 So, we're talking about joy tonight and I thought I would define also healing so that we can kind of get on the same page as far as what I mean by words heal words are important words matter. So, I wanted to find that word healing verb to make healthy whole or sound to restore to bring to an end or conclusion as in conflicts between people or groups to settle to reconcile to make well again to mend to repair to strengthen I believe words can do all of these things words heal stories heal stories teach us inspire us stories honor the past and prepare us for the future everywhere we go we bring our story with us stories connect us and so I want to share some of my personal stories with you and I thought it would be good to start at the beginning so this is where I'm from I made up of East Coast hip hop and tradition I'm from Baptist hymns and secular jigs tambourine playing late night stand at the church house or my friend's house or their friend's house on the weekends where I'm from their corduroy hand me down to family keepsakes family pictures on the wall open Bible on the coffee table I'm from that side of town where the media only comes for blood shed blood wasted never for blood restored celebrated or regenerated I'm from hopscotch and double-dutch from hide-and-go-seek and Pac-Man I'm from curry goat rice and peas and beef patties from Turquoise blue water white sand and dreadlocks reggae is in my blood grew up in the Pacific Northwest a place where rain falls more than sunshine's I'm from Douglas Furs and pine trees where we walk under waterfalls drive up windy roads and escape to the beaches on the Oregon coast where I'm from music takes away the blues I'm from Bob Marley and my hell you Jackson are with the Franklin James Brown I'm from Jackson five records and new edition tapes where I'm from we rewind tapes over and over and over again so you can write down the lyrics and memorize them where I'm from the whole neighborhood is your family ladies sit on their porches looking out for you shooing away boys like flies calling your mama to tell her what you did before you can get home and lie about it run from people ask my friend is that your hair and she says yes mine I bought it I'm from divorce being passed down to children like a family heirloom I'm from single mama's pushing strollers praying that their babies don't make the same mistakes as them I'm from a little goes a long way from son's gonna shine after the rain I'm from persevering so's and hard-working hands from a people destined to make it to their promised land I'm from been there done that can and we'll do it again now you tell me where you from thank you I didn't know as a kid that I was processing what was happening and that that writing was healing me but when I look back on those years I think about my journal as a safe space that I was able to go to and reconcile what I was feeling against what was happening and the things that people weren't talking about as a child I wrote a lot of short stories I wrote a lot of mysteries when I was seven years old I wrote a 21 page story and my teacher said I think you're gonna be a writer one day and I was so thrilled that she believed in me and so I kept writing stories and I would share them at recess I'd share them after school and I was hooked on getting people scared and getting them to want more and I was always leaving the dun dun dun at the end like I'm not gonna tell you what happens next until next Friday and so I had this one mystery where the classroom teacher was missing and the class the students were trying to figure out what happened to our teacher and they thought the substitute teacher had something to do with it so they were on this mission to find out what happened and my whole class was so into this story so week after week I would add on a chapter and add on a chapter so my whole life I was writing and then I got in the seventh grade and in the seventh grade I realized that my voice didn't have to just entertain or be amusing but that I could use my voice for something more for something good right before that right before entering the seventh grade in Portland Mulugeta Saraw in Ethiopian man was beaten to death by skinheads I was actually in the fifth grade and I remember my teacher coming to class in tears and she said to us we have to do something so she had us take out our notebooks and she asked us to write a poem or a letter for the family and that was the first time I was asked to use my voice to bring comfort to someone to think about what words could do in times of tragedy in times of pain and so I wrote a poem and I was selected I don't know I can't remember if I was like student of the month or something special that I got to be one of the students to go with my teacher to bring this gift basket of fruits and letters and poems to the family and I remember walking away after we gave that gift to the family and I was thinking this doesn't change anything Mulugeta Saraw is still gone this really horrible thing still happened what is the point of writing this poem but then my teacher was explaining to me well you took action and you spoke up and you showed this family that you cared and I started to learn and those those words from her took root in my heart that I could use my words to encourage to comfort to bring hope to just stand with someone and say I see you to say yeah this hurts this is messed up this isn't right I could bear witness through my words and so in the seventh grade I started to write poems that I felt mattered that were about social issues I was really into the news and watching the news and then writing a poem in response to what I saw and I went to a predominantly white middle school after having been in a predominantly black school in the black neighborhood in northeast Portland so this is in the late 80s early 90s were being bussed to desegregate a school in southeast Portland and once we get to the school they separated all the black kids because I think in their minds they wanted diverse classrooms so they would put one or maybe two of us in the class at a time well what that felt like was I was the only black child in a class sometimes and I felt very isolated so in the seventh grade my science teacher is passing out tests that we had taken the previous day and she walks back up to the front of the classroom and she says I am so disappointed in all of you you all took this test yesterday and failed but I'm gonna give you a chance to retake it I look down at my test and I have an A so I raise my hand not trying to be smart or talk back to her but he just don't want to take a test again so I raise my hand and I say do I have to take the test over and she turns her body away from me and talks to all the white students in class and says and this is why I'm so disappointed in you you all let Renee Watson come over here from northeast Portland and get a better grade and science than you now I'm in the seventh grade I've been taught to respect adults not to talk back I know that what she's saying is not okay but I can't quite name it I don't know words like micro aggression or macro aggression and my friends my peers they don't know what to do either so I sit while they take the test swallow my tears and I just hold that for the rest of the school day fortunately I have a mama that is the kind of mama that when you go home and tell her what went down she was at the school the next day and I was not in that meeting I don't know what was said but I was taken out of that class I look back on that moment as a time when I've an early memory of realizing that people had expectations of me based on where I lived what I look like and my journal that was all full of these stories about other people's troubles and political poems became very personal of wanting to be seen wanting to be validated for who I am so in the seventh grade I started writing poems about me and letters that I risk I could have given to people but I was too shy to do that so I wrote to this teacher I wrote to people who I felt had low expectations of me people who would talk about my neighborhood who had never been to my neighborhood but were afraid of it and thought that there was only ugliness there and there was also so much beauty and so I think that in those early years of writing in my journal and experiencing living in the Pacific Northwest as a black girl all of that prepared me for the types of books that I write I don't shy away from writing about race and the intersections of race and class because I know that our young people are seeing it and experiencing it even if they can't name it and I have a feeling that they want to talk about it and that it's the adults who may be a little afraid or intimidated to talk about it so I hope that my books serve as a way for young people and adults to come together and talk about these issues so a lot of people ask me do you write about your stories like is this really just you and it's not and it is right so in piecing me together Jade is not Renee Renee is not Jade but I understand what she's going through I know what it's like to feel invisible I know what it's like to have people say that your home is dirty that there's nothing good that can come from that neighborhood and I know what it's like to say well there might be some brokenness but there's beauty too and so I want to read a little bit from piecing me together and think about this idea of how do we remake ourselves when the world wants to break us and how do we through children's literature help young people gain tools to be able to put themselves back together when they feel broken this is a scene in the book when Jade is with her mentor and the other mentors and girls so she's one of 12 students who've been selected to be in this program and she really doesn't want to be in this program she thinks they're all stuck up and that they look down on her she's in this really fancy house in this scene so she's a little just intimidated by all of the grandeur of the space the young girls have been asked to write down a question that they have then maybe they don't want to ask out loud and they put it in a bag shake it up and they're gonna go through all these questions and so far the questions have been a little superficial about makeup tips and dating advice and Jade is like look I got real-world problems so if we're gonna be here talking let's talk about some things that matter so she's trying to think of her question to ask and she's not so sure these women can answer her question this is piecing you together Sabrina ends the night with a talk about following our dreams and believing in ourselves you have to believe you are worthy of love of happiness that you are worthy of your wildest dreams coming true when she says this so many thoughts rush through my mind I am thinking about how mom had plenty of dreams and EJ is not short on self-confidence and Lili has known she wants to be a poet since we were in middle school so it can't just be about believing and dreaming my neighborhood is full of big dreamers but I know that doesn't mean those dreams will come true I know something happens between the time our mothers and fathers and teachers and mentors send us out into the world telling us the world is yours and you're beautiful and you can be anything and the time we return to them something happens when people tell me I have a pretty face ignoring me from the neck down when I watch the news and see unarmed black men and women shot dead over and over it's kind of hard to believe this world is mine sometimes it feels like I leave home a whole person sent off with kisses from mom who is hanging her every hope on my future by the time I get home I feel like my soul has been shattered into a million pieces mom's love repairs me whenever mom's cooking a simmering on the stove and EJ's music is filling every inch of the house and I am making my art I believe everything these women are saying about being worthy of good things those are the times I feel secure feel just fine I look in the mirror and I see my dad's eyes looking back at me my mom's thick hair thick everything and that's when I believe that my dark skin isn't a curse that my lips and hips hair and nose don't need fixing that my dream of being an artist and traveling the world isn't foolish listening to these mentors I feel like I can prove the negative stereotypes about girls like me wrong that I can and will do more be more but when I leave it happens again the shattering and this makes me wonder if a black girl's life is only about being stitched together and coming undone being stitched together and coming undone being stitched together and coming undone I wonder if there's ever a way for a girl like me to feel whole wonder if any of these women can answer that so I believe that there can be joy and sadness at the same exact moment Jade is experiencing some of the best things that happened to her while experiencing some of the worst things that are happening to her and I want our young people to know that it's okay to hold both things that you can celebrate and critique something that you can love someone and also be disappointed in them that you can love your neighborhood and also want some things to change about it there's a quote that I love by Maya Angelo that says my great hope is to laugh as much as I cry I want to say it one more time my great hope is to laugh as much as I cry I appreciate this sentiment because it assumes there will be a lot of tears it's almost like she is guaranteeing that for herself and that the hope is that there will also be joy this quote inspired so much of the book what mama left me and I'd like to read a little bit of that Serenity's mother has died at the hands of her father she is now living with her religious grandmother and in this scene she's just skipped her counseling session and grandma does not play so she finds out that Serenity didn't go and they're having a conversation about that and something you should know is that cooking is a big deal in this family especially baking and so the grandmother is going to mention some of that because that's something that they enjoy to doing together I am not sure how grandma makes it up the stairs without me hearing the floor creek but here she is at my door she doesn't knock she barges in Serenity I just got off the phone with Anne grandma's eyes are sharp knives I look away why didn't you go to your session she asked I'm thinking maybe if I sit here long enough without saying anything she will just punish me and we won't even have to talk about it do you hear me I asked you a question grandma closes the bedroom door sits on my bed and asks me again why didn't you go to your session today I don't want to talk to Anne anymore why not there's no point I answered what do you mean there's no point grandma starts fessing at me she goes on and on about Anne being a person and how it's not fair to just leave her sitting in an office waiting for me she has feelings too she fesses and fesses and fesses I just can't believe you would do something like this what were you thinking why would you you want to know what I'm thinking I'm thinking that talking to Anne is stupid and so is talking to God neither of them really care about me they just like to see me cry I can't stop the words from coming out now I don't ever want to go back to see Anne and I never want to go back to church again I expect grandma to hush me but instead she just let me talk she lets me scream and yell about how unfair it is that I don't have a mother when I loved her so much and how Ricky died when really he was just doing the right thing by sticking up for a friend I tell grandma that I am so mad and angry that every time things start looking good they go bad it's not fair grandma it's not fair my eyes are so full of hot tears I can barely see grandma holds me and wipes my tears away with her pump hands and now I can see that she is crying with me serenity baby who told you life was gonna be fair well what's the point what's the point of going to church and praying and doing right if nothing good is ever gonna happen to you baby if you try to tally it up like that you'll never have peace of joy you don't get rewarded right away for good deeds and every time something bad happens doesn't mean God is out to get you grandma rubs my back and I cry softer and softer the peace comes over me like at the end of a rainstorm grandma licks me in my eyes and says now I know I haven't baked in the kitchen for a while but you do remember the main ingredients for a cake don't you I really don't want to talk about her cookbook right now but I say yes and what are they I sit back against my pillow and face grandma well you need eggs flour oil I tell her right grandma says now tell me would you ever eat a raw egg no grandma I have no idea why she's asking me this would you ever take a spoon and eat spoonfuls of flour or drink a cup of oil I am grossed out just thinking about it grandma that's nasty exactly those things don't taste good by themselves do they know but what happens when you mix all those ingredients together bacon in the oven with something sweet it tastes good I answer grab my smiles real good if I'm baking it then she takes my hands serenity baby it's the same way with life the deaths of loved ones friends hurting your feelings these are all kinds of things that happen in life that don't feel good they're just downright awful but I know from experience that all those hard hurtful things get combined with the good joyful things and somehow the good outweighs the bad grandma shifts her weight and makes herself more comfortable on my bed you know how many times I've cried in my life so many I can't count then grab my smiles but guess what I can't count the laughs either I've had plenty of both grandma says it's been a tough year serenity baby I know but it won't always hurt this bad grandma let's go up my hands the next time you look at a cake with all that pretty frosting I want you to think about what it took to get it to look that good she makes eye contact with me it's the same with life you never know but not so sweet things have happened in someone's life even the life you think is perfect you understand what I'm saying yeah grandma stands up and walks to the door now I'm not gonna make you talk to Anne but if you don't want to go back you need to let me know so I can cancel it and let her know do you need to think about it before you make your final decision yeah I tell her okay we'll talk about it tomorrow grandma says goodnight and closes my door I changed my clothes and getting to bed I can hardly sleep thinking about what grandma said I know my grandma isn't with I know my mama isn't with me but right now it feels like she is I hear her telling me I told you so and she did when I was younger mama would read to me at bedtime I always wanted her to skip to the end so I could know what would happen especially if there was a scary scene I wanted to make sure that the characters would be okay mama would say you can't truly enjoy a happy ending if you skip through all the bad parts so I read that because I wanted to give an example of a character that's going through something pretty devastating but learning how to cope with it in healthy ways I don't write books for children to help them escape reality I write to help them cope with it help them deal with it and so I you know I the truth is that our young people are going through a lot and they're witnessing a lot and Serenity has the worst thing that happens to her and I wanted young people to have an example of how can you be angry and sad and own those very real emotions but also deal with it and talk about it and lean on the people who care about you I also want a young people to have an experience of reading the many ways that black men show up for their families the father in this book is so horrible he is the worst kind of man he is the stereotypical black man that sometimes shows up in movies and books and I know that that person is real but I also know that so many men who are not that so I want to be responsible as an author and make sure that if I'm going to have that negative character that there's someone that counteracts that and shows the many ways people exist and so Danny the her brother is learning masculinity in a different way from his grandfather who is one of my favorite characters in the book the grandparents are pastors and they have now taken Serenity and Danny to live with them and so both Serenity and Danny are just experiencing a whole new way of living they've never seen a man wash dishes they've never seen a man apologize or cry and so in this scene this is the beginning of them seeing that things are going to be a little different at their grandparents home we've been back from the retreat for a week now it's Saturday morning and I wake up to the sound of slamming doors and yelling voices grandpa is standing at the foot of the steps screaming at Danny young man get back down these stairs right now I hear Danny open the door but he doesn't go downstairs he is standing in the hallway yelling back at grandpa what do you want you already said no what else is there to talk about Danny has found new boat and it's today I get out of bed and go into the hallway what's the matter Danny snaps at me none of your business leave me alone grandpa keeps fussing Danny you don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you and you don't slam doors and throw tantrums in this house you understand yes but what I don't understand is why I can't get the shoes grandpa size didn't I just buy you shoes at the beginning of the school year yeah but those are ugly Danny the answer is no no new video games no new shoes grandpa starts to walk away you ought to be grateful for what you have there are kids in this world who wish they had even one pair of shoes grandpa is out of sight now he's walked toward the kitchen still mumbling about how ungrateful the youth of today are and how materialistic we've become Danny is mumbling to my daddy would have gotten for me he says but not low enough because grandpa is making his way up the steps before Danny can say anything else what did you say grandpa short of breath because he is talking and walking up the steps at the same time you're right your father would have got you everything you wanted but son I'm gonna give you what you need when grandpa reaches the top of the stairs Danny backs up fear has come now and he raced all that boldness and attitude he flinches and puts his hands out to protect his face what are you flinching for why are you jumping back grandpa is yelling loud his voice is like thunder an unexpected roar now grandma is at the foot of the steps James leave him be leave him be she says why did you flinch up like that huh answer me James grandma is coming up the stairs to answer me Danny doesn't sound angry anymore now his voice is soft and low I thought you were gonna hit me grandma is upstairs now the hallway seems tiny with the four of us standing here the silence is loud no one speaks or moves until grandma puts her hand on my grandpa's back James leave him be grandpa gently touches Danny on his shoulder like I said I'm not your father he keeps his hand on Danny's shoulders and it must feel like a heap of coals because Danny's anger felt melts away and now he is crying grandpa repeats himself son I'm not your father I'm not like him grandma gives me a look and so I go back in our room I hear her walking down the stairs Danny and grandpa are still in the hallway neither of them say a word all I can hear is the sound of crying from both of them so again I want characters to feel real situations to feel real but I also don't want it all to be pain and struggle so we are talking about joy tonight and I want to share some joy that's in this book as well where kids can just be kids right you know we're not the things that happen to us and sometimes I think it's great that we have spaces where young people can process what's going on in their lives and where we use books to help them cope but I think it's also okay to just say let's just have fun today what do you like to watch on TV what is your favorite music and just let them be young people so that they're not defined just by tragedy or struggle so let's talk about joy let's talk about resistance I want to say you know I believe joy is not happiness happiness is brought by external things joy is internal joy does not change when circumstances change happiness does Dr. Robert Hayton describes joy as unreasonable happiness because it doesn't seem to need a reason it is a happiness that is based on nothing in other words it doesn't need a cause or an effect in order to exist joy is an inner knowing a kind of peace that anchors the soul when chaos is erupting I love the same joy is an act of resistance to be able to laugh and love and trust and give and celebrate in times like these is its own miracle poems and poets like homage to my hips and homage to my hair by Lucille Clifton and the reasons I love chocolate by Nicky Giovanni Gary so toes old about food and tennis shoes taught me how to hold on to my joy how to say I am not the tragic things that happen to me or my people so many writers and poets whose work I love and teach wrote about beauty and love and the mundane everyday things during the worst things that were happening in our nation Langston Hughes Wendell and Brooks my Angelo yes they wrote about struggle they also celebrated life put words to the simple things as if to say this hate will not steal my laugh this sadness will not destroy my soul it is easy to laugh and smile when everything is well sometimes the laugh that comes through struggle the dance that comes while mourning is the most profound I try to have a balance of struggle and joy in my work and in this scene kids are just being kids so we're gonna read a scene I'm gonna read a scene from Sunday school class anybody go to Sunday school class when you were younger this is the moment that happens right before the church service and they are in the middle school group having class Miss Valerie stands at the front of the room before we begin class I just want to remind everybody that there's no gum chewing in church two girls and a boy spit their gum out in the garbage can I slide mine to the back on the right side Miss Valerie turns the lights off the DVD starts and a voice comes out that says children do you know what Ephesians 6 says it admonishes you to obey your parents Maria sighs this is so stupid the DVD starts playing in slow motion and then it skips ahead Miss Valerie turns the lights on and goes to the DVD player I don't know what's wrong with this thing she says she takes the disc out and wipes it on her skirt then she puts it back in we start watching the DVD again this time we get father a young boy is told by his parents not to ride his bike past a certain point but he does it anyway the little boy is in the middle of the street when a car comes speeding by the DVD starts skipping forward again Miss Valerie turns the lights on okay what is going on here she searches her desk for the remote control and realizes it's not there who has the remote Miss Valerie stands with her hands on her hips there are small sounds of giggling from behind me and I turn around a row of boys are laughing and all of them have their hands in awkward places in their pockets or tucked under their folded arms I look at Danny who was sitting in the last row next to a boy named Ricky Ricky is the same age as Danny but he is so tall that he looks older than all of us his shirt is wrinkled and tucked halfway in his khaki pants his hair is braided straight back and cornrows and his lips are shining like he put on too much chapstick Danny and Ricky are hiding their hands too the only difference between them and the other boys is they are the only ones not laughing I know it's them I am very disappointed in all of you Miss Valerie says she is trying to sound older than she is she is not a real teacher she is in college and only graduated from high school last May she makes us put miss in front of her name because it shows respect she says but I think she just wants to seem important do I have to check everyone's hands Miss Valerie starts walking through the rows of metal chairs those of us in the front hold our hands up with all 10 fingers stretch wide by the time she gets to the back I feel Maria tap me on my leg I look down and she is tapping me with the remote it's been passed from the back row I turn around and say to her I can't get I don't want this take it no no no no don't give it to me put it on her desk Maria whispers no my grandmother can find out I can get just do it I take it and run on my tippy toes and Miss Valerie's desk I put it next to her Bible and rush back to my seat before she can turn around to see me Maria nudges me stop looking so guilty two girls Karen and Sabrina are sitting at the end of our row and they can't stop laughing soon we are all laughing and I wonder does God think this is funny Miss Valerie comes to the front of the room and begins to lecture us about playing in the Lord's house one of you has the remote and I know it you mean that remote Maria says she points to Miss Valerie's desk Miss Valerie looks at the desk then back at us I'm telling your parents she says it's been there the whole time Maria says then Deacon Harris walks by ringing the bell and the whole class cheers because we realized we have just wasted the whole hour we get it from our seats and head to the door wait a minute Miss Valerie says someone has to share during the wrap-up session we all get quiet we have nothing to share because we didn't do anything didn't think about that did you Miss Valerie almost smiles at the fact that now the same kids who just drove her wild will be in trouble because they have nothing to share with their parents Ricky shouts well if we don't have anything to share they'll think you're not a good teacher Miss Valerie rolls her eyes and grabs a picture off the wall who's is this she shows it to all of us like kindergarten teachers show picture books as they read I raised my hand good you're sharing today what what am I supposed to say talk about why you do this picture what it means to you what Bible story inspired I don't know say whatever you want Miss Valerie hands me the picture and we all leave class during the wrap-up session when Deacon Harris asked who's sharing from the middle school class I realized that I am nervous and that I really don't want to do this and I think how Danny and Ricky and the rest of the class owe me Miss Valerie to I stand at the front of the congregation and say I drew this picture after we had a lesson about heaven because it sounds like a place I want to go I hold my picture up and show it to everyone it's a picture of heaven streets paved with gold silver gates grandma looks at it and she is smiling and clapping and everyone joins her I colored the angels brown like my mama so I like to just let kids be kids and I also want to let young people have a moment on the page to raise their voice and to say who they are again thinking about the character being an example hopefully for the reader who's reading the book so when watches rise the way that joy is resistance is through care a character named Jasmine who is a plus size girl dark skin and very proud of her body and not ashamed of it and she raises her voice in this joyous way to say I'm here I'm beautiful this is who I am I'm not gonna apologize for taking up space and these are the stories I bring with me so this is a definition poem from the book that she writes it's as if you would look into the dictionary and see a hair and tell the story of your hair I always tell young people you bring stories with you in this room right now so many stories are here memories favorite songs favorite foods recipes that have been passed down generation to generation fears questions and I when I'm teaching poetry say it again people all of that is welcomed here and that's all the material we're gonna create from so this is a definition poem written in Jasmine's voice and it's called this body this body a definition poem skin noun one sensitive dry see dove soap oil of Olay shea butter see middle school pimples plumping up the night before picture day always on the chin or nose too dark see slave see Negro see age seven see yourself playing on the playground when a white girl says you must eat a lot of chocolate since your skin so brown hair noun one see assimilation see smoke from the hot comb crochet in the air burning a sacred incense see your mama parting your hair bringing iron to nap hold your ear baby she tells you so she can press Africa out when black girls ask is it real say yes when white girls ask can I touch it say no to see natural reference Angela Davis Dorothy Pittman Hughes call me or is out twist yours like black licorice like the lynching rope used on your ancestors next let it hang free hips noun one reference Lucille Clifton and every other big girl who knows how to work a hula hoop see Beyonce dance like her in the mirror don't be afraid of all your powers too you will not fit in most places do not bend squeeze contort yourself be big brown girl big wide smile big wild hair big wondrous hips brown girl be this body too my body is perfect and imperfect and black and girl and big and thick hair and short legs and scraped knee and held scar and heart beating and hands that hold and voice that bellows and feet that dance and arms that embrace and my mama's eyes and my daddy's smile and my grandma's hope and my body is master peace and my body is mine sometimes joy comes from knowing you have an extended family I know that some of the readers who read my books don't have the mom and the dad and the grandpa in the stories that I'm reading and writing and so I want them to think about their ancestors I want them to think about artists who've come before them to find family and people that are handmade and maybe not biological so in some places more than others Amar definitely has her family she's learning that history and figuring out where she comes from literally but she's also learning her cultural history where her roots connect and she's drawing strength from that as well so I'm going to close I'm going to read a little bit from some places more than others and end with the poem from piecing me together but I wanted to make sure you guys get to hear a little bit from Amara who is in Harlem she has begged to go on this trip and she finally gets to go and she has her camera she's such a tourist and her cousins are so annoyed because this is their home so they're like whatever yeah yeah yeah it's time square yeah yeah yeah it's the statue you know they don't care about all the things that she's like I've never seen this before and so she's never been to a place like the Schaumburg center which if you have not been you should go because it is a wonderful wonderful necessary place so she's going there for the first time and this is what happens when she arrives she's looking at the cosmogram on the floor and her grandpa is telling her the history of this space which if you don't know was created by mr. Schaumburg because he was told as a child that black people didn't have a history that they hadn't contributed anything to society that was good so he searched and researched and found all the things that we have done and this place is a research library that houses all this information they're standing at the cosmogram that has a poem by Langston Hughes people walk by coming and going the elevator deans voices echo footsteps tap against the tile but I don't move I breathe in this place think of all the activists and artists politicians and preachers and teachers who walked in here think how grandpa Earl said this place was created with me and mind I wonder if my ancestors saw me coming how far into the future could they imagine just the idea that people like Harriet Tubman Adam Clayton Powell and Langston Hughes were thinking that one day someone like me would exist in a free world makes my heart pound my eyes water I study the cosmogram which looks like a map like a blueprint of all the places black people have been all the places we bring with us I think about what Mr. Rosen said when he told me some things you won't be able to put in your suitcase some things are intangible and yet you carry them with you now I know what he means so that's just a little little taste of some places more than others finding home finding place and maybe a place that isn't yours she doesn't belong to Harlem but she belongs to Harlem and Harlem is hers I want to close by reading a poem but the closing poem and piecing me together we've talked about joy being a miracle the fact that we can laugh in times when there's such great tragedy happening in times when we're frustrated about what's going on in our world in our nation how do we hold on to joy how do we remember the things that are worth remembering to keep us going how do we stitch ourselves back together when I was writing piecing me together I was writing that to the backdrop of Sandra Bland all of that summer of great loss in our nation at the hands of police officers and the the stories of women weren't being told as much so I was digging to find well what's happening to black women and their bodies so this poem celebrates and honors the women that were lost and also the young girls that those videos that were viral about the girls at the swimming pool who were dragged by police officers a girl sitting in her classroom who got dragged out of her desk all of that made it into the book because I was like I cannot write about black girls without writing about what's happening to their bodies and so even if that's not your story I want you to just think about the things you've been through the good the bad I want you to think about how it is that you're still standing you're still here I want you to think about getting a journal writing your own story sharing your story with someone I tell young people all the time there's one thing that you can be an author but you can be a writer writers right you don't have to publish what you write you can still just write to get it out to release it to share it to put on record your own story so many times people are trying to speak for us on our behalf I think it's important to tell your own story this is black girls rising our black bodies sacred our black bodies holy our bodies our own every smile a protest every laugh a miracle peace by peace we stitch ourselves back together this black girl tapestry this black body that gets dragged out of school desk slammed onto floor tossed about at pool side pulled over and pushed onto grass arrested never to return home shot on doorsteps on sofas while sleeping and dreaming of our next day our bodies a quilt that tells stories of the middle passage of roots yanked and we planted our bodies a mosaic of languages forgotten of freedom songs and moaned prayers our bodies no longer disregarded objectified scrutinized our bodies our own every smile a protest every laugh a miracle our bodies rising our feet marching legs dancing our bellies birthing hands raising our hearts healing our voices speaking up our bodies so black so beautiful here still rising rising thank you.