 I actually love what Erin said about the joy that we bring to the room, that we bring to the space. My grandmothers were really big influences in my life. My grandmother Priscilla Hosey was the first business woman I ever knew. She and my great aunt, Aunt Vergerie, they would shop for months during the year before this big event. They would take the sales papers out of the ad, and they would make multiple trips to, was it pantry pride back then? Was that the store? Windixie, pick and save all in preparation for this one event. And that was the Florida Georgia game. They lived on the east side, you see. And when all those folks came to see people play football, my grandmother and my great aunt, they made their money for the entire year. Selling sweet potato pies and dinners with fried chicken and cornbread and greens and mac and cheese. They were the first entrepreneurs I knew, really. And my grandmother Jones, Essie Mae Jones, she was a firecracker. She believed in social justice, and she believed in her Jesus. One day I interviewed her because we were having a program in her honor. She was a wonderful woman. And I asked her, you know, are you ever afraid? Were you ever afraid in your life doing the things that you do? Taking the chances that you take. And this is a part of that conversation in my grandmother's words. We are all God's children, people, just people. As an adult, I never went to the back door for nothing. Never took my food through a pigeon hole. I walked right in. My daddy taught me that. He didn't like being pushed around like he was nobody. I was the same way. I used to go to Crest Department Store with my children. They had a sign over the water fountain, colored used cups. I used to make all of my children drink from that fountain. It didn't matter that they weren't thirsty. Crest didn't have a colored cash register for the money we gave them, colored used cups. Not me. I guess the Lord just protected me. I had my daddy's traits in some ways and I had Jesus. When I was a nurse at Duval Medical Center, that's Shans now, I got some things straight. It was terrible the way they treated black folks back then. All the white charts at the top, all the black ones at the bottom didn't matter what was wrong with you. I would change them charts around. Give them to the doctor just like I thought they oughta come. I was sent upstairs over and over, but I kept on doing it until they changed the way we did things. They used to have a white section and a black section in the hospital cafeteria. One day I made such a ruckus, by the time I got upstairs I was crying like a baby. I was talking about everybody I was gonna call. The head of the hospital told me to go on home and when I came back Monday morning, everything would be straight and it was. Folks too scared to do what they are supposed to do. I always felt like God gave me that job and he was the only one who could take me off of it and if he did then it was just time for me to go. I talked about the script that I wrote, Remember Love and three of the women that my protagonist and this meets to help her appreciate who she is. One of them is Angie and Angie is always dressed in African attire, always. We don't see her in the movie dressed any other way. This is a part of the end of the movie. It's a book club at the end. It's a banned book club meeting. They're meeting about Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, that's what they're reading. And Angie says this and it touches on what I was talking about earlier. I remember growing up being so ashamed of my history being tied to Africa. Don't call me African-American, just call me black. All I saw about Africa in our history books was slavery. Nobody told me that we were the first to build pyramids, that our kings and queens were the richest in the world. Everything they taught us kept us thinking bad about ourselves. But I took Mr. Franklin's black history class at UNF and I never looked back. I took my DNA test. I came from the Ghana people of West Africa. I'm proud to say that. That's why I dress the way I do. I'm proud and it makes me feel so good. I have even more love to give the world. I can love you for who you are because I know who I am. And why would anybody keep that feeling from anyone else? I was commissioned to write a poem honoring Eartha White for the reopening of the Eartha M. White Historical Museum. And this is the last piece I'll read. Eartha White's mother, Clara White, the Clara White mission, she was born in slavery on these grounds that we walk on every day and thrive on. She watched her mother being sold in front of her. And I thought that her suffering really must have been unbearable and I didn't know how she made it through. She and her husband had 12 children, all 12 died, either in utero or stillborn, all 12 died. And I wondered how she made it through and I went back to my grandmothers and their belief in God and their Jesus. And I wondered if that's how she made it through, if that's how she didn't become bitter. Because Clara White, when the slaves were freed, she found a way somehow to feed people off the back of her plantation house. She found a way to grow food, to feed even those who in her mind were the least of these when she herself must have been that way too. She even named this 13th daughter, Eartha M. White, who I was just astounded. I didn't know more about this woman's life before I did this research. She was a hero to Jacksonville. She was a hero. Where ever there was a need, she addressed it. She was a genius. She was a entrepreneur. She met with mayors and governors and presidents. I remember Mayor Tansler, he had wrote something that said if he didn't see her once a month, something was wrong. She was always in his office. She, this woman, she and her mother started the Clara White mission, but they also began an old folks home for the age. That's what they called it. She started a hospital to treat tuberculosis victims. She started the first or she got people to donate for the first brick and mortar school for black children. She was a teacher for 20 years. She was amazing. When black servicemen came to town on leave and didn't have anywhere else to stay, she created a space for them with a recreation place, with a place for them to live. She fed them. The Clara White mission today continues that legacy. But it was began with Mother Clara White and it was certainly carried on by her daughter, Eartha, Mary Magnelline White. Mother Clara White, this earth bore witness to your agony and loss. Your lineage sold before you like discounted livestock. This earth received 12 children nurtured by your heart and womb. Your suffering must have felt unbearable. This earth and endless tomb. Did your Lord and God save you from the torments of an anguished mind? Did he bathe you in tenderness like Mary Magnelline? Rescue you by his divine. Purpose and relentless industry by any means you nourished a community. From the back door of a plantation shack, you grew his love into your ministry. Doing all the good you could, in all the ways you could, for all the people you could, for as long as you could. So this 13th child born not of your womb but rather from the seeds you planted. A namesake of your identity, your noble destiny expanded. A petite and powerful reflection of your grace, your roots grew deep inside her. Your people, her people, your God, her God, Jacksonville's angel of mercy. An entrepreneur's insatiable passion for the poor gifted with the language of the elite. On a national stage, she grew treasures that still unfold to give away to the least of these. From erected sanctities in the heart of Avila, the works were passed even your inspired dreams. A savior to the sick, aged, discarded and dejected, most at home with the ones she freed. We honor her in the manner she lived her life with respect to the one who nurtured her light. This earth she purchased now proudly feeds both descendants of slaves and slave owners in need. This earth bears witness to your legacy's mighty champion. This earth sings victory over the forces that came against her, doing all the work she could, in all the ways she could, for all the people she could, for as long as she could, your daughter, Eartha Mary Magdalene White. Thank you.