 Let's try again. Good evening. Yeah there you go. Hello Boston. So I'm really delighted that you're all here tonight. My name is David Dower. I'm the director of artistic programs here at ArtsEmerson and on behalf of all my colleagues at ArtsEmerson, Howround, the Emma Lewis Center and Emerson College, so happy to have you all tonight. We're here to celebrate the launch of a very important powerful book, Daniel Beatty's Transforming Pain into Power, and we're going to start it off tonight with a local poet. Before we begin, I would just like to make sure that we do the exit stuff. So take a look at the exit signs and in the case of an emergency, because it does get hot up in here when Daniel Beatty's performing, in case of emergency, go toward the nearest exit sign and away from the building, okay? Got it? All right, thank you. So here we go. So the order of the evening tonight, we're going to start with Jadid. We're going then to Kendall Ramseur, and then we're going to Daniel Beatty, and then we're going to an announcement that you all are going to be here for that I cannot wait to share with you, and then we're going to a book signing in the lobby, okay? That's what's going to end up happening. So and people are filing in. We're all going to just live with that, and I'd love to introduce to you a really lovely poet who I first met here when she was performing with J Williams' celebration of the arts. Jadid is the founder of if you can feel it, you can speak it, and here she is to start the evening off with one of her own poems. Jadid, please. Good evening, Boston Paramount Theater. Good evening. You can say it back. Thank you. I am Jadid in this poem is entitled When Our Mamas Named Us. Our Mamas Named Us, they knew we would change our names to fit the stage. That when they taught us to spell, we would write love letters for breaking hearts, and that when we learned how to talk, we would speak for the silent masses. I wonder if when they watched us walk, they could see us dancing to the music in our hearts, and if when they heard us laugh, they could testify to the passion in our throats, and if when they held our hands, they could sense our powers to heal. I wonder if when our mamas saw us cry, they knew then the emotions that we would personify. If when they witnessed our frustrations, they predicted that we'd be able to transform that into determination. I wonder if when they fed us, they realized we'd have a hunger that can't be satisfied and that when they encouraged us, we'd be amongst those to be memorialized. I wonder if when our fathers left us, they realized that they were leaving behind legacies with bedtime stories of neglect and miss memories. I wonder if when our mamas watched us sleep, they knew the colors our dreams would keep. I wonder if when they chastised us, they knew that they were shifting strength. When they corrected us, they were knitting knowledge. When they loved us, they were curating confidence. When they hugged us, they were harvesting humility. When they protected us, they were forbidding fear, and when they smiled at us, they were perpetuating peace. I wonder if when our mamas celebrated our individuality, if they knew that they were initiating creativity, and when they applauded us, they were mobilizing mobility. I wonder if when they talked to us, they knew they'd be our greatest pedagogues. When they listened to us, it taught us to project our voices. When they read to us, it prepared us for diverse dialogues, and when they gave us options, it installed for us wise choices. I wonder if when our mamas demonstrated care, they knew that we would own the means by which to provide it, and that when they taught us our history, we would be willing and able to rewrite it, pulling power and peace from all this war and rage. Yes, I cannot help but wonder if when my mama named me, she knew I would change my name to fit this stage. Thank you. How perfect is that, huh? Thank you, Jadi. So our next artist, I'm so happy that he's with us tonight. When Daniel was here, how many of you saw Emergency? And those of you, okay, now, those of you who haven't seen Emergency, how many of you have seen Knock Knock, the poem? Okay, so it's the Daniel Beaty crowd. So those of you who couldn't answer yes to either one of those things clap. Okay, welcome. Welcome to the club. By the end of tonight, you're gonna be wooing and wowing as well, and I'm so jealous that you get to have the first experience here tonight with Daniel. Some of us have had many, and I'm still delighted by them. But when he was here with Emergency, we had this beautiful event that Akiba Abaka organized. Yes, give it up for Akiba, that's right. Akiba is our director of audience development now here at Arts Emerson, but then she was working with us on developing the audience for Emergency, and she organized an event at the Afro-Americans Museum of the Arts. I'm sorry, I always struggle over that name, but we're Elma Lewis, the Elma Lewis Center in Roxbury. And at that museum, she organized an event that included this next artist who played an incredible cello number for Daniel to welcome him to Boston. And so now he's here tonight with a whole band, and it's Kendall Ramsour, who is the winner of Boston's inspirational artist of the year from the Boston Music Awards since last we saw him. Kendall Ramsour. You can boost the piano up a little in the meantime. How are you guys doing? I can't really see any of you, but that's all right. I know you're out there. This first song is titled D Major. It's a song that myself and Cordero Rodriguez wrote, and once we get the sound working, we should be ready to start. We just added two people to the band. They just walked on just now. I don't even know who they are. We have Dara Carter, one of the backup singers here, Eugene Mudawe. We have Michael Lindo on the guitar and Cordero Rodriguez on the piano. All right, so this next song is titled Try Again. Some of you guys know it. I don't know. All right, cool. All right, so what I want to do, I want to teach you all the course of the song. When the course comes up in the song, I would like for you all to join me. I can't see you, but I can hear you. Okay? So no singing out of tune. All right, so here's the course. Wake yourself up and dream. Brush yourself off. Just try. Let's try it. Ready? And. Wake yourself. I heard two people. Let's try it again. Ready? And. Wake yourself up and dream again. Brush yourself. Try again so you. Okay, here we go. Whenever it comes up you guys join us. Here we go. The judgment rendered is a liberty for as long as you have foundations of your dreams. We thought had passed away. So now let's start right here. Just you guys ready? And. Wake yourself up. Brush yourself. If you triple. Do we have time for one more? I don't know. Is that a go? That's a go. All right. Would you guys like to hear one more? I hope I can remember how to play it. All right, so this next song is titled No Love Like Mine. And it's from my debut album Time, which if you guys are interested in any of the songs we've sung or played, you can find it on iTunes, CD Baby and Amazon. All right? So again, No Love Like Mine, feel free to snap with us. with you. So much. Thank you. Yeah. That's really, really moving that he was at the first event and his career just keeps zooming. I hope you'll stop by and get his material on your way out as well. So now we come to the heart of the matter and I just want to also give a shout out to all of you who are watching online through the courtesy of HowlRound TV, our partners here at Emerson College. Thank you, HowlRound. And HowlRound, the Elma Lewis Center for Civic Engagement, Learning, and Research and Arts Emerson are the co-sponsors of this evening's event and so that's the service that we provide the nonprofit theater community all over the world really, Vijay Matthew on the camera back there, so thank you all for that. So here we go. When I first started working with Daniel, he was doing a piece called Emergency. We did it in D.C. together, then we did it here. Last year, many of you saw that, you'll hear pieces of that here tonight. In the interim, he's written two books, not one, two books. And if you have children or know people with children, there's a book called Knock Knock that is a children's book that is absolutely beautiful. Anybody here seen it? Some of you? Yeah. Just beautiful. Came out at the end of last year, I believe, and then right on its heels comes transforming pain into power. And so here tonight to talk us through, take us through his journey both with that, the book and also in his life and how it leads to the book is the man himself. So please welcome Mr. Daniel Beatty. I'm actually not using the microphone, I have a lavalier on. A little technical difficulties. Up this broadcast to bring you this breaking news report, a slave ship has just risen out of the Hudson River in front of the Statue of Liberty. That's right, you heard me. A slave ship has just risen out of the Hudson River in front of the Statue of Liberty. People across Manhattan are leaving their homes and jobs to witness what many are calling some deep shit. I was laying here trying to get me some sleep. When all of a sudden I hear this loud rush of water, see this harsh blinding light, it made me close my eyes real tight. Then when I open them again, there's this big cute ship standing right here in front of the Statue of Liberty, all old and worn down looking. Slaveologists are busy trying to figure it out. Yes, emotions are high as people from all walks of life pour into Liberty Island. One group calling themselves Pawn, pissed off Negroes, have brought tents and rifles and vowed to shoot anybody who tried to move this ship. What? Yes, let's get some more live on the spot feedback from the crowd gathering here at Liberty Island. Slave ship, I thought this was the carnival crows. A soldier slave ship, I was in stunned silence, then I started to worship, I started to pray. Jesus, hallelujah, thank you for not forgetting about your people. Thank you for his sign, help us remember who we are. Oh, I came right away with my grandbaby Clarissa and her friend, Peter, our babies need to see this. My name Clarissa and this is my boyfriend, Peter. Hi everybody, hi. I mean, I guess I never really thought about slavery for this slave ship. Oh, Peter, he sometimes be talking about it, but I don't pay him no attention. No, they think he's just nothing about it in school, they think he's just about Africa and nothing. Oh, yeah, they tell us about Egypt, the pyramids and stuff right here, but nothing about Africa. Egypt is in Africa. You mean that people was black? See, I told you Clarissa, shut up, Peter, dang. I am a slave ologist from Ghana, West Africa. During the time of the civil rights movement here in your country, we in Africa looked to black America as inspiration as we fought for independence at home and 40 years later we are still looking, but the picture is much different. Do you know that our gangs, Crips and Bloods in Ghana, it's a polling, it's a setback. In 2014, there are black people succeeding in every field, tennis, golf, gymnastics. This is the last thing we need. I work in corporate America around the corner from here and one of my colleagues just came into my office in tears after hearing the news on the radio and she tells me she has papers that prove her great, great grandparents owned slaves and she wants to apologize and I said, why are you apologizing to me, Kathy? It was your great, great grandparents, she's hysterical. So I say, look at me, Kathy. You've been to my home. Our children play together. Look at this office, Kathy, I'm your boss. Working there at the Statue of Liberty always been afraid of a terrorist attack on me. I never expected anything like this, I mean, not in a million years. This slave ship is proof that slavery is not history, it's reality. I write books on post-traumatic slave syndrome, how the experience of slavery still impacts the minds and hearts of black people today. Look at these people's faces. This is exactly why most of us don't watch those PBS specials or talk about slave with our children. We don't know what to do with the anger, but we have to learn from the Jewish people they vow never to forget. Yo, check it, slave ship buttons, yo, ma, check it, I got your slave ship buttons. Excuse me, sir, but what exactly are you selling? Buttons. This one here is a slave jumping off the boat, and this one's a slave beating his mass's ass. How will this story unfold? Stay tuned for further details. Good evening, Boston. Good evening, Boston. Again, my name is Daniel Beatty, and I cannot express to you how full my heart is to be back here in Boston, this city that has been so good to me, and particularly with Emerson College, with Arts Emerson, with this phenomenal team of producers and artists who have also embraced me with such love. So thank you all so much for being here tonight. What you just saw was the opening monologue for my one-man play, Emergency, in which I play 43 different characters. As you just heard, Emergency is about a slave ship that arises in front of the Statue of Liberty in present-day New York City, and I choose this image for a very particular reason. For me, slavery represents the time of greatest bondage in our nation's history, and the Statue of Liberty is the greatest symbol of freedom in our nation. So a slave ship in front of the Statue of Liberty asks the question, what stands in front of our freedom? What stands in front of our freedom? And that's a question that I invite you to consider this evening as I share with you my story. What stands in front of your freedom? Not just your physical freedom, but your freedom to dream, to have possibility and hope, to manifest the most extraordinary outcomes for yourself and for the people you love. What stands in front of your freedom? Not just your freedom as an individual, but your freedom as a member of this city, this larger Boston family, your freedom as a member of this human race. What stands in front of our freedom? Tonight I'm going to share with you a lot of my business. I'm going to tell you a lot of my personal story, and I just ask that you keep your minds and hearts open to what I have to say. I was almost born in prison. At the time of my conception, my father was a wanted heroine dealer. When my mama was six months pregnant with me, the cops broke into our home, the heroine was there, and so was my mama and daddy. My mama was facing 10 to 20 years in prison. My father was facing 20 to 40. The judge gave my father a choice. He could either turn in the higher ranking members of his crew, and he and my mom would be set free, or he and my mother could both go to jail, which would cause me to be born in a prison hospital. My father made the decision to be a snitch, as it's called, in the world of criminal activity. But in my heart, I believe an inheritance of imprisonment was still passed on. And so much of my life, and so much of what I'm interested in as a writer and performer, is about this journey to get free. How do I break free, and how do I inspire the possibility of that breaking free, and those to whom I'm able to tell my stories? When my mom and father were both released from prison, my mama went off to be a social worker. My mama's always loved helping people, and my daddy was my principal caregiver. He was the one who changed my diapers, and he tells me stories of carrying me on his shoulders all around town. And he had this big, huge afro, and I would sit on his shoulder, and I would hold on by holding onto his afro. Unfortunately, my father's guilt over turning in the other members of his crew caused him to start abusing the hero when he was once only selling. And this poem that I'm gonna share with you is what happened next in my personal story. Sometimes I feel like a far, sometimes I feel. As a boy, I shared a game. We played it every morning till I was three. He would knock, knock on my door, and I pretended to be asleep till he got right next to the bed, then I would get up and jump into his arms. Good morning, papa. And my papa, he would tell me that he loved me. We shared a game, knock, knock, to that day when the knock never came. And my mama takes me on a ride past cornfields on this never-ending highway till we reach a place of high rusty gates. A confused little boy into the building carried in my mama's arms. Knock, knock, reach a room of windows and brown faces. I can't get out of the window, sitch, my father, I jump out of my mama's arms and run joyously towards my papa's, only to be confronted by this window. I knock, knock, trying to break through the glass, trying to get to my father. I knock, knock, as my mama pulls me away before my papa even says a word. Never years. He has never said a word. As old years later, I write these words with a little boy in me who still awaits his papa's knock. Papa, come home, because I miss you. Miss you waking me up in the morning, telling me you love me. Papa, come home, because there's things I don't know. And I thought maybe you could teach me how to shave, how to dribble a ball, how to talk to a lady, how to walk like a man. Papa, come home, because I decided I'd walk back and want to be just like you. But I'm forgetting who you are. And years later, a little boy cries, and so I write these words and I try to heal and I try to father myself. And I dream up a father who says the words my father did not. Dear son, I'm sorry I never came home. For every lesson I failed to teach here these words. Shave in one direction with strong deliberate strokes to avoid irritation. Do the page with the brilliance of your ballpoint pen. Walk like a guard and your goddess will come to you. No longer will I be there to knock on your door. You must enter and knock for yourself. Knock, knock down doors of racism and poverty that I could not. Knock, knock down doors of opportunity for the lost brilliance of the black men who crowd these cells. Knock, knock with diligence for the sake of your children. Knock, knock for me for as long as you are free. These prison gates cannot contain my spirit. The best of me still lives in you. Knock, knock with the knowledge that you are my son, but you are not my choices. Yes, we are our father's sons and daughters, but we are not their choices. But despite their absences, we are still here, still alive, still breathing with the power to change this world. One little boy and girl at it. Thank you so much. As you just heard in that poem, my father was arrested and incarcerated for the first time in my life when I was three years old. My mama took me to visit him in prison and he was behind a glass and I couldn't reach him. And his children were very self-focused and we view the world in terms of our most basic needs. We've not lived on the earth long enough and we're children to understand that many times adults make choices or things happen that have nothing to do with us. So in the space of my father's incarceration and the abandonment that I then experienced, I made up some false ideas about myself. I must be bad if my father would leave me. Over time, that thought became an internalized feeling. I am bad. I'm unworthy of love. I'm ashamed and I hope nobody ever finds out. Over time, that internalized feeling manifested in the behavior. Now for many of us, many of our children, even when we become adults, those behaviors are obviously negative. For children it could be acting out in school, being disrespectful to parents, being emotionally withdrawn. Not being able to express what we really feel in the world. For me, that behavior wasn't obviously negative in the beginning. For me it was, I will over-achieve to the point of exhaustion to prove to myself and to other people that I'm not bad. Negative experience, my father's abandonment. Negative thought, I must be bad if my father would leave me. Negative feeling, I am bad. Ultimately, negative behavior. I will over-achieve to the point of exhaustion to prove to myself and other people that I'm not bad. Right? So, as I offer this idea, I invite you to consider, allow your minds and your haunts to wander back to any moments that may have shown up in your own life where an event happened that was out of your control, that was traumatic, that was negative, that was difficult, which perhaps caused you to think a thought about yourself, feel a way about yourself and ultimately manifest it in a behavior, perhaps a behavior that is still present in your life today, conscious or unconscious. So we're gonna talk a little bit more about that later, but I'd love to tell you a bit more of my story. With my father's incarceration, my mama was our sole provider and she worked very long hours to make sure that we were taken care of. And this next form that we're gonna share is about my mama. And as I share this form, I also invite you to think about your own mothers or the mother figures in your lives or that have been in your life. A grandmama sometimes, an auntie, maybe even a teacher who really stood in the gap. For me and for many of us, I know that mamas have stood in the gap in a very powerful way. And there is nothing in my experience like the gift of a mama's love. So this poem is dedicated to my mama and to all the mamas who are here this evening. Mama, I saw you raise five of us by yourself with the father nowhere in sight. I saw you inspire revolution with a chicken and two potatoes. I saw you limp home late at night after a long day's work with sores on your feet. I saw you gracefully remove groceries from the cart when the bill got too high. I saw you pray when brother stole a microwave to buy drugs. I saw you make Christmas a ceremony and I could have sworn we were royalty. I saw you hold our home together like a foundation that would never crumble. But mama, I never saw you dance. I never saw you dance. And I wonder what happened to your music because I've got an instinct you still know how to groove. And so like a soulful incantation, I write this dream for you. I see you stand in a celestial ballroom lit by the moon. I see you wear a gown of rose petals woven with gold thread. I see you sparkle like the necklace of stars upon your neck. I see you're comfortable in shoes cut from the clouds. I see you're happy with a mate adoring every inch of your essence. And mama, he looks like Denzel. I see you laugh as Nina and Luther sing eternally for you. And mama, I see you dance. Yes, mama, I see you dance. And I say dance, mama, dance. Break the floodgates of countless uncry tears and dance, mama, dance. For all the nights you slept alone with no warm arms to hold you. Dance, mama, dance. For all the dreams that you forgot so we could make it through the day. Dance, mama, dance. Like your nightmare is ending, like joy is beginning, like life is not through with you yet. Laugh, cry, swirl, twirl. Dance, mama, dance, dance, dance, dance, mama, dance. Here there's a beautiful baby out there singing along with me. Sing on, baby. Sing on. So that poem is for all the mamas. Despite my mother's best efforts to raise us without a father in the home, my older brother, 10 years older, became addicted to crack cocaine. And as too many of us in this room know, crack cocaine is a horrific drug. And sometimes when I was alone with my brother, he would get violent. And because my mama was off working long hours, I would run across the street to a neighbor's home or to the church down the block so that I could be safe until my mama would come and get me. One of these experiences when I'm 10 years old, I escape from the house and something stops me in my tracks in the church parking lot. And I'm a 10 year old boy at the time and I close my eyes and I see myself as a grown man and I'm dressed all in black and I'm standing on a stage in front of hundreds of people and I'm speaking. Now as a small child, I didn't know exactly what that vision meant, but I knew this much. I had made it. I knew that there was a purpose to the pain that I was experiencing, the pain that my family and larger community were experiencing. And I firmly believe in that idea that there is always the possibility of purpose and power in our pain. When I was 10 years old, something else really transformative happened for me. My third grade teacher, Mavis Jackson played a recording for me for the first time of Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech. And a whole world of possibility opened up for me. Here is this man, this black man who didn't look so different from my father and my brother. And he was using words and emotion to inspire and in my mind to literally change the world. And I ran to my third grade teacher and I said, Mrs. Jackson, I want to do that. I want to use words like Dr. King. And she helped me write my first speech in the third grade called I think the best, I expect the best. And because she was an extraordinary teacher, she didn't stop there. She called the local service organizations, the NAACP, the SCLC, the Kiwanis, the Rotary. All of them. As she said, I've got this third grade who's written a speech. Can he come to your meeting and share? And they would tell the state convention then the national convention. Before I knew it was happening, I was traveling all over the world giving speeches. This model of possibility that Dr. King provided for me, this love of words, of language and passion became my bridge over troubled waters. It became such a huge deal for me that by time I was a junior in high school, I was receiving letters from Harvard, Yale, Princeton to apply. I ended up receiving a scholarship to Yale University. And though I dealt with many insecurities while I was at college, upon graduation I was awarded one of the university's highest honors. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I share this story for a very particular reason. First reason was that in the midst of chaos, my passion and my love of the arts and of language and of words really became a bridge over troubled waters. But there's another aspect of that moment in my life that I'm just now starting to be transparent about. As I stood on that stage at Yale University in front of all of my teachers, all of my classmates, all of our parents and friends, I was miserable. In fact, I was so miserable that some weeks before I had tried to take my own life. And you may ask yourself, why would this young man who was by any one's definition a success be so miserable that he would have tried to kill himself? Negative experience, my father's abandonment, negative thought, I must be bad. Negative feeling, I am bad. Ultimately negative behavior. I will over achieve to the point of exhaustion to prove to myself and other people that I'm not bad. And when achievement fails to heal that initial wound, I'm still in pain. So I made up in my mind in that moment that I was going to go on a path to try to create a life that I would truly love. And I made up in my mind in that moment that I really needed to heal. And for me, that healing was about going back to my first love, my daddy. So I'm gonna share with you an excerpt from Transforming Paying to Power. I have a book, y'all. I'm excited about it. And this is about the moment when I make the decision to reconnect with my father. I'm back home in Dayton, Ohio, and I've decided to do it. I'm gonna visit my father in prison. This will be the first time I've seen my father in more years than I can remember, at least 10. As I ride in the car next to my mother, all manner of thoughts and emotions course through me. Do I look like him? What if he doesn't like me? What if I don't like him? I arrive at the prison, a massive gray and brown industrial complex. A large, muscular, imposing guard stands at the counter as I enter the first door. Take everything out of your pocket and place it in that basket. I do as I'm instructed, terrified. As I remove my keys and my wallet from my pocket, I can feel the sweatiness of my palms. The guard presses a buzzer. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. A gate opens, enter through there. Gate one, slam, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Another gate opens. Gate two, slam. I enter a room of tables and brown faces, men with their children, girlfriends, mothers, wives sit not touching but with the longing to touch pouring from their eyes. Some of the men are chained around their ankles. Some also around their wrists. Anxiously I stare in the direction from which I see the men arriving and departing. I can feel my heart beating in my throat. I swallow hard, eager and afraid to see my father. He enters wearing a bright orange jumpsuit. He has salt and pepper hair and is much older than I remember. The guard removes the chains around his ankles around his wrists, thank God. He walks slowly towards me and opens his arms. And I jump, knock, knock. In this moment I am once again the little boy that longed for his daddy. In this moment all the love I felt for him as a small child comes flooding back to me. As I sit and listen to his stories, some certainly lies and excuses. I devour every word, desperate for them to be true, desperate to understand, to believe that his choices, his abandonment were not my fault. Like to underscore a line. I devour every word, desperate to understand thought, to believe, feeling, his choices, his abandonment were not my fault. So I've spent a lot of time thus far talking about the pain. But my real intent in writing this book, my real intent in writing plays like emergency when I speak about a very painful time in our nation's history, like slavery. My intent is for us to know that no matter the pain that has showed up in our lives as individuals, the pain we may be experiencing now, the inevitable pain that will show up in the future. No matter the pain we experience as a human community, as a city of Boston, as a nation, no matter that pain, there is a possibility of transforming that pain to power. This book talks about my personal journey to heal. Part of it was with my father personally about learning to forgive. Part of it was about me allowing myself to really feel my feelings rather than resisting them so that in the space of feeling them I could learn what information was there and also being able to move through it. Part of the experience for me was clarifying my purpose, learning and asking myself what was the experience of this particular pain that could be information that could be useful to someone else. And the greatest thing that I began to discover in this process was the gift of creativity. I began to discover that even in the midst of all of the sadness that was occurring in my life, all of the years truly of sadness, when I would have a singing lesson or perform a concert, when I was in an acting class or perform a play, I was experiencing a level of freedom that I did not even think was possible for me. And I began to pay attention to where this feeling of freedom was rooted. And for me, I found this space of freedom to be rooted in my breath. And the book I call it this idea of the authentic self, this idea that there's a space inside of us all that is creative potential, that is the unlimited potential to create, do or be anything. That regardless of the experiences that have shown up in our lives as individuals or as a community, regardless of the negative thoughts we develop in response to those experiences as individuals or a community, the feelings that we develop and ultimately the behaviors we develop, regardless of all of those things, there is a creative potential inside of all of us that can interrupt that cycle, take ownership of the narratives of our lives as individuals and our lives as a nation, as a city, as a community, we have the power within us to rewrite the story and to transform that pain into power. And what I began to discover which was hugely important for me is that our deepest pain is often the path to our highest purpose. The very things that could almost take us out, the very things that we wish we could stop thinking about, we've sat on a therapist's couch about, we prayed to God about, the very things that we wish would go away. Sometimes those very experiences, that very pain is the path to our highest purpose. I wrote knock, knock. I wrote transforming pain to power. Truly I wrote every play that I've written. I performed with the passion and emotion that I performed, largely because my father was exactly who he was. Right? And in the space of that understanding, I really have no reason to hold resentment towards him. I have no reason to live in a space of unforgiveness. The other thing that I'm gonna share with you is about the power of language and our narrative that we say about ourselves as individuals or a community. Part of breaking this cycle of negative experience leading to negative thoughts, negative feelings, negative behavior. And this work that I'm talking about in the therapeutic circles is called the cognitive triangle, right? So, and it becomes this triangle of behavior that people feel that they can't break out of because then it reverses. Once you get in that cycle, you then, once you're in the space of behavior in a certain way, you then have feelings because of that behavior and resulting thoughts. And it seems to be this inevitable cycle. For me, one of the most powerful tools about breaking this cycle was beginning to speak to myself, the truth about myself, separate from the experiences or the things that had happened in my life, right? So, I still to this day have a binder. And it's a black binder in the first few pages of this black binder, what I call my gratitude pages. And it's all the miracles, all of the wonderful things that have happened in my life. And the second set of pages are my affirmations. And as corny as some people may think it seems, I have stood on stages around this world. I have taken my binder with me to various Marriots and Holiday Ends or wherever it is that I've been staying. And as I run on that treadmill and I'm breathing deeply or I'm on that elliptical machine, I'm speaking to myself about myself and retraining my own thoughts. And it's been because of that process that I'm able to stand before you today and not pretend like I don't ever have stuff, that I don't ever have moments when I'm angry, ever have moments when I'm sad because that's part of being human. But I'm able to stand before you today and say, I am no longer that little boy, that young man who doesn't wanna be alive. I'm no longer having huge moments of beauty in my life pass me by because I'm living in a cage of fear and sadness and false ideas. I have been able to transform my life by speaking the truth to myself about myself. And because I'm a playwright, I wrote a character about it. His name is Twan. Twan has grown up in a housing project. His father is incarcerated. He's been held back two years in school because he's dyslexic and the teachers haven't identified it immediately. But he's got a powerful mama and an incredible mentor and he's on his way to Morehouse, the same school Dr. King attended. Some Morehouse graduates up there, okay? But despite everything Twan has achieved, he still has those voices of self-doubt in his own head. And as I share Twan's story, I invite you to consider the voices of self-doubt that may be in your own mind. The National Science Association says, the average person has 50,000 thoughts a day. 50,000 thoughts a day, think about it. We wake up in the morning. What am I gonna eat for breakfast? What am I gonna wear to work? Did I finish that assignment? Did I call that person back? Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. And it's also estimated that 70 to 80% of those thoughts are negative. Think about it. We live in a world of airbrushed magazines. Celebrities who we treat as royalty who starve themselves to be a size zero. We all get really good at masking what we truly feel because those are the social norms we're supposed to buy into. Then we look in the mirror and we're not able to celebrate our beautifully human selves and the survivors that we really are, right? So this is how Twan deals with it. Sometimes, late at night, when these projects get quiet, I come upstairs here to the roof of Building B and I talk to my mind, try to be bigger than my fears. You see, I've been told every action begins with a thought. And if you don't watch what you're thinking, your thoughts will get the best of you. It's like the mind is an untrained child. You ought to teach what to do because sometimes my mind, he tells me, you will never be enough. Why even try? You know it's going to be tough. Look at where you live, broken hopes, broken dreams. At night, you lie in bed and scream the silent scream of a bastard child without a father as a guide. There's no daddy by your side so you push your cries away and you fill that space with rage. A rage that keeps you caged in a cycle that never ends. You ain't going to be no better than the man who fathered you. Able to create life but not to follow through. Your daddy left so you will too. The sins of the father will visit the sun when life gets tough. The abandoned run. So sag your pants, wear a frown, give up first before life tears you down. Run from dreams, run from hope. It's the only way to cope with the failure you will be. A spitting image of the father you will never even see. Those are the thoughts of my mind he says to me trying to choke out any type of hope or possibility and that's why I stand here on the roof of Building B and talk back to my mind. Alright, I've heard enough. I know my path is rough but my mama she was there as he helped me to prepare. A father she was not but still she gave me a lot and I have a mentor too and he hopes we make it through. Say what you want but there's nothing I can't do because I define my destiny. I won't let doubt get the best of me. I will father myself and my children will see a black man stays. This can be just a phase. This cycle can end. It all depends on where we go from here. You say when life gets tough the abandoned run. All I say run a black man run. Run to your children hold them tight. Help them make it through the night. Be more than you think you can. Be a man and take a stand and when you make it through reach back and help another person do what we all know must be done. Run black man run. A fatherless child I may be but I decide who I choose to be. Run black man run. Run black man run. Thank you so much. So Michael Eric Dyson wrote the foreword for my book and he frames the book in this way which is actually very much how I wrote the book. He frames it with the idea that personal healing is the first step to social transformation and larger societal healing. Right? And I really believe that we as a nation and we as a human race are in a very difficult moment. We have fully bought in to illusions of separation. We are polarized in ways that seem impossible. And I firmly believe that even in the midst of the urgency of this moment and of this time there is still a possibility to transform that pain to power. And I believe that that possibility lies in a movement that ultimately is going to be a human rights movement. A space where we develop some shared core values, some shared beliefs and some shared ideas about how we can heal as a nation. We begin to have those difficult conversations, those conversations that we have in the safe space of a homogeneous community when we're with the people who look like us and talk like us and have a similar bank account as us and a similar skin color as us when we start having those conversations across community. And when we develop some type of commitment and some type of space where we decide that there is something that's greater, something that we want to believe in that's greater than these illusions of separation that keep us bound. And for me, I believe that greatest belief, of a shared core value, a shared idea, a shared reason to do this difficult work is for our children. So for these last few moments of my sharing with you, I would like to give you the voice of two children and one elder. And these are characters from my play, Emergency. So I'm going to end with these characters and the last character will say goodbye to you. So that will be my goodbye. But before I share these characters, I would just like to once again thank you from my heart. Thank you. I travel to a lot of cities and a lot of spaces and there is something about the energy and the love that you give me as a community, Boston, that is unlike any other place that I travel and I'm really grateful for that. Hi everybody. Y'all not gonna say hi to me? Hi. I'm Peter and I have thoughts about this slave ship too. Everybody's always talking about what's going on with us kids, but nobody ever wants to listen to what we have to say. Clarissa and I, we talk about it all the time. Clarissa, she's my girlfriend and she's the ball. When we make too much noise in class, our teacher gets so upset and she bangs her ruler against her desk and she yells, I am not impressed. I am not impressed. And Clarissa always whispers in my ear that's what she says to her husband when they're having sex. I am not impressed. She be cracking me up. Clarissa and I aren't going to have sex but we're going to live together forever and I'm going to be an opera singer. I sing with the boys choir of Harlem and it's off a hook. I mean it's mad cool, right? It's almost like I get to be two different people. It's like I live in the projects and there's trash everywhere but then I sing with the choir and we go to all these beautiful places and everything is different. Like once we took this trip all the way to Africa to sing at this festival where all these black people from all over the world came to remember slavery and it was awesome. And our director, Dr. Turnbull, he asked me to sing the solo and after we lit a bunch of candles we finally made it to the Cape Coast slave dungeons and it was this big huge white castle and there was like a million gazillion black people there and I was mad nervous but then I sang it was so sad and that's kind of how I feel when I look at this slave ship it's kind of like I just wish we were all the same color we were all the same and that God didn't make us all so different on the outside because it's almost like it's a trick to make us think we're more different than we are and everybody keeps getting food and that's whack. You know sometimes I forget I'm black like I'm singing somewhere with the choir or I'm shopping with my moms and I'm not thinking about being black I'm just being me but it seems like somebody else always remembers our director, Dr. Turnbull who died, he told us we sing a song of hope and even though a drug dealer or a prostitute might live on our block we can still be anything we want and it's like even though I live where I live because of the choir I know there's places where I can go and I'm gonna take Clarissa with me. Clarissa baby child there's too much going on here Liberty Island for you to be running around like that Clarissa you hear me girl I raised my grandbaby Clarissa because her mom and daddy they ain't able how old am I didn't your mama teach you not to ask a lady her age 82 yes time well I speak for a group of grandmothers of all races who have made a commitment to stand here for as long as our age and bodies can bear we understand that this slave ship is not about guilt no it's about healing about where do we go from here for ourselves for our cheering I've been here with my grandbaby Clarissa and her friend Peter all day since this morning when the slave ship first arrived and it is one particular story that keep coming to my mind about a village in West Africa with very little crime you know why when a person in this village commits a crime steals lies, harms his neighbor the entire village forms a circle around the single wrongdoing man and they remind him of the good things he's done in the past the entire village reminds the falling man of the moments when he was most beautiful America's one big old messy village we're gonna have to love each other Clarissa baby child you got about five more minutes for all that running around then I want you to come sit by my side and rest a while alright grandmama five minutes my name's Clarissa, yeah and I'm a Libra, yeah and I'm gonna drop it like it's hot yeah, play with me y'all want to be my friend don't nobody usually ever want to play with me except for my boyfriend Peter he's always somewhere singing with the boys choir, Harlem what y'all want to play, hopscotch y'all want to play hopscotch I don't want to play that I don't want to play that I'm gonna tell y'all to start I made it up okay it's called kinky head and the three bears once upon a time that's how you start a story once upon a time there's this little girl called kinky head and she looked at like me yeah, she was pretty like me but nobody in the projects liked her so one day when her grandmama was sleeping kinky had decided to lead a project so she could find her a friend and she was walking for like a really really long time for like fifty hundred million years and her feet was getting sore but then as she see this big old slave ship and kinky head is like maybe I could find me a friend on the slave ship so she went but then she see this big bad wolf trying to get this little girl in a red, riding hoodie but kinky head didn't pay them no attention then she go to the slave ship and she knocks on the side but nobody answered it at the end so kinky head is like where y'all at, ain't nobody home but then the slave ship just opens and kinky head goes inside but then she see this old wicket witch trying to cook these two little white kids in a pot but kinky head didn't pay them no attention then she go to this other room and she see this table with three plates of fried chicken and sweet potato pie a super size one, a medium size one and a smaller one and kinky head tasted the super size one but the chicken is greasy and the pie is runny so kinky head didn't like it but then she tasted the medium size one but the chicken is dry and the pie is all hard so kinky head didn't like it but then but then but then she tasted the smaller one and it's just right and kinky head eats it all up just like a good girl do she eats it all up and as she eats it all up she can feel all of the aid all of the aids going away she doesn't have any more disease inside she's just happy and free and healthy like all the other little girls are that's how it goes, okay then kinky head goes home and everybody in the project likes her she's the most popular and everybody wants to be her friend all right grandma I'm coming I gotta go have my cocktail no y'all can't have none Boston, that's my minimization I see y'all later I see y'all later, okay thank you so much Daniel Beatty I remember this is a book signing party yes so we're gonna see you all out in the lobby he's gonna sign books in the lobby but before we do that I just have one quick announcement I've been waiting for months to make this announcement and Sansan Wong from the Bar Foundation you please come up here and make it with us and Jamie Galoon from HowlRound and Kelly Bates from the Elma Lewis Center it's gonna be a very quick announcement and you're all gonna be so glad you were here for it so this is Sansan Wong and Sansan's gonna start us off Sansan Program Officer at the Bar Foundation hi good evening everyone thank you David I'm thrilled to be here tonight with David and Daniel I'm very happy to announce that the Bar Foundation is awarding a multi-year grant to Emerson College to help bring Daniel Beatty to Boston with his transforming pain to power work so this residency with Daniel will launch I Dream Boston a three-year multi-faceted civic engagement program and artist residency with Emerson's Elma Lewis Center Arts Emerson and HowlRound so I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Bar at Bar grant-making in arts and culture seeks to enhance Boston's cultural vitality one way we do this is to support innovative artists who can contribute to civic dialogue addressing long-standing social challenges and inequities like racism, segregation and income and educational disparities so artists like Daniel powerfully lift up individual stories and engage diverse communities to imagine and enact a vibrant Boston now I'd like to introduce Elma Lewis Center Executive Director Kelly Bates who will tell you more about I Dream Boston you ready to dream Boston you ready to dream Boston I Dream Boston is going to be a powerful collaboration between you between the community of Boston between Emerson students let me hear you Emerson students and community-based organizations and leaders here in this room and in Boston and we will be able to bring the power of performance to youth and to adults throughout the city of Boston who like Daniel are going to be able to share their story and their purpose and find their voice and potential through a process of experiences and workshops that will transform them and through that transform us this will be a multi-collaborative effort between you all the Elma Lewis Center Daniel Beatty, Arts Emerson and HowlRound and we are going to make this unforgettable and the way that Daniel made us feel is going to be the way that we're going to make people around Boston feel with your help a wonderful, wonderful gift that we've been given from Bar and I also want to thank Emerson College for having the great vision to have Daniel with us to do this most powerful work. We're going to need you and we will be calling on you. Thank you and next we'd like to introduce back to us David Deravards Emerson who deserves so much credit for this engagement so just very quickly so you understand what's going to happen with this residency Daniel's book Transforming Pain into Power is full of all sorts of wisdom and exercises and transformational ideas that we will be putting into the form of workshops that Daniel will be here to work with us to develop and to lead and to train Emerson students to be part of the process of doing the work in the communities of Boston and through Arts Emerson we're going to be putting Daniel's work on the stage in every single season during the residency so it's another announcement to come about the first project will be next season and then we're also going to be commissioning and developing new work with Daniel during his time here and all of this work, all of the work that's going on in the city, all the work that's going on on the stage and all the work that's going on in the rehearsal studios is going to be documented through HowlRound the Center for the Theater Commons and this platform that we've developed for the Theater Commons and Jamie Galoon is one of the developers of HowlRound platform and so you can let us know how HowlRound's involved. Thank you David. So as David mentioned HowlRound will be documenting both the process and the results of Daniel's residency and the civic engagement throughout the three-year term. The way that we'll share that learning is through our online journal through the live streaming TV channel like tonight we have an interactive data map and through many other many other ways. So essentially the beauty of that sharing is that through sharing it not only will folks here at Emerson and in Boston get to read and understand more about the impact of this residency but nationally and internationally as well. This is going to be particularly important the national side as the I Dream Boston project evolves through the three-year term. I'm going to hand it over to Daniel now to speak a little bit more about the program and its vision. Thank you. So this program is titled I Dream Boston and this is actually going to be a second phase a second city where I'm able to bring this work in this form. I've been doing the work in communities for over a decade but we have just began after six, seven months of preparation a three-phase pilot pilot in Watts called I Dream Watts and while Emerson College and the Barre Foundation are our partners here in Watts our partners are the Kellogg Foundation some support from Ford and an organization called Children's Institute that's been helping children, families, communities heal trauma for a hundred and six years. And so what we've done over this process of it's going to be a little over a year total by time of pilot. We've developed all of my exercises that will be a part of this training that will continue to develop here in Boston against 16 evidence based principles to heal trauma that have been tried over this hundred and six years. In addition to that we've developed research and evaluation measures because we're really asking the question how do individuals and communities heal? And it's not about assumptions they humbly stand before you with huge gratitude to the Barre Foundation to ArtsEmerson HowlRound, Amalua Center Emerson College but with the clarity that I'm bringing this vision and this idea that I have but the very first step of that vision is about listening. It's about understanding the tremendous work that people in this community many of you are here right now have been doing for years and it's about through the creativity that I bring as a writer and performer creating a space for a citywide conversation around these issues and so when we say that we will be reaching out to you it's not a reaching out to serve a purpose that I'm just bringing it's a reaching out and a linking arms and developing what I call authentic relationships when we are really hearing from each other and you as people who have lived and loved and been in this city for so many years having real ownership and agency in this experience so again I thank you all so much I thank everyone gathered on this stage and I'm very very excited to have this extended period of time in Boston let's head out to the lobby and sign some books thank you all for coming we'll see you at the bars open there are books out there if you don't have them and we'll be right out there in a few minutes with Daniel to sign thank you for coming