. So it's quite so important for us to honor them, give them their roses while they can smell them and show the importance of intergenerational relationships because that's at the cornerstone of what helps us as the people to survive. Going back to the show earlier today, it's an honor to be coming right behind my big sister, Tufara. And what the young people are sharing with in the same exact mindset of the importance of intergenerational relationships and for our youth to know the stories, to know what has been done for them, the things that have been sacrificed for them to be where they are right now, that we all too often don't know all the stories that our elders write in our old communities that are unsung heroes and unsung heroines. Often know their stories. So I'm just thinking why we're so important for us to do this work. So it's been an honor to do this work. Just to add to that, I think this country focuses so much on youth and young people, which is fine. However, we want to bring light to the fact that a lot of our elders have these profound stories that have done these profound deeds during the time period that they came up. And right now everything is so easy. We have apps with central air conditioning. We have all this and that. So we wanted to show the wonders of the elders that we've come across. A lot of times when they leave, they take out stories with them. So we want to bring an avenue where people can hear these stories outside of seeing the elders in person. These stories can continue to live on. These extraordinary stories. Absolutely. Absolutely. So the reason why we're doing this work, we are looking to continue doing this work. This was the beginning. It's been an honor to be a PIA cohort and to get the guidance and support to be amongst the other cohorts who are doing awesome and dynamic work. And so it was just an honor to be our first time taking part in Roots Week. And so it's an honor for us to be here in 2020. 2020 is an interesting thing this year, right? So we're going to be happy for the blessings. Everything happens for a reason. And so we're happy to be here in spite of not being able to be physically together. We're together this year and forward. We'd actually like to start showing the first video and then we'll talk a little bit about it. Just to show everybody the progress of the project and show the experiences that we had creating it. And really just exhibiting some of the elders that we got the stories from. Yes. What I think is also about the project as well is that it's a nice selection and variety and diversity of the elders who some have more notoriety than others and have done some renowned things and where there are others who are ubiquitous and who have never even heard of them. Yet they were heroes in their family and in their neighborhood and their communities. And so that's another lesson to do in this way. So with that being said, we could start the first video. Well, we could keep talking. So his mother, Denver, that's probably gonna be the first one. She was an elder in the community that a civil rights activist has a very over-the-top personality. And we've been wanting to actually just... Sorry about that. Let's do it. So... Have they started? I can't tell. Has the video started? It would be there, though. Has the video started? We'll start the video. So at least someone to communicate with us because we can't tell. We can't tell when the video is gonna come. Okay, all right. So it's gonna be for us. Okay. So in the meantime, we're gonna be sharing about mother Denver. Mother Denver, even before when I would like to the fact that we both had this idea and didn't know if we both had an idea around wanting to do a project that celebrated elders and unsung heroes and then happen to have a conversation around it. And not knowing that we both had this idea until then we decided to collaborate and do this work together. So mother Denver, who is someone that I had a kindred spirit with both from New York, both found up here in Houston. So both found up in the culture and culture community, third ward Houston, the historic community, which is where we're walking in full of so much richness and history and culture here in Houston. It's a treasure to have this community here in Houston. Yeah, we're surrounded by all these dynamic elders that have done so much for the community. And mother Denver specifically is a very interesting character with Lucy Sashis from New York. And she has where's this hat with all these buttons that kind of all represent something specific to like black panther buttons and positive black sayings on our hat. And ironically, we, like Lucy said, we just kept talking about we want to interview her while she's still here. So the one day that we did interview her it happened to be her birthday. And that's when we knew that this was like the best kind of stuff that we're about to embark on. So we interviewed her and two weeks later, she left us. Absolutely. Yeah. So I'm looking at the chat and I'm seeing, are we ready? Because I mean, we were ready. We just talked about it. The video is ready now. Okay, awesome. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. No problem. Who's some of your favorite hobbies as a kid? I was always looking for a brown crayon to color my grandfather. I didn't have one in my box and the teacher said there was three colors of human beings, white, pink and beige. So I had to find a brown crayon, my grandfather's color. If you don't see yourself, color yourself in because black people are the beginning of the beginning. I also want to tell you that I also played violin myself. You also what? Played the violin. You played it! Well, when we have the next elders meeting, it would be so wonderful if you would come and play for the elders. It would just inspire me more. And I'm so happy you studied the violin and imagine black people invented it. If you could share with the world some advice, what would you share with them? I would hope and pray that I am sharing who we really are. That I am sharing our history, our struggle for justice, righteousness, it's a godly struggle. Tell me more about your daily routines. Are you working or are you tired? I work every day because I wear this hat. I call it confronting the whiteout, coloring us in so police can stop killing us and other people. Lynch murders was a regular thing in America. What is your favorite fruit and birth baking? What happened? I went to Sunshine's and Sunshine said, sugar is not good for you. And I came home, he said, cooked food is not good for you. And I told my husband, we were married I guess about 30 years. I said, I'm not frying any more chicken for you, baby, because it's not good for you. And he said, you must be crazy. I will eat out. But his mother had six or seven children during the depression. He never ate in a restaurant. So he had to become a vegetarian. And by the grace of God, he lives to be 83. I'm so glad you're asking questions. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Happy birthday. Come on over there. Thank you. Walaikum salam. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. Thank you so very much. You have made my day so special. And I don't charge anybody to come and talk. Yes. Ashay. Ashay. Ashay. Thank you. Ashay. Thank you. Can you hear us now? Can you hear us now? Yes. Are we audible? Okay, Alison. So I was saying that it was a honor to do that work because shortly after filming that and the waste period would have it, we had our first meeting in Atlanta with our cohort partners and our cohort class while our first workshop retreated. And as we were flying back to Houston before we get back, she transitioned. So that's why we know that this work is so important for us to do the work for Jordan. And we are right now in this restaurant called Sunshines, which is named after the elder who will be the leader of the interviewing soon. His daughter now owns this restaurant but he's a legacy in Houston. And I didn't want to give too much weight to continue the show for more or even for more. I like to, before we go into the live interview, we're going to have four more videos for you to see which one it's going to find out. All right, you can just go ahead and play the next one based on all this. From the Explorinary Others Film Project and Today. I'm an old lady. I am 98 years old and I live by myself. So I would love for you girls to come over to see me sometime. How much has Sunshines changed since you came here? Oh, it's changed a whole lot. When I came to Sunshines, I was on the house over there to cut it. But what did you do when you were eight? When I was your age, I had to walk about 10 miles to school. And then there, we'd get to school with and we'd made our own fire in one time. Your own fires? Oh yeah, we would have to. What we all gathered up to and took it inside the building, made our fires. And then at 12 o'clock we had our lunch so you all get out of school early. I said, we didn't get out until four o'clock. It was much different than it was when I was going to school. So when I was in school, we only had one big school and it went from the first until the 12th grade. When you came around the 12th grade, that was considered the first year of college. The boys' dormitory and the girls' dormitory. Then we had a football team, basketball team, and then before we went to school, I was schooled and then we didn't start until the 1st of September. When it started in the 1st of September, because we had to pick cotton. We picked cotton in the field until we got to pick cotton. Then we went to school. You don't have to have it real good. Now you don't have to ride to school and to ride back home and wherever else you have to go. But when I was a child, the old age, come in and I had to walk. And as high cold it was, or how rainy it was, we had to walk to school. We had to walk back home from school. When we got home from school, we had chores to do. We had to go outside and pick up wood, pick up ships to make the fire and make the morning. And y'all just have a wonderful time now. But we didn't have that when I was coming out. I had thousands of memories. I was one of eight boys and four girls. And my childhood memories are vivid of the interaction that we had at that time. My father had a peculiar method of turning down the frustrations of our brothers. Every Sunday, he would put box and loaves on us and we would box on each other, thus cutting down on the frustration. So once we had boxed it out, it was over. We were fussing with each other. I remember my experiences of going to Sunday school and to church, and at that time, we were in the church all day long. We were in church in the morning, we were in church in the afternoon, and we were in church in the evening, every single Sunday. And church, of course, was nearby. It was right around the corner. We didn't have to walk far to get to church. No, I never wanted to be a lawyer but somebody else wanted me to be a lawyer. So I said, you make a good lawyer. But as early as nine, I had decided that I would be in the ministry, not a lawyer, but a preacher at nine years of age. Describe the difference between music in your time and how? Music in my time and music now. I don't know whether I would call music music now in light of the standards that we had long time ago. We have moved away from an appreciation to a classical music, to the acceptance of music as it is. We were trained in the classic tradition. Where did you encounter racism and how did you handle it? Well, it may seem odd, but I was raised in an area of town that was called First Ward, right off of Houston Avenue. And I was raised in a neighborhood that was mixed with Jewish, Italians, Hispanics, and blessed Puerto Ricans, you name it. And we kids in our neighborhood, we all played together. But I encountered the racism on the buses when I was a child. But other than that, I really didn't have any problems. Everybody seems that's odd, but I didn't in my neighborhood, we didn't. What was it like growing up for you from? The house that I was raised in, I don't know, you all probably have ever seen the movie, was like the Godfather's house. A big house, like a Venetian style house. We had a huge round porch that you could sit on. Now, they bought the property and they have all the high-rise over that area. Basically, it was fun growing up. We didn't have all this technology that we have now. This is it. If the technology is great to have the technology that we have today, but the people were closer and neighbors with kids, neighbors would look out for kids in the neighborhood. You couldn't do anything. The neighbors would tell your parents if they saw what you're doing, that they know you weren't supposed to do. But no one wants you to say anything about their kids now, it's almost lost. Hiya, I'll be interviewing Coach John for the Extraordinary Elders Film Project. So the first question is, what's your name? Where are you from? And tell me something about yourself that you would like the youth to know. My name is John Wilkerson, born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. I've been in Houston for about 35, 45 years. But the thing I want people to know, I love kids and I love working with kids. The biggest joy of my life when I get to work with kids and help them develop. Who are your parents? My parents were great parents. I stayed with my mother and father in San Antonio after I was born and raised. I went into the army and it was the best thing ever happened to me. It helped me mature, it helped me find out what I wanted to do with my life. And I just enjoyed being in service. I was in Germany for about three years and I learned a lot about Germany and other parts of the world. How did you get into tennis and why do you love the sport so much? Okay, getting into tennis. I didn't, at first I did not want to play tennis. I thought tennis, I thought tennis was for girls. I played baseball and I was pretty good at baseball and my brothers would play every week. And when I came up, I beat all of them. I never played before. Then they told me, you ought to go out for the team. I went out for the team. I beat everybody on the team and the coach. I won the district and state my first year ever playing tennis. So I was hooked. I really loved it. And look, here's a baseball bat. I could hit a baseball. And then when they put a racket in my hand, here's a racket. If I can hit the baseball with this, this is so much bigger. So that was easy to play tennis. I loved it. And I love, like I said before, it's nothing better than working with kids and helping them to develop. Sunshine every day. We are the extraordinary Elders Project. And today we'll be interviewing Mr. Sunshine. So Mr. Sunshine will be asking questions. Let's speak louder. Let's get so going on tonight, so. Here's some questions. We're probably asking questions. I'm 14. Anything that's about a nothing is a thing in hand, so I'm glad to be here. Okay. So, when did Sunshine's open? Sunshine started. Sunshine never secures. Sunshine is always in me. I was doing a, a qualms event, the shape center for the African landing ceremony. Six o'clock I started, two o'clock the name of the ceremony was called, go home then, man. Doing my little sleep in the sunshine. I woke up that morning and the sun was coming through the window right away. I've been living in the place for 13 years, it's the first time, so I say, that's the name of the ceremony. I'm gonna be caught up in the sunshine. Okay. How many restaurants do you have? This is the only one. Oh, there's the only one. Sunshine's. It creates, I can say, come to realize the sun is always, is always been with me. It's been my effort to share my information with other folks that it needs three meals a day. What do we call the first name in the morning? Spell it, D-R-E-A-K is what? F-A-S-G. So why do you would say breakfast? And why no cheating chest, I do the same breakfast. So I come to realize that the school system is setting us up just to get a J-O-B. So I began to learn about the body, like if you're fast and when you're sleeping, when you get up in the morning, the body's in the eliminate mode. When you're in the eliminate mode, the body releases toxic. Hit me release through the bladder, that's the urine, the lungs give up the toxic, we call it personality, the skin we shower, solid news. With us going to school, not realizing you're not gonna have anything in your life that's better than the body you have. And the school is not taking you. What did you think you were going to be when you grew up? I grew up in a sugar candy plantation. My daddy was a tractor driver. And I thought, what tractor am I gonna have? Right now, I bought a piece of land in Eagle Lake. And I'm in the process of buying my second tractor. And that is to grow my own food. 2020, I feel good because sometimes it takes what's happening for the individuals to wake up and realize what they have. 2020, especially with the pandemic, you have a body that is everything you need to support you. So when you realize you're fasting at night, when you're sleeping, you have to have a fast, the body automatically goes into the eliminate mode. In the eliminate mode, your body cannot take in anybody. So your eliminate mode, normally it's from 4 a.m. to 12 noon. So with the pandemic here, all you need to do is spend your eliminate mode from 4 a.m. until 8 a.m. What do you do during your free time? Up in the morning, you should look in the mirror and ask the person in the mirror, what is it I need to do those things? The schooling and education that you get is teaching you how to take care of the system. You're not gonna have anything that will do those things to the body. What do you feel about the fact that Donald Trump has COVID-19? That's the question. Donald Trump gives me no feelings. Do we have it? He actually does. He got it like days ago. I don't believe it. No. But Donald Trump has been living for himself. Can't you imagine a couple weeks or months from now before the election? That he comes and apologizes to you and says, I'm sorry for the way I treated him. Just pay attention. He's gonna do what it takes to live in the election. Like I said, why should you worry about the pandemic when you have a body that can take care of it? What would you do if you had- Don't talk louder and talk to me. What would you do if you had- I see the same thing I'm doing now. Money don't make love. Money is a tool. You use it for things that you need or things that you need to get to others. That's one thing that you're living in today. I say that I grew up on the farm. Maybe we need to go back to the farm and start growing our own food. It will move the need for the house and the car. And take care of the body. But your great-grandmother was on the farm, 12 to 20 children in the family. Everybody here at the garden. My grandmother never descended and stole the body. She'd go down to sister Mary and get into such a thing. Got by a brother, a gentleman, and get into such a thing. We'd share, I would go kill her. And I'd go kill her in the way some people. Right now, we are a race of people. There's a quick statement in the oven. Typical black male working at the space center. Get off and work. I got caught up in this thing with happy hours. Just check our other day and call it once a week to go to happy hours. Every day should be happy. So I found that I was misusing the body. I decided to investigate the seed. How can I improve? So I hooked up with a brother, big, very, very learned how to fast. Fasting is so important that you do it every 24 hours. So, learning how to... What is your favorite part about the restaurant? All of it. It's always nice to see people that's somewhat concerned of how they consume food. Because it's very important that the basic, that you are faced with every morning and night. From the bedroom to the bathroom. You eat food like this. You're blessed when you go to the bathroom that you get a good examination. Everybody, you know that they have a sickness. And one of the worst ones is, counsel, guide babies. What do I do? So when I look at the amount of the aerodology that I do, I say, you know, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I see that the bowel system is not right. So what I see if you worry about cancer, if the bowel system is not right, which is the sewage system of the body, there's no disease in the brain body. If this isn't sure, why did you choose to have a restaurant in Houston? For the restaurant in Houston, I was going to Arizona and North Carolina. Wasn't it too bad to get on the road and go do the treats again? And when I got my daughter involved, I was more interested in educating the people about the body than she got. I used to give the food away for you to come to my lectures. And she got involved, she said, hey, we could be making money with this thing. You can sell this thing. So that's how the message is. I am still doing my thing. Irradiology, consultations, just try to get people informed. Don't look to me. Look to your body. Ask your body sometimes what you need to do for it. Looking that mirror in the morning. Talk to that person and see. In particular, when you walk into the restaurant in the morning, look at your facial expression. Coming out of the restaurant. Out of the restaurant. Look at that face of expression. If you brush your teeth, wash your face, and you ain't come out, the ball's blue. You got a happiness on your face when you look at the mirror coming out. But if the ball is gone blue, you drown on your face. Something is not right. So your body got the answers for you. What would you look to do? If you were able to see your younger self, what would you tell them? If I was able to see who? Your younger self. What would you tell them? I see myself all the time. You're younger yourself. Like when you're like little kid or something. You see your younger self. What is the best way to look at them? Listen to me. You would use food. I believe that education is the life. So to look at the life that you live, you gotta go back and look at yourself crawling on the floor. And when you look at yourself crawling on the floor, do you know of anybody that did not crawl on the floor sucking on the ball? Do you know of anybody? What's so important about that? Since we all did it. So you have to spend that time in going back and look at the life that you live. Because you respond to things that happen. You have a question of what you should do. Go back and look at your life. And that's why when you go back and look at, look at the baby crawling on the floor. You see happiness. The baby is so happy it's just moving all the time. Don't you want to do that? So look at what the baby put in. What's the baby? What's the baby get the food from? What about the nipples? It's all liquid. So what happens when you're taking the liquids? It can go straight to the bloodstream. The chew food, the chew food that's solid but for the body to use what you chew when it get into the small intestine, it has to be liquid. So you have to practice. What happens when you just put in the liquid? You eliminate that. And that's what life is about, is being happy. What advice would you like to give to kids my age? He is your age. Understand fast and understand liquid fast and water fast. And a lot of parents don't talk about it. In reality, when the sperm and the egg meet up, you say, the sperm egg, not much in water. And then he, you pop up. What's so important about it? Is it hydrated? It's the essence that they're the lead or the school telling you what to do. When are you going to do water fast? Remember water got you here to prepare because water can give you any information that you wish to have. Everything starts with a thought, right? Feel that you're right here now. So your emotion is, pay attention. The little example I use, but when you get to the bathroom and then you come out. What is your emotion? You go and don't have no germination. Yeah, so that should be no worry life. We should be able to take care and do those things that the body needs. So when you get up in the morning and I'm speaking from me, I used to get up and go to the bathroom. The only thing on my mind used to be to do those things and get to the job, take care of this body. So you have to change and understand who controls the job. And if you get hooked on the job, somebody's controlling you. So the pandemic is a year of nothingness. Happiness and people that don't have a job and look at the many years they went to school to get the job. So where are their emotions? Where are they now? You just said it depends on something. You're crying, you're crying. You're so, so hateful. And it's something about you and the body. If you seek to help your body in the next place, thank you sunshine for. Thank you. That's a good, let me turn around and look at us. So that was the interview segment, live interview. So now we're going to take it on now to the interview via Zoom with our Roots family members, with our elder mother Doris and our youths and we jump into Zaire. And if y'all have any questions for Baba Sunshine when it's over, you'll have a session for Q&A. And for those who may not know what iridology is, iridology really is the ability to be born to Iris and tell you all your business. Tell you things you haven't told anybody. It's true. It's true. Hello, beautiful. Hi, my name is Zaire and I am seven years old in the second grade. I am from Atlanta, Georgia. Could you tell us your name, where you're from and a little bit about your family history? I'd be glad to. Thank you, Zaire. How are you today, Zaire? Good. Good, me too, me too. I am very glad to be here. I'm thankful to Boosie and Mark for having us as interview people on this event. And thankful to all the Roots people. Now, what was that question? Oh, yeah, I know. My name is Darius Dilsa, Juanita Davenport. Sometimes Mama D, sometimes Dr. Davenport. My pronouns are person and per. I was born and raised in Northeast Georgia in the Cherokee homeland. Colonized as Gainesville and Cornelia, Georgia. I was born in Gainesville actually and raised in Cornelia. And I left to go to college when I was 16 and now I'm back home in Cornelia, happily back home. I'm the oldest of seven siblings. Did I say that? But both my parents are deceased and I've been attending Roots since the mid-1990s. Thank you. My mom, Sandy, could ask you how old you are. Is that true? That is true. Thank you. Are you African? Yes. Let's see, I think I already told you I was 150. Yeah, not really. I'm only 71. What do you think of that? What does it sound like to you? It sounds cool. Thank you. Okay. You're welcome. When you were in school, what was your favorite subject? Oh, I like that question. I had lots of favorites actually. One of my first, and why? One of my first favorites was music because when I was in elementary school, we actually had an elementary school band with flutes and bells. That's why I wanted to play those bells. I so wanted to play the bells, Zaire. So I liked that. Then we went somewhere else and I wanted to build things, industrial arts, so my favorite. But then I liked math. And finally, I liked literature and English. So see, in school, people kept telling me how smart I was, Zaire. You can do it, you can do it. And since that's what they said, I did it. That's nice. What would you like people to know about you? There are a lot of things, Zaire, but it depends on who the people are. So I think, because you are my people today, what I think I'd like you to know about me is I'm very glad to be here. I feel very energized. Just being here today is a wonderful day. Thank you. When you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up? Okay, I will tell you the truth because let's use that here. When I was a little girl, one of the first things I wanted to be or to do was to fly. I wanted to know how to fly. I thought I could. I did, I really did. Okay, so I realized I couldn't do that. But then I just thought if I could create ultimate worlds, that could be fun. Then I wanted to be a writer and a teacher. And I've been a writer since I was 12 and I've been a teacher for 40 or 50 years at colleges. Thank you for that question. Nice. And you're welcome. Is there anything you would like kids my age to know? Kids your age. I would hope that you would know how to enjoy yourselves. I think that's important. But after that, I learned something the other day, Zaire, at one of our sessions called W-A-I-T. That means why am I talking? I like that and it's easy to remember. But I've got an addition to that, which is W-A-I-L. That means why am I living? I think that's a good question for everybody to ask. Not now, not today, Zaire. But when you get a little older, ask a question. Ask it so you can find an optimistic, positive reason. It might be I'm living to make up my bed. I'm living to go for a walk. I'm living to go hug my mother. We don't know, but why am I living? Because people have reasons, yeah. Thank you. Welcome. Closing, is there anything you would like to tell us? Thank you. Yes, there really is. And this is for you. I want to tell you this is a long answer, but please listen. Zaire. This is for you. Zaire, we are roots kin. Because you are a third generation for me, roots kin. Excuse me. What is the kin supposed to mean? Ah, thank you. I like the way you do that because you know roots, alternate roots, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. So kin, like kinfolk, right? Um, what is that supposed to mean? Relative, a relative, like you are kin to Marqueta. She's your mother. You have a father, you have cousins, kin, family. Yes. I understand. Okay. Thank you for stopping me. I was on a roll one. So, so we, you and I, you particularly are the third generation in one family. Of my roots, kin. As in roots, because of our connections to adora do pray. Your grandmother. I want to call her name with respect and love. Adora do pray. She was one of the first positive influences for me at roots was our adora do pray. And she was a beautiful, beautiful adora do pray who has transitioned to join the elders. She was a beautiful effervescent black woman, a drama, a story teller, a healer and inspirational activist and singer and dancer and African influenced fashion. Nesta with her dreads and effort style. Am I getting the Marqueta? She was all of that. Marqueta do praise Mother. When I met Adora, I also met Marqueta, who at that time was seven, or eight, or nine. 15, 20 years later, she was. She was such an ace, I am, when I met Marqueta. She looked about like you, too. You have this question and look on your face. That was Marqueta, too. Always thinking, always interested in something. Anyway, 15 or 20 years later, I saw Marqueta at Roots with her own singing trio, but you didn't know that. A few years later, she was doing some serious African dancing to Emma Tep's drum. Then, guess what? She came with that gift of you, Zaire. She brought you as a baby, to annual Roots meeting. And you came to me gladly, and one day you came querilously, and you said, and I said, I'll sing you a song. You're in my lap on the porch. I said, Zaire, I'll sing you a song. I'll sing you a sweet, sweet song. A sweet, sweet song. A sweet, sweet song. Remember that song. I'll sing you. And I taught it to Marqueta. I don't really feel, I feel like I've heard it before, but I don't remember it, because I feel like my mom sang it to me before, but I was littler, and we were, and that was one of my bedtime songs, but I forgot. You want to know it? It's very easy. We can sing it now. You want to know it again? Sure. Yeah. This is all it is to it. Everybody you can sing to. I'll sing you a happy song. A happy song. A happy song. I'll sing you. I'll sing you a happy song. I'll sing you a happy song. Come on, Marqueta. It's kind of coming back now. I'll sing you a happy song. Of all of you root family people, you can change that to laughing, to sleepy. Dyer, when I sang it to you, I said sleepy. I sang it twice, and you were asleep. Yeah. It's a good song for you. So I'm saying, everybody, I'm saying simply, Boosie and Mark, I'm very grateful. I am gratified. I'm humbled and proud to be interviewed by our root's sister, Adora's grandson, my root's daughter, niece, Marqueta's son, Zaire, who is either my great-great-grandson or my great-great nephew, but you can't know me, Zaire. You remember that? For among other things, they tell me, Zaire, you have been playing the innocence of age three. Now look at all that wonderful talent in one of your families. May we all be enriched and creatively blessed in the sharing of this lineage, forgiving me if I talk too long. And again, gratitude to you, particularly Zaire. Thank you. That's what I would like to tell you in closing. Thank you so much, Mama Doors, for your time, and thank you for being an extraordinary elder. You're an extraordinary interviewer, so I love you. Bye-bye. Bye. Okay, so yeah, you're on. We just want to thank everyone who support in the extraordinary elders film project, period. We can have done this work without the parents who brought their children every weekend for us to training for them. We appreciate Denise Lopez from the Orville radio station. She was the one that gave them practice and taught them how to words and to articulate and how to watch their body language, the people that make them so grateful to her. And she did this while, early on in her pregnancy as well. We have a beautiful girl right now, so I want to thank you to her. And she was the partner with Zinn, who was an angel in the community of Houston, an ancestor to us, and I would love to. And we want to thank all the elders that support in our project. We want to thank all the tech people who helped us today to have this project got awesome for today for our presentation. We will thank the youth departments today, as well as extraordinary elders, mother, mother Doris, and father Sunshine, and so to Inaya, and to Ryan, to Safia, and to Zaire. Thank you so much, McQuitter, again, all the parents that were not here to be thanked. We're so grateful to them all. I think my partners, I'm sure we, I think also alternate roots for blessing us with the partnership as a co-op for Partners in Action, which gave us the main resources that we needed to get this project done, to start it out, to save the youth. We're just seeing the pilot of a continuation that we continue to do this work because there's so many elders, so many stories, so many youths, and the importance of intergenerational relationships. But we have that then, the work that Wu does around women being incarcerated and then with domestic violence and homelessness, it helps those kind of issues. If you have healthy relationships when you're young, you'll know how to make healthy choices when you get older. So this is one of the reasons why we want to do this work, to show solutions, because it's a problem of solutions to some of the problems that we have, had of the people that, gifts that we had that we have lost. So we want to open it up for any Q&A, any questions or answers that you have. For any of the elders that part today, for the youth, that should part, as well as myself or my partner, Mark, as a question. Before you make a, before you ask, everybody ask a question, Bob and Sunshine would like to make a statement. I do a call in class every Saturday morning of 9.30. The call in number is 425-266-327. The code is 685-040. We speak a lot about what's happening with the pandemic. Every Saturday morning. So you repeat that again, Bob? Every Saturday morning. The call in number is 425-436-6327. The code is 685-040. Let me get it one more time and I'll put it in the chat. The phone number? Oh, somebody did it there. I think we got it. What time is the Saturday call in? 9.30 a.m. Central. 9.30 a.m. Central time. Thank you. Boosie and your daughters, also third generation, everybody. I'm not neglecting or omitting anybody, anybody I don't mean to. I'm simply proud and humbled to be a part of this project and of this roots. I mean, I knew, I met Boosie several years ago. Her two daughters came as toddlers. I remember them too. And I'm just saying thank you. I got a chance to call our sister's name, to remind her grandson that we are roots kin. That's invaluable. I do hope some version of this project, Boosie, can continue at Roots, Boosie and Mark. I just thank you so very much. I'm just full of gratitude right now. Thank you. Thank you all. That's all I have. This is a question, Boosie. There's a question? Yeah. What effects have you noticed about the children after these interaction with the extraordinary elders? Or how does it affect the children? How does it affect them? I think that they don't know yet how much it's affecting them. We will see later on. A lot of times with children, you plant seeds and then you see later on it comes out like how she asked the question. I was watching this documentary, but do you ever realize until later on how much it has impacted them? They've always been very much on their voice. For some of them who have a hard time speaking. And to answer, oh yeah, I think we should let the children speak up and see what was your experience. I'll go ahead and ask, why don't we interview the children? So like Safia, tell me about your experience. What elder stuck in your mind the most and as it, what do you remember most about your experience working with interviewing elders? How about you in the middle? What do you think? Say your name and what do you think? How about you? It's nice to meet different elders and learn from them from experience. And it's nice to see them before they pass away. I feel sad about on Denver. It was so upsetting to know that she passed away. It was upset to see them go. And it's nice to see that there are people that I was able to meet that are like almost in the hundreds. So tell us like he interviewed your neighbor. Did you ever, did you learn something new that you didn't know before interviewing her? Well, if anybody has anything else to share, I think we're pretty much. Okay, go ahead. Do you have it? Clothes and remarks? Sunshine every day. Okay. I think we were trying to ask if Zaire wanted to share anything back. Yeah. What did you, what did you get out of this process Zaire? It was, it was fun. Nice. Like it was exciting. What was exciting about it? You were looking forward to it, right? Yeah. Why were you excited to ask questions? Yeah. I've been excited to ask questions and like, it was. I don't know what to say. You don't have to say anything about Wednesday. What's on your head? What to say. Do we have any more questions? I think we had one other question from Gilene. Do you see that one, Amy? Yes. So, Gilene says, wonderful work. The question is, what was the most difficult of anyone to be filmed? The most difficult? I think I wouldn't say anybody was difficult. It's like, but some, you know, when they reached the apex of their time on earth, they have the recycled memories that they just kind of, they, they stay in those memories, those time periods. So, when you're interviewing them, they might still be in that time period versus in the time that we're interviewing them. So, and that was kind of obvious with Mother Denver. And it was also another elder who's Dr. Washington Chiropractor, meaning it's just show his video, but he's, he would say the same thing over and over again, which actually works considering sometimes he'd say it better than the first time. So, like, when you talk about his life, that's pretty much the biggest ops, the biggest, I guess, hurdle. Then it comes down to editing and moving stuff around and getting the story that they're really trying to say and make it a cohesive, cohesive presentation for anybody's viewing it. So, we worked it out to make a long story short. Any type of obstacles we came across, we worked it out. Yeah, for me, I think the biggest obstacles was just scheduling, being able to get, time that was available for everyone to meet, to be able to have, because children are not showing up on their own, they're not in the target, right? So, we needed it to be a time that's available for parents as well as the, as the elder that we're interviewing, or to be cohesive. That was the most challenging part for me, I felt, rather than that, it flowed. Anybody else? We here? Any more questions? So, we've enjoyed this experience, this presentation. Like Boosie said, we are just at the beginning of this. Any surprises, thanks, things you didn't expect? Hmm. You know, I think when you're working with children, I think the thing for me is that the reminder is to remember that they're children. So, you may go over different things over and over about a protocol or body language or what have you. And yet to remember that they're patients, but so, it's like my husband would say, it's like herding cats, right? So, so, you know, that was a reminder that you're keeping them from minding myself, but these amongst your children, both of them, and that was a reminder, even though you know their children. Yeah, the biggest thing is like, you know, like, let's say you have a shy child that doesn't like to like talk really loud, bless you. So, it's kind of like, first of all, what kind of, what were you like when you were, can you just like say, can you speak up? Okay. First of all, what would you like when you were a kid? So, that would happen a lot. So, a lot of times I just have to move the mic, you know, you throw in the time, just move the microphone close to them and, you know, kind of roll with it and then have a conversation with them afterwards so they can learn how can we hear you, what's in your heart, what's in your mind, if you're not like saying it loud. Yeah, but what's the blessing about it is that we embarked on this project before COVID. So, this is the first interview we've done post COVID, right? Yeah. So, that would, that would have been an interesting question to have as if this was going on at the time, if it was in the beginning of the project at the time of COVID, because we've had a lot of awesome response from other organizations who would like us to do some work with them and we're having to navigate and figure it out based on the day of the Asian pandemic. So, that's it moving forward and oh, yeah, let's take that back. That was the biggest, that's been the biggest challenge, that because if we were looking to do this big, you know, event and show screenings, have the elders there, have the children do a pogo. So, yeah, that's been the biggest challenge that the pandemic came just when we were going to begin to drop the project and promote it and do the work and do our first screening. So, it ended up being an online showcase. Right. Great episodes. Right. Yeah. As opposed to we were later going to do that after doing some screenings and some things first. So, because we don't know when it's going to happen, it's going to be pretty much a great web series now. We just kind of morphed it into that, which, you know, follow us on social media and web site. Extraordinary elders, everything is extraordinary elders. Extraordinaryers.com on Instagram and Facebook. Extraordinary elders. Being familiar. So, and I wanted to say, in closing, that is, I want to thank Audrey, how does she do this? Argo. Argo. Argo is who's the owner of Sunshine and her husband and her cane who came and helped us to be able to be in the back where they're the outside part of the restaurant is. And I'm grateful to them being one of the pioneers. Before him, I don't think that there were any non-indominant vegan or vegetarian restaurants. So, he was definitely here before most people and still is only a few of us. And so, as we talked about what's going on right now, pandemic, the uprising that has taken place, we know that the best protest was protest with our dollar. So, if you come to Houston, please come to Sunshine's and spend some dollars and some money that food is delicious, delicious, delicious food. I've been thinking about the whole time. So, we're working on being focused. And I actually would like to walk you all around the front so you can see that right now they have a market going on, the vendors outside in the front, and delicious, you know, they have vitamins and all kinds of other things. It's not just the food. It's, you know, herbs and foods and things of that nature. And so, it's right off of Southmore. If you look up, it's Sunshine Vegetarian. What's the exact address? 3102 OST. 3102 OST, Osnash Trail. Yes. So, we want to thank you all. Thank everyone again for all your support. We're looking to continue to do this work. So, we're going to be looking for continued resources when they ask for some of the challenges. You know, the challenge is always money. You got to get money to do this work, right? So, thank you all. Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Wendy. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you, Indy. And, you know, everyone who was a part of helping us get it together to have our presentation today. And it was an honor to be a part of Roots Week 2020 in spite of whatever challenges that we're going through right now on the planet. We're here. Thank you so much, Boussy. Thank you to all of the presenters this afternoon. We're so, so grateful for this exchange. I got Siria at actually between the elders and the children. So beautiful. Please show some affirmation and gratitude in the chat. And Mel, I'm going to step in for just a second because I wanted to Boussy and Mark were, I was able to do their site visit for the partners in action. And Amy, you were there too, yeah? And being able to go to shape and meet with the elders and just what they're doing in that center every single day, I think that it was so important to Roots to be able to partner on this project because what we understand is time is limited. And as much as we want for our people to be with us forever, we're very clear that time is limited in this realm. And Boussy kept pushing the urgency of getting these things recorded now. And I'm not going to cry because I cried. I've been crying all day. And I cried when Doris and Zaire were doing their song. And it's cleansing. I used to try to hide my tears. I don't anymore. It's cleansing. But how important it was to get these things recorded in the moment, the urgency of getting these words from our elders, the urgency of having a conversation between young people and elders before they exited this room. And so I'm so glad, grateful that we were able to partner on this partners in action and that we were able to capture, especially because Boussy, I think we were together weren't we together either on the phone or in person when the mother passed. And to be able to get that interview at the conference. That's what I was sharing. We were at our first cohort conference when she transitioned while we were together. That's right. That's right. And yeah. So as I'm flying back, she had just transitioned. Yep. So it's so important to do these. And this is just my, this will be my plug for all of us, for all the elders in our communities, are the elders and that are kin to us, Mama Doris, that we have these conversations with them, whether it's recording on a, on a phone or whatever. So we have their voices and their stories with us. So I just wanted to say that I'm grateful for the urgency of now. Grand ending. Absolutely. Sophia says, red endings. She's giving you bubbles. Yes. Yes. For the bubbles. Yes. For the bubbles in the grand ending. And I'll toss it back to Mel and Amy. Let's give us some gratitude and affirmation for all who supported this session. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Ted. Thank you, everyone. The tech team. Thanks for holding me down for interpretation, the root staff. And thanks to all of your comments and your affirmations. But before we close, two more things. Let's hear a message from our roots community. Also, the new voting member voting in process will take place tomorrow at 2 p.m. central and 3 p.m. Eastern time. If you are interested in voting and becoming a voting member, you can go to our website for details or email membership at alternate routes.org. We appreciate you. And we'll see you this evening on the live stream at 8 p.m. central and 9 p.m. Eastern for our youths hosted late night. Anyone can sign up through the form that was in your daily email or we're also going to drop it in the chat right here so you can link to it directly. We're not going to drop it in the chat. I'm going to drop it right now. As I say, we are. We just got to find it. Oh, I got it. We got it. We got it. Mel, thanks, Mel. Thanks again for joining us. Thanks again for joining us today for this awesome session. We'll close out with a video from the suspense. Lisa Q. Mount here. Coming to you from New Orleans, a.k.a. Bulbancha. I just want to talk to you for a second about this thing. And as a reminder, beliefs that guide our leader. But value singular, what a thing is worth. Will you think with me for a second about what routes is worth to you, about what you've gotten out of this organization and whether it matches what you've put into it? I know for myself, much more has come to me from being a part of roots than I have inserted into it in terms of money and time. The rewards are huge. And so I give every month. I have my little bank, send a little check off to Roots and Pagecash, is it? Will you join me please in that? Will you think about giving $5 a month? Will you think about giving $5 a week? Hey, a couple of us, we can give $5 a day. Because really, what's it worth to you? And for those of you who are new here, you got in free. Please consider giving at least the cost of an imaginary admission to this digital event. Hoping this finds you well and thriving and in a position to give your money to the things that you care about. Go for it on the regular. I'm sure there'll be details telling you how. Many thanks. So glad to see y'all.