 My name is Kareesh Ali Lansena. I am the director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation at Oklahoma State University Tulsa, where I'm also a lecturer in the Center for Africana Studies and the English departments. I'm an author of over 20 books in poetry, children's literature, nonfiction, and literary anthologies. Why does your research matter and why do you study it? I think that my love for history and connecting the past, I call it the tenuous tether of yesterday and today, right? And I think that my love for history actually was born in my small town in Enid, Oklahoma, growing up a lower working class, black, in a very deeply segregated town where I did not learn much in K-12 education about black history, that we are ignorant if we do not know or have an understanding for other people's histories and cultures, then we are just ignorant and nothing will move forward in any way, shape, or form for the positive unless we learn about one another. What's the one thing you want people to take away from your research? I want folks to learn from the past so the future can be different, so the future can be better. What is something that people might be surprised about about the research you do? That some folks might be surprised in knowing that with the work that I do that it is primarily rooted in sharing knowledge of black history and culture for black folks, but it is not just for, again, just for black folks. It is for everyone. I really appreciate your time and I appreciate your insight on what you do. Thanks.