summer vacation 1863

>> from the library ofcongress in washington, dc. >> mary-jane deeb: good morning. good morning, everybodyand welcome to the african and middle eastern divisionand to the library of congress. i'm mary-jane deeb, chief of theafrican and middle eastern division. and i and my colleagueshere at the library, jane sanchez who is thechief of the humanities and social sciences division, the -- our deputy associate librarianwho is here, especially to meet

with you today, sandy lawsonand sibyl moses, marieta harper, eve ferguson, robertcasper, paul zany and many, many others who have worked sohard to make this event possible. we are all delighted to seeyou here to celebrate together at the library the 150thjuneteenth anniversary which has been celebratedin galveston, texas since june 19, 1865. it is maria fenton, the presidentof the juneteenth book festival who we must all thank for comingup with the idea of having an event

at the library to celebratethis occasion with a symposium on black literature and literacy. but before we begin, we needall to stand up for a minute in silent prayer for thevictims and their families of the tragic shooting onwednesday in charleston at mother emmanuel charlestonemmanuel african methodist episcopal church. described in 2013 by its pastor,the reverend clemente pinckney, who was slain two days ago as a veryspecial place because this church

in this site, in this area havebeen tied to the history and life of african-americanssince the early 1800s. thank you. this tragedy reminds us of the priceso many have had to pay for freedom. for all the freedomis a universal right. it is not always recognizedas such and we should never, never take freedom for granted. there are still today anestimated 30 million people who are illegally enslaved inasia, latin america, and africa.

what is important is to rememberthat freedom is not only a matter of physical freedom i.e. to be ableto live where one wants to live, to travel wherever one desires, tochoose how to earn one's living. but it is also the freedomto say what one thinks, the freedom to follow one'sfaith, the freedom to read, write, create in a way thatis unhindered and free. in many parts of the world, peopleare killed for their beliefs, imprisoned for their writings,flogged for their blogs, beheaded for their views.

so today, we should remember allthose who gave their lives to fight for those freedoms and again, weshould not ever rest on our laurels and believe that freedom is a given. we should always in everyway defend those rights, speak up against attempts to limitor to curtail them in any way. and today, we have you here. we have you here to speak to usof black literature and literacy. of this important, incrediblyimportant issue of the right to speak up, to write, tothink freely, to create

and to share with others. so let me pass on now the microphoneto our deputy associate librarian who has been here, who has comeespecially today to welcome you in the name of the library, in thename of the librarian, sandy lawson. [ applause ] >> sandy lawson: thankyou, mary-jane. and good morning, everyone. i do bring greetings toyou from library services. the deputy, the chief oflibrary services, mark sweeney,

the associate librarianfor library services, and also from the librarian. this is a very special occasion,a very special celebration. today is freedom day. today is emancipation day. and today is juneteenth. we celebrate today the end ofslavery in the united states and this -- with this excitingjuneteenth book festival symposium. i want to thank the staff of theafrican and middle eastern division,

the humanities and socialsciences division, the poetry and literature center, and the juneteenth bookfestival incorporated for sponsoring this event. and as mary-jane said,unfortunately, we must also reflect today duringthis celebration, the devastation that took place incharleston, south carolina. we have to keep the victims,their families, friends, the city of charleston in ourthoughts as we look at the program

and listen to the speakers today. thank you to all the speakersand to all the honored guests who are here today for bringingthe literacy and literature of the people of the africandiaspora to the forefront. we're all in for some veryexciting panel discussions and some interestinginformation i'm sure will emerge from this symposium. so i hope that you all enjoy it andthank you for inviting me and hope to see you and talkto you later today.

>> jane sanchez: good morning. thank you for joining us for thejuneteenth book festival symposium. we welcome you and we arepleased to welcome you to the nation's library,the library of congress. my name is jane sanchez and i,along with the very talented staff, comprise the humanities andsocial sciences division. when the opportunity to co-sponsor and support this symposium presenteditself, we seized the opportunity to join with the african andmiddle eastern division, the poetry

and literature center and thejuneteenth book festival inc. we did that because the subjectof juneteenth encompasses so many of the disciplines that we areresponsible for in the humanities and social sciences division. we are responsible for developingcollections for that area and so many different areas thatinclude african-american history and culture, education and literacy,literature, political science, local history and genealogy,poetry and many, many other areas. we hope you will enjoytoday's symposium and we hope

that as a result, you will developnew strategies and new opportunities for publishing and promoting blackliterature, enhancing literacy and for capturing the stories andlives of africans in diaspora. please come back and make use ofthe rich and varied collections that we have preservedin your nation's library. we hope to see all of you again. >> maria fenton: good morning. >> good morning. >> maria fenton: this hasbeen a long time coming.

and i'm not just talkingabout the 16 months that i've been workingon this project. i'm talking about 150years a long time coming. and i welcome you all and ifeel so welcome and i want to first thank thelibrary of congress for making me feel so very welcome. and yeah -- and making it not just a nicelittle clichã©, but an actuality, and a knowing thatyou can do anything

that you apply yourmind and your heart to. but it has to be a combination of both the mind andthe heart, the both. so why juneteenth? why a book festival? why you? juneteenth? book festival, for real? so first of all, i'm an immigrant. i was born in london.

i came over as a young child. and so i don't have theafrican-american story. i have the african story. and the beauty of the africanstory and the african diaspora is that waters, borders,governments set lines and this is where this one begins and this is where that one ends meansnothing to the african people. you know your people, right? and so for me, beingable to say, "okay,

i want to put together somethingthat celebrates the thing that i love which is words, thething that was given to me early on in life which is words. whereas we didn't have a lotof money, we didn't have a lot of access to a lot of things butwe had access to the libraries. libraries at school, librariesat home and we made use of them." so when things happen that wereas wonderful, i went to a book. when things -- something happenedthat was horrible, i went to a book. and that's exactly whatthey were doing back 1865 --

1773, phyllis whitley waswriting when it was uncalled for. she was supposed to just survive. how dare she sit back and create? how dare she take the word and makeit her own, form her own sentences, create her own thoughts,write her own story? write her own story. that is what i want us to rememberis to write our own stories. be stewards of our stories. one of the things that makesa person free is the ability

to define and think for yourself. there's a reason why we're doingthis here in the library of congress because this is the land ofthe primary source, people. you don't have to go to anothersource to have something fed to you. you can go to the source. it is open and available to youand find out and write about it and critique it for yourself. juneteenth is about, yes, galvestonand the emancipations and it's kind of story but the history ofemancipation is a storied history.

there are, we haveemancipation day on april 16th in dc then you have juneteenthon june 19th and people kind of throw their hands up in the air because they don'treally know what it is because that's exactlyhow it unfolded. it was storied. it was complicated and thenthe story was retold in ways to benefit some andto demote others. but what i'm calling forus to do, this festival --

yes, we want to celebratebut it is a call to action. it is a call to read your books. it is a call to publishbooks of quality. it is a call to write your own story and to critique thestories that are out there. engage with it. so yes, i'm excited that we get tocelebrate it but as what's going on in south carolina, aswhat's happened in baltimore, what happened in chicago with allthe places that are around us,

all the violence, allof the tragedies. one of the key things that weget to do is know our stories and own our stories andretell and share our stories. and i hope that this festivalis an inspiration for those, for average people, right? i'm an average woman. for average people to say,"i'm going to make my mark and i'm going to lead it and why? because it needs to be led."

so thank you and thankyou for coming. >> mary-jane deeb: okay andnow we call upon hari jones, the curator of the african-americanfreedom war foundation and museum. all right. >> hari jones: good morning. >> hari jones: today, i willbegin by telling you a lie. that lie is that on june 19, 1865,slaves in texas finally learned that they had been freed by the emancipationproclamation on january 1, 1863.

this lie has been advanced inlegislation, in the popular culture as an explanation forjuneteenth celebrations. this lie is predicated on afundamental misunderstanding of the emancipationproclamation and its enforcement. president abraham lincoln issuedthe emancipation proclamation on january 1, 1863 as, "afit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion." in that fit and necessarywar measure, president lincoln declared foreverfree all persons held as slaves

in the 10 states that wereat war with the united states for the independenceon january 1, 1863. and the five still holding statesthat did not abraham lincoln as -- that accepted abrahamlincoln as president; the emancipation proclamationdid not apply. it only applied to the statesthat had to be brought back into the union by military conquest. on september 22, 1982, in the preliminaryemancipation proclamation,

lincoln warned the rebelliousstates, giving them 100 days to return to the union or he wasgoing to declare free their slaves. frederick douglas, eight days later,wrote in his monthly that in order for the emancipationproclamation to free any slaves, two conditions had to be met. the first condition was that thestates in rebellion still had to be in rebellion as of january 1, 1863. and the second condition was,"we must have the ability to put down the rebellion."

in late 1862, the enslavedknew that an order to be freed by the emancipation proclamation,they would have to contribute to suppressing the rebellionthus to preserving the union. and this would have to be donethrough military conquest. thus begun -- thus begantheir military campaign for emancipation and union. it was understood by many members ofcongress, the president's cabinet, the confederate legislatureand jefferson davis, the president of the confederacy,

that the emancipationproclamation was a cry for help to america's african-descentpopulation. jefferson davis told theconfederation legislature in january 1863 that theemancipation proclamation was, "an authentic statement by thegovernment of the united states of its inability to subjugatethe south by force of arms." meanwhile in texas, there is clearevidence that enslaved persons in galveston knew of the emancipationproclamation in late 1862.

galveston was captured theunion navy in october 1862 -- a navy comprised of 25%african-american sailors. the austrian council atgalveston wrote a letter to the union naval commander,admiral william renshaw, stating that texasslaves had run away and been given refugeby renshaw's fleet. the council wanted to knowif his slaves ran away, would the admiral return them? renshaw unequivocally said, "no."

only a small army force, the 42ndmassachusetts infantry was assigned to occupied galveston and therebels recaptured galveston on the day the final emancipationproclamation was issued, january 1, 1863. union soldiers and sailorswere taken as prisoners of war and these union soldiersand sailors with knowledge of the emancipationproclamation reported contact with enslaved texans as some wereassigned to the pows as cooks. the union strategic planneglected military operations

in texas through much of 1863. lincoln's priority in the west was on controlling themississippi river. and lincoln believed that theonly way the mississippi could be controlled is with the help ofthe african descent population. when general nathaniel banks starteda texas expedition along the red river, he was ordered backto the mississippi in support of general ulysses grant'scampaign against vicksburg. the louisiana native guards,

the first african descent regimenmustered into the union army under the field command of africandescent commissioned officers led by captain andre [inaudible]assaulted the rebel position at port hudson along the mississippithree times on may 27, 1863. though these sable soldiersfailed to capture the rebel fort, they were successful in keepingthe rebels at port hudson from reinforcing therebels at vicksburg. therefore they had accomplishedtheir primary objective. grant captured vicksburgon july 4, 1863.

now lincoln had calledvicksburg the key to victory. and after capturing vicksburg,grant wrote to president lincoln and told president lincoln that vicksburg could not havebeen captured when it was without the help of theseafrican-american soldiers. the general goes on to tell thepresident, "by arming the negro, we have added a powerful ally." such powerful allieswould participate in general banks' texasexpedition in november 1863.

rebel blockade runnerswere able to bring supplies into texas along texas'southernmost coast. and banks was ordered to takethat part of the texas coast. five [inaudible] regiments -- regiments comprised ofafrican-american soldiers from louisiana took part in banks'successful texas expedition making up 10% of the conquering force -- capturing and conqueringthe texas gulf coast from indianola to brownsville.

these conquering soldiersbrought word of the emancipationproclamation to texas. john bates was 10 years old when these military operationswere going on in texas. bates pointed out in his wpaslave narrative that word, "traveled purty fast," andthat's p-u-r-t-y [laughter] -- traveled pretty fast in limestonecounty, texas where he was enslaved. indeed bates goes on to reportthat it was the enslaved on the plantation where he was

that told the planterthat they were free. the first state inrebellion to be brought back in the union thus havingits enslaves free -- enslaved free by the emancipationproclamation was arkansas. it took one year and four months to enforce the emancipationproclamation in a rebellious state and that state was not virginiawith its proximity to washington. that state was the western stateof arkansas bordering texas. when arkansas was brought backinto the union as a free state

on april 11, 1864 therewere thousands of african descent soldiersenforcing the emancipation proclamation in arkansas. meanwhile back in the east, in1864, african descent soldiers for the first time were deployedin the army of the potomac after general grant becamethe general in charge in command of all the armies. in december 1864, generalbenjamin f. butler, the commander of thedepartment of virginia

and north carolina organized the25th army corps, the only army corps in american history made up ofonly african descent regiments. butler wrote of hisafrican descent soldiers, "better soldiers nevershouldered a musket." general grant wrote in hismemoirs that on april 3, 1865, the 25th army corpsunder the command of general godfrey weitzelcaptured richmond, virginia -- the capital of the confederacy. the headlines in thewashington, dc newspaper,

the national republicanread, "glorious fall of richmond capturedby the black troops". these sable soldiers of the 25thwent on to stop robert e. lee's army at appomattox court house,virginia forcing their surrender -- his surrender thereon april 9, 1865. though some contemporaryscholars falsely claimed that these highly regarded soldierswere prohibited from participating in the grand review of the armiesin washington on may 22nd -- 23rd and 24th, 1865because of their race.

without complaint, these highlymotivated sable soldiers stood ready to go to texas and enforcethe emancipation proclamation in may of 1865. thomas morris chester, anafrican descent war correspondent, reported that on theeve of the grand review, the word that they wereembarking for texas was received in their camps, "with agreat deal of satisfaction." out in texas, african descentsoldiers who had been there for months engaged rebelsoldiers in combat in may of 1865.

galveston was captured and occupiedby the union navy on june 5, 1865. by the end of the first weekof june, the 25th army corps and thousands of otherreinforcements were arriving in the lone star state. in the early morning of june15, 1865, the rebel governor and thousands of rebel soldierswere chased out of the united states into mexico by thisimposing union force. the tradition of the juneteenth ballon june 16th was thus established. general gordon grangerwas the commander

of the new department of texas. his immediate superior, generalphil sheridan, ordered granger to publish general ordersinforming the people of texas that all the laws enacted by therebel governor and legislator -- legislature were null andvoid, that federal laws applied and thus the emancipationproclamation had freed all the slaves in texas forever. granger arrived in galveston onjune 19, 1865 and he reported to general sheridan thatwhen he arrived that morning,

there was a brigade of the 25tharmy corps already in galveston. over a thousand african-americansoldiers, heroes of virginia, were in galveston over a weekbefore granger showed up. later that day, granger publishedgeneral order number three and the military campaignfor emancipation and union was officiallydeclared over. let us therefore celebrate the150th anniversary of the end of the successful campaignfor emancipation and union. on this juneteenth, let usembrace the truth, reject the lie,

and pledge ourselves to achievingliberty and justice for all in this our indivisibleamerican republic. >> mary-jane deeb: thank you. thank you for settingthe story straight, telling us the history the way it is and for a most inspiringpresentation. thank you so much. and now, we call upon michaelgraham, a poet and 2015 graduate from the washington latinpublic charter school.

>> michael graham: so myname is michael graham. i'm maria fenton's son. i have -- i'm actually theyoungest member of the jvf team. oh sorry, and i'm going-- thank you. i'm going to be sharing twopoems by paolo [inaudible] and one poem i made for myself. so, should i [inaudible]the name -- title? oh, sorry. wait just a moment --

oh, iphone, iphone,iphone -- okay, all right. so the first one's called "love andgrief" by paolo lawrence dunbar. out of my heart, onetreacherous winter day, i locked young loveand threw the key away. grief wandering widely,found the key, and hastened with itstraightaway, back to me. with love beside him,he unlocked the door and bade love enterwith him there and stay. and so the twain abide forevermore.

okay, i'm sorry. the second one is called "life'stragedy" paul lawrence dunbar. it may be misery not to sing at all, and to go silent throughoutthe brimming day. it may be misery never tobe loved but deeper griefs than these beset the way. to sing the perfect song, andby a half-note, lose the key. there the potent sorrow,there the grief. the pale, sad staringof life's tragedy.

to have come near the perfectlove, not the hot passion of untempered youth, but that whichlies aside its vanity, and gives, for thy trusting worship, truth. this is indeed to be accursed forif we mortals love, if we sing, we count our joys notby what we have, but by what keeps usfrom that perfect thing. okay, now here's a poem iactually made on the spot. i was on a youth leadership trip intennessee this past month, i think, and there was a talent show and ihad to make up a poem on the spot.

so here's my poem. i entitled it -- i'm sorry. i'm very nervous. i don't have much to say. except the experiencefor my life in dc. please listen to me. they want me to fail. that's all they want meto succumb to, failure. the prying eyes of theones who despise me try

to make me feel like i have failed. what they do not know isthat i have prevailed. prevailed over the pryingeyes for they look up to me. so i watch the sneakingeyes trying to look at the mystical figurethat they despise. on the train, i smile and laugh. at work behind the bar, i smile and chuckle while keepingup my belt buckle. trying not to be thatblack dc stereotype.

yes, that is all they see, thetall violent untamed black animal with the dangerouslocks, the dc inhabitant. hating on me becausei do what they can't. now this is not onlyfor the people of white and red combined skinbefore other complexions. this is about the war betweenthe light skins and dark. that's what they, those of thehigher power want us to say. light versus dark, darkchocolate versus not. what we are fighting each otheron the ground for attention,

we are blinded by theconstant gun smoke. our lungs are filled-- our lungs are filled because of the weed smoke. mother earth's weed smokechokes us for pleasure. we get caught for the earth -- we get caught for the earththat we bought and breathed. you best believe that our protectorsare now our fear dealing defectors. and now aren't -- yeah, imyself tried to be friendly and give the killers a smileso i can walk around with them

for a while and notminding their blank smiles, hiding the hate but keeping control. i would rather not like them. i hang my head in fake like i haverespect in order to protect myself from lying on the floor silentbecause of the bullet hole. they want that to be my future sothey could see another black one down and give no caresand yes, it sucks. and so they realizethe best drink made for them isn't madeby me in starbucks.

it is i in public they do notwant to see but behind bar of a coffee shop oreventually prison. but like i said, i haverisen above the contempt and kept my sanity in check. for i am that young black -- young black adult who had notsuccumbed but surpassed failure. before my body leaves the stage, before i go away, ihave one thing to say. i'm sorry i'm so nervous.

>> mary-jane deeb: thank you,michael and i know that every one of us wishes you thegreatest success. we know that you will succeed. and now, we are going tostart with the first panel. and i would like to call uponthe moderator, sibyl moses and dr. haki madhubuti, yanickrice-lamb, and ethelbert miller. we'd love to have you up onthe stage for the first panel. >> sibyl e. moses: in 1969,amiri baraka issued a call, sos, calling black people,calling all black people.

man, woman, child, wherever you are. calling you, urgent,come in, black people. come in wherever you are. urgent, calling you,calling all black people. calling all black people, come in. black people, come on in. today we invite you to come in. come in to celebrate juneteenth. come in to explore, celebrateand embrace the creativity

of all black people withoutpublishers and bloggers on the state of black literature, ourstakeholders in literacy and our independent artistsengaged in telling our stories. we also invite you to come inand come in again in the future to make use of the library of congress' vast collectionsboth primary and secondary sources about the black experienceand created by people of african descentall over the world. so please come in, listen, learnand contribute as we are here

to once again -- haki --change the conversation and to define what is neededand to go forth and create more. we welcome our three distinguishedpanelists for the publishers and bloggers on the stateof black literature panel. we have dr. haki madhubuti. we all know the prolific author,third world press publisher, and founder, one of the longest-running independentblack-owned publishing companies in the united states.

we welcome yanick rice-lamb,associate professor, department of media journalism andfilm, howard university, author, former newspaper reporterand editor, and co-founder of fierceforblackwomen.com, adigital health and fitness network. we welcome with most love -- our most love, the distinguished e.ethelbert miller right here from dc, a literary artist,activist, poet, and editor, former chair of thehumanities council of dc and a teacher of many of us.

and so, we will begin withour panelists [applause]. >> haki madhubuti: good morning. >> haki madhubuti:i'm happy to be here. my wife is with me, dr. carol lee and we both came inlast night to dc. i think first, it's inorder to give, you know, deep thanks to dr.deeb, and chief sanchez, and executive director fentonfor this wonderful day. it's not easy to dothis kind of work.

my wife and i have been doing thiskind of work for over 45 years in chicago and therest of the nation. and i'm here primarilybecause of, i guess, my work. i've published many booksand actually i taught at howard universityfor seven years -- eight years that when i met thedistinguished ethelbert miller. and i'm really happyto be here with him. i haven't seen him for some time. my journey to this placehas been a long one.

in 1967, with $400 and aused mimeograph machine, i founded third worldpress a basement apartment in south side chicago witha used mimeograph machine. i started there. we now own half-a-block in chicagowhere my wife and i, and others, not only operate third world press. we have four schools for ourchildren, the new concept school, the betty shabazz internationalcharter school, barbara ann sizemore academy, andthe dusable leadership academy.

and we serviced over a thousandblack children each and every day with an african-centered education. our journey has been a long one. it's been a difficult one. but it's one that we chose. and with all the problems thatwe've endured in terms of trying to build these institutions,this is what we chose to do. this has been our job,our task and our journey. my journey started actually inlittle rock, arkansas 73 years --

i'm 73 years old -- 73 years ago. with my mother, at that time, fatherhad escaped up towards detroit, michigan and as juankillens would say. and then the journey somehow mymother who is not with us now -- in fact my mother -- this ismy memoir, yellow black . this is my mother here. you see, she's a verybeautiful woman. she was in the sex trade and bythe time she was 34, she was dead. but before that time, sheintroduced me to literature.

i write about it in yellow blackand i write that and i talk about libraries becausemy mother introduced them. my introduction to thelibrary was the first place where i could -- i could hide. libraries are free, brothers. it was kryptonite. an oxymoron to the 10th power. libraries in detroit in the1950s were white, quiet, safe and sacred places with books,ideas and white children trying

to feed their minds and stay ahead. for me, the necessity oflibraries was early liberation to my young mind and soul. i devoured their contentlike running oil in a bad engine of a used car. i was hot for knowledgeand the more i received, the greater i realizedthe supreme ignorance of my ways and that of my family. for the first time, hope forme appeared on the horizons

with the acquisitionof my knowledge. defining the pure, practical answers that seldom entered theblack community propelled me into a long [inaudible]that i would never leave. to talk about ideas other than thoseof the books, other than the work, beating weakened women and moneyplaced me according to most brothers on another planet [laughter]. it was like a musician discoveredthe beauty and brilliance of charlie parker anddizzy gillespie,

realizing that their musicwas genius and wondered if he could ever do that. the real task of getting theyoung musicians to try books and music encouraged me to try. maybe it was god and[inaudible], our supreme judge who instructed my mother to actuallygo to the detroit public library to check out blackboy by richard wright. i, at first, refused to gobecause i did not want to go to a white library and ask a whitelibrarian for a book with black

in the title authored by a black man who i was told was challengingwhite america's concept of itself and black people. apartheid america had worked. i was completely ashamed of whoi was, felt inferior, inadequate and unprepared to answer thesimple question if asked, "why do you want toread black boy ?" i found black boy withluck on the library shelf. there were two copies.

i took one of them, walked intoone side of the reading room and sat down and began to read. i was immediately captivated bythe boldness of the language, the clarity of the ideas, thesimilarity of the [inaudible] and living experience within my own. the familiarity of thelandscape, the intellectual genius of the protagonist to get whathe needed at any given time, the feeling of richardwright to present a world in which our people were completelylocked down emotionally, physically,

economically and culturally -- yet still functioningas whole human beings. which brings us most certainlyto what happened in charleston. whole human beings being shotdown by you know, white supremists and i know miss fenton spoke aboutit this morning but i just wanted to again -- bring it back up thatour hearts go out to our brothers and sisters in charleston. but as i read each word,each sentence of paragraph after paragraph, page after page,

it was like a sledgehammerhitting me upside my head, stating in no uncertainterms, "wake up, negro!" i checked out black boy . ran home, went to the room i sharedwith my sister and read all night. the next morning uponcompletion of the book, the first serious book iread in less than 24 hours, i was not a different personbut a different questioner. wright gave me content, a longcontent as i was beginning to move to the age of 14 and nowthey focused on direction

for my own culture andintellectual development. his words formed the circle in ourown investigation into the ways and whys of white folks and my own. life suddenly, suddenly itslapped me right in the face. read the white books,newspapers, magazines and journals and [inaudible] and questioningwhat was read is fundamental to developing a quickerconsciousness and world view. knowledge of oneself, ofone's culture shapes a person. i do not know how my mother feltabout the literature she read.

we never talked about it. all i remember is that sheonce wanted me to read. she was never angered by my spendingcountless hours in the library. as our lives slowly slipped intoanother world, mine did too. into the pavement of countless ofbooks that put me into other worlds, cultures, places andwithout me knowing it, helped to determine my future. black music had freed me creativelyand black literature began to find [inaudible] meintellectually and culturally.

for the first time in my young life, i realized that lifehas greater meaning than my personal circumstances. and i began to chance a smilein between books, concepts and what i perceived was afine girl interested in me. i also picked up a pen andbegan to write my own thoughts. i didn't call my words poetry butbecame like square in a 12-round -- sweat in a 12-round fight thatyou didn't know you could win. over proper training, therewas always a possibility

of gaining ground if only ayard, a word, a round at a time. you know, there's more but thiswhole question of literature and reading, it isabsolutely necessary. for the last 75 days, i've beengetting up every morning at 4:30 in the morning to write this bookwhich will be published in august. the title of the book is"taking bullets" -- black men -- black boys and men in 21stcentury america fighting terrorism and violence and seekinghuman space. and what set me onthis task and many

of you may know i've writtentwo other books on black men. black men: obsolete,single, dangerous , african-american familytransitioning tough notes: a healing call for creatingexceptional black men . that my life has revolvedaround black people. my wife and i spend over 90% ofour time in the black community. and i've had all -- you know,i've taught at research one in universities, in urbanuniversities for the last -- i'm retired now, forthe last 22 years.

but the point is that ourcommunity needs so much -- -- and needs so much. >> oh yes, yes. so much. >> haki madhubuti:and the great majority of our people do not know it, do notunderstand what we are dealing with. you know, we're dealing with empire. the united states isthe last empire. >> yeah.

>> haki madhubuti:and these brothers are in these family corners,you know, talking, "mac, you know, this is my turf. they paying rent." >> yes. >> haki madhubuti: theydon't own it, you know. i've lived here foreight years in dc. commuted every weekbetween chicago and dc and i don't even knowthis place anymore.

>> haki madhubuti:and we don't know it. > that's true. >> haki madhubuti: and if sucha question to ask, "who are you? who are you?" you ask 10 black people out onthe streets, "what's your name? who are you? where'd you come from?" you will get 10 different answers. in fact sometimes,20 different answers.

>> haki madhubuti: if you don't knowwho you are, anybody can name you. and they will. and so we find ourselvesin this continued war, this continued pattern to justto be human, just to be human. black people don't haveno place else to go. and you know, these clownsare like, "go back to africa." what? [ laughter ] you talking about africa,mississippi?

you know, arkansas? and so for us, my wife and iand -- and trying to create, we need independentblack institutions. not negro institutions, notimitation white institutions. we need institutions thatare essentially going to talk about us, to give us direction. we need family. we need community. and people say, "well, why -- youknow why does black [inaudible]?"

you know, black-on-blackcrime exists because of white-on-black crime." >> they all do. >> haki madhubuti: what wedo, we've been taught to do. >> haki madhubuti: you see, womentaught to kill white people, not in [inaudible] -- the peoplewho raped us in another continent so we don't do that butwe kill black people because we devaluedblack people's lives. you see, so we got alot of drive-by shooting

but we got drive-by looters. the central problem in america iswhite supremacy based upon white nationalism, you see. that has infiltrated itselfand lived within the context of these institutional structures and most certainlythe police structures in this country -- themilitary and police. i've served three yearsin the military. i understand what exactlythat meant there.

and so, in trying to build theseindependent black institutions in chicago, our focushas been what do we have? what do we own? you see, i'm not talking aboutyour, you know, 18 suits. i'm not talking aboutyour lexus from japan. what do you own? you see what i'm saying? and this is critical. and i just got to -- andwhat i do in this book,

i talk about the unitedstates' empire but what's criticalabout empire is wealth. we have no idea of what wealthis in the black community. bill gates is worth $79 billion. that's with a b. warrenbuffet is worth $73 billion. that's with a b. if you look atthe total wealth of black people in the united statesincluding oprah winfrey and michael jordan,this [inaudible]. and beyonce and jay zand all the athletes,

you're only talkingabout $20 billion. that's chump changein the real world. and so we have been detachedfrom each other and what we hope in one level of literature, and istarted telling what [inaudible], we have to tell our own stories. >> haki madhubuti: if you don't tellyour own stories, somebody's going to tell it for you and thatis essentially what happened. the winner tells the story. and the winner's getting thestory out very quickly and we end

up studying their storyrather than our own story. >> exactly. >> haki madhubuti: and so, youknow, brothers and sisters, this has been a long journey andi'm rather passionate about it. and every day, you know, poetryand [inaudible] are the same but for the last 75 days, i'vebeen working on this manuscript and all my life, all my adultlife, i've been involved in literature, in books, you see. and i think that books inpart represent an answer --

not the only answerbut an answer, you see. and i'll just end with this. when i wrote -- when i publishedblack men: obsolete, single, dangerous , i got invitationsfrom all over the country. [inaudible] a lot of folksand the brothers down there. we sold the books to prisoners allacross the country for a discount. so i was invited toa lot of prisons. and what i learned, youknow, clearly and i got -- i've got a brother in prison nowand another brother who's in and out

of prison as well, anothersister in and out as well. but what i learnedquickly and very forcefully that the average brothercannot read in prison, cannot read at a sixth-grade level. if you can't read at asixth-grade level, you can't write at a fourth or fifth-grade level. if you can't read at a sixth-gradelevel, you can't write at fourth or fifth-grade level, what canyou do in the black community? and you find all across thiscountry, black communities

around 50 blocks, you see. we still segregatetheir lives and stuff. and so what can you do in thatcommunity other than go back to the [inaudible] which islargely illicit, illegal. what can you do? and so education what can --how do you bring young men, young women into aneducational system? when as you said, they'repushing us out. and one of the reasons andthis -- my wife is brilliant.

she's educated. i'm a poet [inaudible] andwhat we found was that you have to have your home must becomea mini-learning institution. that the children must be -- the babies, the childrenmust be introduced to literature early and often. i mean, we have toread to our children. we have to read to ourselves. we have to be involved in the eliteintellectual pursuit of knowledge.

knowledge -- and i'lljust end with this. one of the major problems thisnation i think is facing -- we have ignorant people telling howto keep [inaudible] other people on it -- 85,000 black churches inthis country, 2.3 million black and brown boys lockedup in the [inaudible], in the criminal justice system. there's a disconnect there. >> thank you. >> yanick rice-lamb: good morning.

>> yanick rice-lamb: i'd like tothank all of you for being here and i consider all of us wordwarriors and thank maria fenton and the organizers atthe library of congress for putting this program together. and it's an honor to bebetween these two giants. i first met and hearddr. [inaudible] -- haki madhubuti wheni was at ohio state. we used to have a bus to go to the invitations conferenceat howard university.

>> haki madhubuti: oh great. >> yanick rice-lamb:you were speaking. this was in the late '70s. and ethelbert miller, of course. i was introduced tohim by my cousin, van jordan, who's also a poet. and he considers ethelbert a mentoras to why and he's also helped me with some of my own writing and alsomy students with their writing too. and some of the things that hementioned earlier, i agree with.

the library was veryimportant to me and my sister, michelle, who's out there. but we lived on up thestreet from the library. it was four blocks from us sowe spent a lot of time there. there were a lot ofbooks in our house. we started readingand writing early. i read the newspaperwith my grandfather. and my grandmother told me at anearly age that i would write a book and it seemed an impossiblefeat but i have done that.

and that time, it was a seed thatshe had planted at an early age. and growing up, i also wrote poetryas a child and wrote short stories. i escaped through books and someof you remember back in the day, the list that they would give us atschools where you could take it home and talk to your parents intotrying to buy these books for you, little paperbacks andthings like that. so my mother, whether she had themoney or not, she always, you know, set some aside so wecould order books. and we also, like i said, wewent to the library a lot too.

and so i focused onlooking for something for my life's work that'srelated to english and art. those were the areasthat i was focusing on which led me to journalism. because i didn't see myself in themedia and i learned that i wanted to give voice to thevoiceless and try to tell stories thatweren't being told. and then also hearing a lotabout my own family history and the stories that, you know,my parents and my grandparents

and my aunts and uncles wouldtell us about our family tree. and the importance of reading andi tried to do with my son also when he was a baby, reading to him. and it got to the pointwhere he wouldn't go to sleep unless i read hima story or he would say, "tell me a story about your life." and i would tell himabout our family history. and sometimes -- and this is, iguess, something for those of you who are parents, for otherpeople who are parents --

sometimes, we're tired after along day and it's hard to find that time to read to our children. and sometimes, i couldn't -- literally couldn'tkeep my eyes open. and so then i would tell him to tellme a story or read a story to me. and he could -- reallycouldn't read yet. but he knew some ofthe stories by heart and he would turn thepage at the right place. and i remember once we were ata naming ceremony for a child

and someone ran to me andsaid, "your son can read!" and i was saying, "no,he can't read." he just knows some ofthe stories by heart and he turned them atthe appropriate page. they thought he wasreading early [laughter]. but, you know, as aninstructor now -- i'm teaching at howard university. i can see the difference instudents who were read to, in students who have alove for reading growing up

and students who continue to read. and if you look at anystatistics, children who were read to at least three to four timesa week, they performed two to the time -- two times or atleast a third better than children who aren't read to on everylevel that you can look at.- whether it's learningtheir alphabet, whether it's reading stories,whether it's taking tests or whether it's getting into collegeor the reading comprehension. so it's really importantthat we do that.

and whether we have childrenor not, we have to kind of expand the village withour nieces and nephews, the children in ourneighborhood, giving books as gifts so that we can get them away fromthe video games and also trying to counter align thisteaching to the test. because students, they'velearned through the test. so at this point, some studentsonly retain as much information as they think is necessary topass a test and that follows them in the way they handle their courses

or the way they handleinformation throughout their lives. and we spoke earlier about you know,the opportunities that people have for their careers orwhether they're participating in the underground economy if they don't have theskills of literacy to read. and we have to make thoseexamples by what we do, you know, so we practice whatwe preach in terms of reading ourselvesand sharing that. and sometimes even with -- myyounger brother didn't like to read

but he was very into sports. so i would buy him sportsmagazines so later on, now he reads a lot of books. and i always give my niecesand nephews books as gifts. and sometimes, they would look at me like there's aunt yanickagain with another book. but i didn't care. i was going to giveit to them anyway. so what i've done, i've worked -- istarted off at newspapers and worked

at the toledo blade , thenlater the journal constitution , the new york times . then switched to magazinesso i've worked at child magazine , essence . i was editor-in-chief of bet weekend andheart and soul magazine . and now, i've started a websitecalled fierceforblackwomen.com and another one calledfully-connected.com. and with fierce, one of the pointsof that is to tell our stories

through health and fitness because we set the wrongrecords when it comes to health. and those stories aren'talways being told. so we're also interpreting a lotof things like different studies that come out and we don't knowto eat this, don't eat that or take this, don't take that-- and how that affects us. and as writers, i also encouragepeople to do whatever, you know, write by any means necessary soeven, you know, i write books. i used to write poetry.

i'm not as good as these twohere so i kind of abandoned that a little bit or doit every now and then. articles, blogs, people aretelling stories through tweets but if you would say you wantto be a writer, you must write and you must do it often. and it's really importantto tell our stories. and also -- and i thinkanother reason it's important to tell our stories because there'sso many distractions out there and there's a lot

of disproportionatefocus on some stories. so in the past week or so,we've had disproportionate focus on a certain personwho shall go unnamed but she's been everywhere all oversocial media, all over the news to the point where itovershadowed a lot of other things. and some people startedputting out lists of 10 stories that you didn't pay attention tobecause you were focusing on her. so there's that, you know,accountability that we have as consumers, as readers, and alsoas writers in terms of what we put

out and how we put it outand being good at what we do. a lot of times, peoplealso want to write but they're not developingthe skills they need and there are a lot ofresources out there. there are other people that we canbond with to help us, you know, develop into the writersthat we want to be. and also trying to putthose stories out there. there are a number of differentplaces to do that -- whether you -- there's an abundance of stories.

sometimes, there's not always theoutlets if you're looking at going through traditional routesbecause in some of the places, if you were a publishingcompany, there's fewer imprints that we're focused on our stories and fewer editors atthose companies. but we also have third world press. we also have self-publishing. a lot of people aredoing ebooks now. but the important thing isto understand the process --

understand all the facts of it and know what you'regetting yourself into. and making sure it's sustainabletoo because a lot of times, we've lost institutions whetherthey're magazines or newspapers or book companies orbookstores for various reasons. and so we have to make sure thatthey're financially sustainable and that we support them as well. so understanding what we're gettingourselves into and making sure that we're also focusing onmarketing and distribution and all

of that -- and word ofmouth is very important in terms of supporting people. a lot of times, particularly someof my friends who are writers, if they have a book signing, ifthey have three, six stops here -- i'll go to every single one of them. because as writers, some of youwho write, you value every face out there whether you havesix, 60 or 600 out there in the audience is really important so do everything wecan to support them.

and in this area, we've lost a lotof bookstores, the caribbean chain and on and on and throughoutthe country. so it's important to kind ofsupport the ones that we have and to find new ways of tellingthose stories and making sure that people know about them. let me see, what elsedidn't i mention? also that, you know, and thatalso goes to literary festivals, book clubs and alsostarting book clubs. i'm in two book clubs, one

of them has a number ofjournalists in there. if you don't read, you feel guiltyand ashamed if you're behind. and sometimes, if i haven't hada chance to finish the book, i try to talk about the firstchapters that i have [laughter]. lately, i have finished them. but the other one isthe neighborhood -- it's in my neighborhoodand some people are content to have the most prolific readersin our group tell them what happened in the story and it's moreof a socializing situation.

but it's an opportunity forme to make sure that i read because i'm juggling a lot of thingsand also we started a writer's group as an offshoot of the colorme red book club that i'm in because we discovered that we allhad stories on the shelf that we -- some of them we hadn'tdone anything with. so some -- we have workedtogether on screenplays and books. and we encourage each other bymeeting together to write together, meeting together to readour work, doing it by email when we can't read together,meet together and do the process.

i was able to finish thefirst draft of my first novel and another memberfinished her screenplay. so i also worked on born towin, the authorized biography of althea gibson and thespirit of african design , which is a coffee table book. rise and fly which is about bidwhist and space but also weaves in history and all of our kind of wild behavior playingcards sometimes. and various anthologies, writingabout my aunt rose who lived

to be a hundred but i didn't knowshe was a hundred until i walked to her wake because she liedabout her age [laughter]. we lived in new york and one of thereasons she lied about her age is to make sure that shegot good healthcare so people wouldn't ignore herwhen she was in her 80s and 90s. and then a piece called daddy, mybrother barack and me which was in a book called bet on black ,african-american women in that write on fatherhood in theage of barack obama. so a number of women -- we wroteabout our brothers, our fathers,

our husbands and other men inour lives who were good fathers. and that's really important -- father's day is coming up and wehave a piece on fierce this weekend that will encourage women to makesure that they keep the fathers in the lives of their children. but as i -- again, as i said, ithink it's really important for us to give voice to thevoiceless, to tell our stories. and you know, whether wetell them in words, you know, through other forms of art, andor when we write them down --

it's important thatwe write them down too because we have a lotof rich stories. and i've also been encouraged tosee more people writing memoirs. a lot of times people didn't thinkthat they had stories to tell and that -- or you hadto have accomplished so much before you told a memoir. but we now see a lotmore people doing that. and encouraging children to writestories too and write their books. so i'm encouraged tosee in school sometimes

where they've been buyingsome of the books that some of the students have and haveprograms built around that. and also at howard, in thedepartment of media journalism and film, we tell stories there in the various different formswhether they're through journalism, through audio, through televisionproduction and also through film. and haile gerima willbe here this afternoon. he's one of our esteemed filmmakersand please support sankofa, one of our remainingbookstores in this area.

on that note, i will stop. >> e. ethelbert miller: it's alwaysgood now and then to assess a state of african american literature. what does this mean? first, it should mean a closeexamination of all genres. second, it might consist of astudy of the work of writers of significance, as wellas writers of applause. by applause i mean those writers who win mainstreamacceptance and awards.

third, the state of african americanliterature should also be evaluated while taking into considerationtechnological economic changes within our society. these changes can havea key influence in determining how our literature isproduced, distributed and consumed. four, if we could look at theliterature through the eyes and works of literary critics,whose work attempts to offer clarity and understanding to the body ofwork created by african americans at any specific time in history.

finally, the state of africanamerican literature offered mirrors [phonetic] to socialand political transition and transformation ofglobal black culture. let me for just a few minutespresent what is simply a probe into the state of africanamerican poetry today. any study of african american poetrybegins with an acknowledgement that there is always two streams,one oral and the other written. now and then, they overlap creatinghybrid structures, as well as poets who have diverse literaryportfolios and bodies of work.

spoken word, for example,is very popular today. its energy incurred by socialmovements, changes in social media and even urban gentrificationdriven by the opening of new cafes. spoken word at time,competitive in nature, can be viewed as empoweringa young generation. a generation coming over ageduring the occupied movement, the rise of police brutality,income and equality, power of spring and the growing [inaudible] ofradical islam, drones and hashtags. if black lives matter in2015, so does black poetry.

yet, i would underscore thatthe most important development responsible for the changing state of african american poetry isthe organization cave canem. in 2015, we probably havemore african american poets than ever before in our history. the same way we havemore photograph -- photographers becauseof cell phones. maybe the cell phone and ipodis the reason for so many poets. consider how this poemby jazz poet, ted joans,

takes on a different meaningbecause of our technology. the truth -- "if you should see aman walking down a crowded street, talking aloud to himself, don'trun in the opposite direction, but run toward him,for he is a poet. you have nothing to fearfrom the poet but the truth." there's a good chance someonewalking towards you talking aloud is talking on a cell phone. the question we should ask ourselvesis whether we should ignore this person.

what are the socialimplications if we do? we could also ask,where are the poets? it's just a matter of timebefore someone fascinated with numbers issues a report of how many young peopleare doing spoken word on a given block or subway car. like money ball and baseball, the state of african american poetryhas given voice to the voiceless. so many numbers to consider.

if everyone is recitingpoetry, is everyone a poet? today there's an unregulatedfreedom of expression, which mirrors the internet. what we are now witnessing mightbe the true poetry of the people. where poet and critic, larry neal,once pondered the possibility of black poets being aspopular as james brown, today common might bejust common to all of us. meanwhile, what cannot be overlookedis the impact the organization cave canem has had.

this organization foundedby toi derricotte and cornelius eady mightbest be compared to nasa. instead of training astronautsfor space, cave canem is helping to create literary stars. started in 1996, cave canem'smission was to be a home for the many voices of africanamerican poetry and it's committed to cultivating their artisticand professional growth. still, how does cave canem affectthe state of black literature? never before have wesystematically attempted to educate

and train african american poets. we have a new generationof african american poets who are now teachersof creative writing. to some degree, we have startedto workshop the black experience and place a heavy emphasis backon the craft of making a poem. i think cave canem has three tiersconsisting of first, faculty members and workshop leaders, poets -- poets currently accepting andparticipating in the workshops and a strong politicallyactive network of graduates

who maintain creative and socialties despite geographical separation and distance. pick up any number of new bookspublished by african american poets by well-known publishers and onewill notice quite often a reference to cave canem in theauthor's bio note. if one visits the cavecanem website, simply examine selectedmilestones which consist of the achievementsof cave canem faculty. names mentioned are elizabethalexander, terrance hayes,

nikky finney, tracy smithand natasha trethewey. the arms of cave canemis so outreaching that even e. ethelbert miller islisted as the honorary director. one thing which cave canem hasdone, which is very important, is a creation of itslegacy conversations. this archive helps to document anoverview of african american poetry. in 2004, elizabethalexander interviewed -- interviewed haki madhubuti. in 2006, i sat down with alexander.

this type of documentation of african americanpoetry has altered -- undertaken by dr. joannegabbin, the founder and director of furious flower atjames madison university. gabbin's furious flower conferenceis another event that once you study in order to evaluate the stateof african american poetry. last year there was a majorgathering of african american poets at madison under thetitle "seeding the future of african american poetry."

from furious flower to cavecanem, to [inaudible] magazine. the literature edition ofafro-american poetry needs to be critically examined. too often, for example,and [inaudible] that exclude as muchas they include. in the future, we shouldbe suspicious of [inaudible] collections thatattempt to define the state of african american poetry. a good example of thismight be the book,

angles of ascent editedby charles rowell. if there's one thing i've learnedover the last four decades is that literary politicsis alive and well. if we honor who we are, thenwe will never be post-racial. the mirror -- mirror remindsus of history's horrors. we only need to look out the windowto know our struggle continues. everywhere we live, not suffocating,but breathing, our beauty residing in our blackness, everlastingor shall we simply say, eternal. >> enjoyed the commentsof each of you.

so i have a question. i work on the campus of thehistorically black college. and i would like to spearheadan initiative to get books in the hands of eachof our students. and i'm wondering ifyou have any suggestions on how i can go about doing that. i thought about maybe tryingto do a book festival, but our students can't evenafford their textbooks. a lot of them are notin the habit of reading.

so, i don't know ifit's practical to try to make books available for sale. but i guess i'll justleave it at that. that's the essential question. >> haki madhubuti:the third world press, we have a [inaudible]program, anybody incarcerated in the country can write us a letter and we will send themfree books [inaudible]. for libraries and especially[inaudible] talking

about college university,if you write us, we will send you all the booksthat have been published, to your library [inaudible]. for your students, we would donate-- how many students do you have? >> [inaudible] lastspring was about 1500. >> haki madhubuti: okay, ican't do that [laughter]. we can send you as a donation, say50 copies of -- of [inaudible] -- www.thirdworldpressbooks.com. >> yanick rice-lamb: i think i --

i might have some books ican donate to you as well. but i think that's one of the keysis getting people to donate books. and i know that when i workedon althea gibson's biography, there was someone who wanteddonate books to a school and they had approached [inaudible]books when it was around and they -- they ended up donating our book. and so, then i also went to theschools to speak to the students about reading and aboutthe book that i worked on. so that's -- that's one thingand i know our freshman class,

they choose a commontext for them to read. they read -- a couple yearsago, they read the warmth of other suns by isabel wilkerson. and i'm not sure if all thestudents purchased that book or if they were donated as well. and she came later to speak andthey were able to interact with her and that helped to bring ithome to them a little bit. but i think it is important,the other thing about -- when we talked about reading tochildren, students and young people

who read for pleasure alsodo better in -- in school. so we have to encourage them todo it on their own for pleasure, you know, so [inaudible]encourage that. >> e. ethelbert miller: i couldanswer this on a number of levels. first in terms of --on my first level, i've been over the last fewyears, creating what i call "eboxes" giving parts of my personalcollection to writers that identify, who have a lot of potential. i say that because i see booksas sort of like a sacred gift,

passing it on, as opposed tosometimes just putting books out in a box and hoping somebodycomes by and picks it up. what i try to do is customize the -- the selection from myown personal collection to the interest of the writer, okay. so, for example, giovanni singletonwas a poet out in california. knowing that she was a buddhist,i gave her a lot of books that were dealing withbuddhism and spirituality. so i -- i got books out of my house

that i know were goinginto good hands. when we deal with glass schools, ithink the first thing that we have to be concerned about itis preservation, okay. you know, i was at howarduniversity for 40 years. now that i'm not at howarduniversity, i can speak openly. what i would be concernedabout is -- is a preservation. and -- and this is a challenge to the people outside howarduniversity, is that we have to make sure that moneyis raised, you know,

to protect the libraries, okay. i've always looked at historicglass schools as living organisms where you would look atthe library as the heart. and i say that, especially toafrican americans because of if the library is our heart, justlook at the problems that we have with our heart, everythingin terms of heath matters, as well as the blues, interms of broken heart. so we don't take care of our heart. consequently, we don'ttake care of our libraries

at historic glass schools. many of them are overheatedfor some sort of reason i would like to examine, you know, whyare many libraries overheated? okay. which means thatsome of these books after awhile are just falling apart. at the same time on this last note,we have to look at the changing fact of we are living interms of the book itself. okay? at one time, i was a strongadvocate of personal library, but we know now today that peopledon't collect the books the same

way, they download them. and we have to look atit in terms of that way. but i think looking at,you know, charleston, and looking at the historyabout that one institution, we have to look at booksthat need to be passed down to throughoutour family, you know? as a writer, i'm concerned aboutthe fact that in my household, my kids look at my book collectionand ask, "how much is that?" not necessarily in terms ofreading the book and passing

on the knowledge, but, "oh,this book might be expensive because ethelbert hadthis signed by so and so." and so, they see itas a commodity, okay. and this has a lot to do with how wesee african american culture today. we sell it as a [inaudible],you know, how important is it? going back to like the piano lessonsin august wilson's play, you know, you sell it to somebody,you keep it in the family. >> haki madhubuti:[inaudible] i just want to add to what ethelbert stated.

i taught at howard, morgan state -- i spent 26 years atchicago state university. i taught at researchones and so forth. to my black universitiesand colleges, the real problem is leadership. these boards are atrocious. i'm not serious [inaudible]that tuskegee, i was there for three days and, youknow, it's just -- it's horrible. now we do not have enough fundsin terms of monies coming in,

but the leadershipfor the most part, do not see the library as the heart. and if you work in there, youcan't say anything, you know, whether you're [inaudible] or not. but the -- the managementof black historic and black college universitiesfor the most part, i would say are the -- are the -- the 100 or so that exist,maybe 15 are doing well. and those 15 that are doing well,

they still have serioustrouble, you know? but with faculty memberslike yourself, there's always hope, you see. and just see me afterwards, i'llfollow through on what i promised. >> sibyl e. moses:before the next question, we would like to takethis opportunity to build upon what was said, especially in the areaof preservation. as we move into this new age

that we are currently in,the issue is preserving. how are we preserving thewritings, the stories of those of us who create on the web? those of us who, what we call, create these born digitalcollections where there are noprint volumes available. how do we even knowthat they're there? so, one of the tasks beforeus is to begin thinking about how can we create amechanism to get control?

and that's not a negative word, but control meaning tobe able to discover. to be able to discover what is outthere so that we can read and -- and preserve that information. so that -- that is a big issue. one of the things thatwe're doing at the library of congress is web archiving,archiving various websites, archiving blogs, etcetera. and this again, is something for theagenda of our black institutions,

to begin archiving much ofthis digital information. i'm turning here because wecannot carry on this conversation with black publishers, andbloggers, and black literature without mentioning or evokingthe name of dudley randall and so many others that havereally set the stage for us and on whom's the shoulderswe stand. we cannot leave here, leave thispanel without evoking the name of monroe nathan work and when youmentioned tuskegee, this is the man who enabled us to know who the blackwriters are all over the world,

not just african american writers, but black writers allover the world. and so, as we have thisconversation, please let us include. >> haki madhubuti: yeah. dudley randall [inaudible]. i'm here because of -- in partbecause of dudley randall. the people that mention me as a young boy were el-hajj malikel-shabazz, malcolm x. margaret and charlie burroughs, whofounded dusable museum,

was the first black personin the country -- in chicago. dudley randall, who'sthe publisher -- poet and publisherof broadside press. >> and librarian. >> haki madhubuti: and librarian. and he used all his money from,you know, being a librarian and he was my first publisher. i published my first book myself,which was think black in 1966 and then 1967, 1968 --

at '68, dudley randallpublished black pride . i met dudley randall after malcolmhad been assassinated -- well, let me just mentionthese other three mentors because i can't go without them. hoyt w. fuller, who was the editor of negro digest blackworld magazine , which was a major magazineto document that whole period between the late 1960'sand up to 1975. and then, of course,barbara sizemore.

barbara sizemore was -- dr. sizemorewas the first black superintendent here in washington d.c. ofcourse, she didn't last too long because of her loveof black children. then of course, finally the person that essentially mentioned methe longest was gwendolyn brooks, for 33 years, part of the family. but dudley randall and -- and gwendolyn brookswere very [inaudible]. in fact, when -- when -- whengwendolyn brooks left harper

and row, she went tobroadside press. broadside press published herfirst book of poetry back -- i think it was 1969,which was riot . and -- but finally, this is -- the reason i got into buildingindependent black institutions is because of margaretburroughs and dudley randall. so i'm at the -- i'm in the army, i'm in the united statesarmy going crazy, all right, reading all this black literature.

and, you know, nobody totalk to, you mentioned black, you look like you had lostyour damn mind, all right. and so, i found my wayinto chicago at the -- at that time, it was theebony museum of negro history. ebony magazine sued them so they hadto change the name from ebony and go to dusable museum ofafrican american history. i walked in that morning in1962 and margaret burrows was in the kitchen workingon a linoleum cut. i didn't know what a linoleum --

she's a world-classvisual artist, okay. i walked up there and i, you know,i [inaudible] looked natural, i was in the army -- say,"what you want, boy?" i said, "i need to talkto somebody, all right." and, you know, i'm -- i'm about20 years old, 19-20 years old. "go upstairs and talkto my husband." i go upstairs, they gotthis world class library in their home, all right. he sitting at the table writing

and [inaudible] glassof water down there. he said -- he said,"how you doing, son?" i say, "well, i just needto talk to somebody." he says, "sit down. do you want something to drink?" i said, "i'll take some water." he said, "that's vodka,"you know [laughter]. charlie burrows had been reared in the u.s.s.r. the guy spokerussian fluently, all right.

so he was the firstperson that introduced me to [inaudible] literature,etcetera, etcetera. anyway, when malcolm wasassassinated, dudley randall came to chicago to talk to margaretburroughs about co-editing a book on the life and legacyof malcolm x, all right. and so, i gave my firstpoem and he -- and then i gave my manuscriptto black pride , he -- i said, "will you pleaseconsider this?" he called me back in aweek and said, "yeah,

you know, i -- i'll publish this." he said, "but would you allowme to write the introduction?" and that was for me, youknow, the biggest thing. now, the museum started in theirhome, the dusable museum started in the home of margaretburroughs and charlie burroughs and broadside presswas in his home, okay. and so, both the museum andbroadside press was really funded by their monies, the monies thatcame out of their pocket, okay. and so, when i went todetroit to sign a contract,

which i didn't sign, i just shookhis hand and said, "i got this. i got this." that's it. >> haki madhubuti: beautiful people. >> e. ethelbert miller: i'lljust mention one other name. that would be naomi longmadgett, also from detroit. and she was -- >> haki madhubuti: oh yeah,naomi, yeah, lotus press. >> e. ethelbert miller: --the lotus press after --

after [inaudible] andthe third world. >> haki madhubuti: in fact, she wasmy second publisher [laughter], i -- you know what i'm saying. naomi long madgett, who is a finepoet also [inaudible] all poets, ethelbert. and, you know, she called me andsaid [inaudible] about a book. and, you know, so isaid obviously yes. and so, she -- she's still alive. dudley is not with us anymore, ofcourse, gwendolyn brooks is not

with us anymore, normargaret burroughs. so naomi long madgett, she's in her-- can you tell, i don't know -- >> e. ethelbert miller:ninety-nine, she's about 99. >> haki madhubuti: -- she'sabout [inaudible] 90's. but what happened, ethelbert, broadside press isstill functioning, but not in a very high level. so broadside press and lotuspress have combined, okay, to try to keep bothof the press's going.

>> yanick rice-lamb: some of thepeople who influenced me are some of the people thatinfluenced a lot of people. like james baldwin, i read alot of his books growing up. and then being from -- i'm fromakron, ohio, so toni morrison because she's close by and shealways made references to things in ohio, so my sisterand i always got excited when we saw those referencesin her books. rita dove is also from akron, ohio,went to the same high school i went to -- i graduated withher younger sister.

and she was -- she's a poet, andi sat in her class, the pulitzer. and then -- then a numberof journalists that i have - i have met over the yearsand -- and poets, authors, all sorts of writers, screenwriters that i've met who haveinfluenced me. her question, she's -- she said,she was asking about discerning between blogs that give yougood information and blogs that don't give you goodinformation in a nutshell. and i wanted to point out, ingridsturgis, she's standing back there.

she's also from howard university, but she teaches digitalmedia literacy. if any of you want tograb her afterwards, but one of the thingswe're trying to do is to help students understand allthe things that are out there in the digital world and --and what's good and what isn't. and to -- we all have tobe discerning about that. sometimes when we're lookingat information, if someone -- is their [inaudible], istheir opinion, in a --

and sometimes it'sincorrect and unfortunately, the corrections take a longtime to catch up with the truth. one of the things we'restarting also at howard, working title right now is huinsight, but we may change the name. but we are starting kind of atruth squad or a verification -- verify information, myths,stereotypes, false statements that are made about us and eventhings that have persisted, you know, for a long time. so we could say, youknow, what's true

and what isn't trueand do it in real time. and there's some site like,called politifact that does it for politics, but we wantto do it across the board because as it affects people ofcolor because there's so many things that are said about usthat are completely false, or partially false, or whatever. we want to address that, buti encourage you to call people on it when, you know, when you'rereading blogs or reading, you know, whether it's mainstream media, orwhether it's a one person situation,

you know -- call them on it when yousee errors and when you see untruths that are out there because wereally do need to stop that. because a lot of times people takethat information as fact and a lot of people don't do their homeworkor they rip off information from someone else and if thatperson has false information or has made a mistake,they just keep repeating it and perpetuating it. and with social media, a lotof that information goes viral. and, you know, one of thethings that i'm committed to,

which is one reason why i teach,is to, you know, encourage and train young people to tellthe truth, to do the homework, to get out in the community,to go to places that aren't being coveredto tell our stories. and i'm thankful to ethelbertbecause a lot of times i say, "you know ethelbert miller,you should go talk to him." and he always, youknow, talks to them and gives them great information. but it's really importantthat we do that because we

so often allow stories that theyaren't being told period about us and they're told in the wrong way. but there's a lot of bloggers andthere's a proliferation of bloggers and they definitely arenot all created equally, so you have t kind of, youknow, watch what you're reading or what you're consuming, so thatyou're consuming good information. >> e. ethelbert miller: yeah, i've been actually bloggingevery single day since 2004. and i look at how i use bloggingto move into other forms of media.

so if you look at what idid a couple years ago, i created e channel,which was a blog. and i interviewed thenovelist, charles johnson, every single day for an entire year. that is not a book that cameout in january, 672 pages. it's one of the most -- most comprehensive thing aboutcharles johnson and, you know, this year is the 25th anniversary ofhis key book, the middle passage . but i used to blog in sucha way that was like a tool

and -- and to help people. if you look at my -- anotherthing i'm doing right now, the critic aldon nielsen --interviewing him pretty much four or five times a month tryingto look at the development of a literary critic, okay. so i'm using the blog as a wayto interact with other, you know, media the same way you goback to marshall mcluhan. mcluhan always felt thatprint was the key [inaudible]. so my thing is that if i cancontrol the print, you know, and --

and have things come out ofthat, then that would be a way of staying a breast with thetechnology where we don't see it as either or, but connected. so when i look at how the e channelbecame a book, i realized, okay, these things are not separate, okay. i can just reach more people, okay. but the thing i found out with theblog when i was doing the e channel with charles johnson, i was happy iwas interacting with charles johnson because he's a perfectionist.

and if -- and the thing aboutbloggers, blogs have a tendency to be very sloppy and --and that's the difference between blogs and journalists. charles just would notlet me post anything if there was a periodof comma out of place. and i -- and i had to reformat thewhole thing because he said, "oh, no, you're not goingto put that out there." but what i realized is -- it was that he was dealing withthis project in such a way, he said,

"okay, this is extremely important. this is literary historythat's being made." and every now and then, i would bejoking around and whatever, and -- and he said, "yo, butthis is serious," okay. the other thing about the blogging and the technology ishow it makes the -- the black world smaller, okay. and that is -- i would not have beenable to do this if charles was not in seattle and i was here.

and the time thinghelped us to be connected. and i say that now in terms of whenwe talk about the literary world. we have to be international. we have to be supportive, youknow, whenever there's crisis, we are the survivors, okay. that's the key thing in writers. something happens duringthe world [inaudible]. we have to be responsible to thatand we have to use the technology. >> haki madhubuti: actually,repeating the question,

she is concerned about thereading level of [inaudible]. and actually we havea house [inaudible] in that area [inaudible]. and if i can [inaudible] ask dr.carol lee to come forward please. can you come up here to speak? she doesn't want to come [laughter]. my wife is -- is -- she --she's really -- she's an -- she's one of the livingexperts in [inaudible]. a former [inaudible].

but she's very modest and that's whyshe married me, so she [inaudible]. but she would, "baby, come uphere for a minute [inaudible]? everybody encourageher to come up -- >> the challenge us notunique to black boys. i think they're two things. one is that the challengesthat we have to -- that we have an education,we need to understand in an international context andthat is the things that we try to do to impact educationin the united states.

no other high achievingnation in the world does any of the things that we do. so, politically and this -- it seemsto me, we need to be advocating. we don't have an infrastructure --so part of what i'm trying to do is to say that the challenges that ourchildren have in school relative to reading is part of a biggerchallenge in the country at large. so if you look at nationaleducate [inaudible] -- and national assessmentof educational progress, which is the only nationalassessment that we have.

and you look at the growth over theyears, for example, of 17 year olds, there's no growth atall, for decades, right. so, the challenges our kidsface are extreme exacerbations of a bigger problem. we don't have -- we don't havestrong capacity in our schools for supporting mostkids, but particularly for not supporting black kids. so i think that while westruggle in terms of policies, certainly being here in d.c.,

we have to equallystruggle within communities. and to have what haki and ihave talked about for years, what we call liberatedzones where we say some -- to some degree, maybe somethinglike the harlem children's zone, where we go neighborhood byneighborhood and say that, we are responsiblefor the young people, whether it's 10 square blocks orwhat -- we are responsible for them. and we're not going to depend solelyon public education to be the place to educate our kids [applause].

and all kinds of communitiesdo that as well. and so, everything they talkedabout in terms of, you know, working with kids, readingkid -- well it's not -- there's no magic to how to read -- teach kids to read orteach them to love to read. we've all done that ourselves inour own lives with our own kids. it's just that we don't reach out,we're dependent on other people to do this for us, as opposedto saying, whether it's our own, you know, extended family,the kids on the block,

the kids in our church, thatwe're going to make sure because we know how to doit, it's not rocket science. >> haki madhubuti:you know [applause], what she didn't mentionwas the professionalization of the whole area ofteacher's education. when you look at nations likefinland or look at even hong kong, that their teachers are paid asmuch as doctors, md's and physicians because essentially you cannotbecome a teacher unless you're from the top tier, all right.

and so therefore, their whole -- andin northern europe, you find that -- that education from preschool up tograduate school is free, all right. so these young people -- their youngpeople do not come out of college or university with thousands andthousands of dollars of debt. in fact, the student debt inthis country is $1.3 trillion -- $1.3 trillion, that's a shame,that's a crime, you see. and that started withronald regan in california. i don't need to get intoall politics [laughter]. >> sibyl e. moses: thank you[applause] e. ethelbert miller,

yanick rice-lamb and haki madhubuti,we thank you and embrace you for really encouraging us, forproviding such an informative and provocative discussion. we've had an effort tochange the conversation and to begin definingwhat is needed. and so now we go forth and we createour stories, create liberation zones in our communities, develop writer'sworkshops and what i focus on, biography workshops and begin tocapture so many more of the stories. in closing, i just want to say thatin terms of our black institutions,

they offer opportunities forus to begin capturing the lives of the people's -- people whohave built those institutions. i work with the princehall freemasons and so many of those organizations throughoutthe country, which have roots in the late 1700's and the truehistories have not been written. the lives of thosepeople involved in -- in really, preservingour culture and -- and helping our peoplehave not been explored. so we encourage you to goout into your communities

and capture not only the livesof you and your families, but also the lives of othersto help us preserve the word. thank you [applause]. >> marieta harper: myname is marieta harper. i'm an area specialist here in theafrican and middle eastern division. we're going to start withthe second panel called, stakeholders of black literacy. i'm going to intro -- startthe panel with betty entzminger and fourth generationnative washingtonian

with our national anthem. >> lift every voice and sing,till earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmonies of liberty. let our rejoicing rise,high as the listening skies, let it resound loudas the rolling sea. sing a song full of the hope thatthe dark past has brought us, sing a song full of the hopethat the present has taught us. facing the rising sun of our new daybegun, let us march on till victory, let us march on till victory is won.

it is won, it is won, it's won. >> marieta harper: our first speaker and panelist will bedr. brenda greene. >> brenda greene: thankyou, thank you very much. i'm really, reallypleased to be here. and i first give thanks to godfor continually blessing me and my family, for doing hislife's work and for placing me in this moment, and time, and space. it's really a privilegeand an honor to be here.

this is a legacy and historic event. and i also want to thankmaria fenton for her vision and her commitment to sponsoring theeleanor holmes juneteenth festival. as haki mentioned earlier, this-- it took really a lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of passion. so i think you shouldgive her a hand. okay, i think what better way than to celebrate juneteenththen by celebrating literacy. and i think this dayand this test --

this program are also testament tocongresswoman eleanor holmes norton, who also put her supportbehind this program. she's an outstanding leader who embodies the wholespirit of what juneteenth is. a tireless advocatefor social justice, and women's rights, and liberty. and i also want to acknowledge mycolleagues in the audience, eric -- eric white and linda white, whoi've known for many, many years. it's really good to see you here.

and my colleague from medgarevers college, richard jones. and of course, the writerswho are here, it's really, really a please --pleasure to be here with haki and with marieta golden. maria fenton asked me to speakon the challenges and triumphs of literacy from my perspectiveas a parent, a professor, an academic literary activist,and a media professional. i smiled when i saw that, i said,that must be related to the work that i do as the director of thenational black writers conference

at medgar evers college." and i'm also executive directorof the center for black literature at medgar evers collegeand also chair of the english departmentat medgar evers college. so, i'm the mother oftwo outstanding sons and a grandmother of four. so i do have many,many roles to play. and it's really a challenge to tryand reconcile all of those roles through my work at the schoolin educating young people

and teaching writing andliterature to college students, and teaching future teachers andin educating the general public about the range and complexity ofthe textbooks produced by writers from the african diaspora. and in supporting writersthrough conferences, such as the national black writersconference, symposium, workshops, readings, and -- and publications,it is really a challenge. in her anthology, i don't know howmany of you know pamela newkirk, wrote letters from black america.

she's an award winning journalistand editor of a wonderful book, also of love letterscalled, a love no less . and most recently, this is abook you should get, spectacle, the astonishing life of ota benga, who was an african man used as a human zoo exhibit at thest. louis world's fair in 1904. that book just came outand it's an important book and it tells an important story. and it's part of what we'redoing in telling our stories. she writes in letters from blackamerica , despite their importance

as historical markersand as literature, the letters of africanamericans like so much of black history have historicallybeen undervalued or ignored. newkirk, she just decidesto correct this by presenting a multidimensionalportrait of african american life from the 18th through the 21stcentury through illuminating letters of ordinary and exceptionalafrican americans enslaved and free, powerless and privileged. in fact, one of her last lettersis a letter that alice walker wrote

to barack obama when he was elected. she has a letter from tonimorrison, when he was -- when barack obama was nominated. but letters or the [inaudible]narrative provide windows into our interior livesand represent one of the first forays into literacy. letter writing hasbecome a lost art form, so i decided that i wouldcelebrate and talk about literacy by writing a letter to you aboutthe triumphs and challenges

of promoting literacy today. and so my beloved friendsand colleagues, the reading of literature hasalways been very, very dear to me. i was also one of those peoplewho spend hours and hours in the library, and also recognizedthat there were very few books that represented depictions of me. but i was interested in the storyand stories of famous people and how historical figuresovercame obstacles, and mysteries, and friendships, and triumphs.

i remember one book about alittle girl who faced racism and it's interesting that i can'tremember the name of that book, since that was the only onei remember that depicted me. for some reason, iblocked out the title. but books were my comfort, as my other colleagues havesaid, my solace, my friends. because they were a wayof reimagining my life. and when i became a parent,instilling a love and -- of reading and writingwas very paramount to me.

i was determined that mychildren would be reading and writing beforethey entered school. in fact, i even thoughtabout homeschooling and opening my own schoolbecause like so many people in my generation, iwas very disillusioned with the public school system. i had worked in a middleschool and elementary school and the students weretwo years behind in their reading at both levels.

and i viewed this as a tragedy anddetermined to do something about it. so the first thing i did was wheni worked on my master's degree, i decided to get it inthe teaching of reading. and i did my doctoral degreein the teaching of writing, so that i could reallybecome proficient in that. and one of the things that i'velearned over the years as a educator for over four decades, is thatchildren come to reading processes at different stagesand in different ways. everyone has their own journey.

and what you have to do is tosurround students with language, with read -- opportunities to readand write to them as we all know. and there was a bookthat had an impact on me. it was a woman named glendabissex, who did her dissertation on her student's growthinto literacy. it's called gnys at wrk . and she spelled geniusg-n-y-s, gnys at wrk . she chronicled her son reading andwriting, and by the time he was in late primary school he waswriting newsletters for his school.

and i was concernedthat, as an educator, my son should have been readingearly, because i had a master's in reading and was doing mydoctoral work in reading. but i realized that there aredifferent ways of reading. one other thing, my son is ahip-hop artist, talib kweli. he began writing beforehe was actually reading. he actually -- he loved tellingstories and he loved drawing. so he would draw these books. and he -- i would give himreams of computer paper

and he would draw these pictures. and then, he would put captionson the bottom of the pictures. and so, he was writing picture booksbefore he was actually reading. he was doing that reading wetalked about earlier, you know, my son can read, but theyhad memorized the text. we all know that. you know, children gothrough that, right? so he actually also had aspecial journey into reading, and by the time he wasfive years old, was writing

and then producing shows aboutbooks that he had written. whenever there was a familygathering he would take his -- produce this show and get allof his cousins together and put on a production based on what he hadwritten and the characters he had. so my love of books andreading really formed the seeds of literary activism, whichalways attribute that to my friend and colleague, e. ethelbertmiller, who calls -- said, "i'm a literary activist." i also am a literary activist.

and when i was student teaching, i worked in an alternativeschool with reluctant readers. and one young man who was readingyears below on the school level, never writing, i said,"well, i'm going to make sure and get you -- motivateyou to write." and so, he loved music. he played the guitar. so we went to a guitarstore and he got -- i got him to buy books

that represented lyricsof songs he wrote. and then, he would comeback and that was his way. by the time the programwas over, he was writing. in my work as executive directorof the center for black literature, we have a program calledre-envisioning our lives through literature. we go into the public schools -- we bring teaching artists into thepublic schools, in middle schools and high schools, sometimeselementary schools.

and we work with studentson creating -- giving them opportunitiesto create stories, to create poetry, to create skits. they create and anthology. in fact, i have one herethat they just finished and it's based on "roll call." when we give them abook, and we used -- we've been using "roll call"for the last few years. hakeem abuhti, [phonetic] mentioned

"roll call" that'spublished by third row press. and so, we give them roll calland they read the stories, and then they take thosestories and use it as the basis to create their ownstories and literary text. and i just want to read to you oneof the stories, one of the letters that came out of that,just a part of it. this is by yassim [phonetic]. it's called "the struggle." "i stare at the empty blackhole that is my future

and the bright lightthat is my past. i examine the strugglethat my brother, mother, sisters, ancestors have survived. what was the purpose, whatdid we do to deserve this? red fills my eyes. i can hear the blood pumping throughmy veins as my pulse quickens. i can hear the screamsand the yells. i can feel the wipes and the cottonthorns as they prick my skin. i read the white only signs.

and i feel the desperationas a man runs from the house, a girl cries, a woman dies. it's over. is this it, was that all? is this what my ancestorshave survived, have fought againstfor me to be here? as i witness the brutalityof the past, as time goes on, i see my future brighten. i shall stand strong, for thisis what my people have struggled

through, what i maystruggle through. but that's okay, i can turn aroundand walk towards my bright future." and that's an example ofthe kind of work that we get from our young people whenwe give them opportunities to use their imaginationin the schools and give them somereal text to read. we ask -- we give them the book. they're not just readinglittle passages; we're trying to make readingvery meaningful to them.

so, that's re-envisioningour lives through literature. one of the things thattalib says to me is that you can't justgive people the words. you have to give them a hook. if you want them to get the message, you have to find outwhat the hook is. and i think one of the mainchallenges that we face as educators and as parents is how do we finda hook for our young people? how do we find creative ways forthem to get hooked into language

and to writing and reading? we have to create those spaces, and they have to beintentional and deliberate. and when we look at the impactof the internet and social media and popular culture, the declinein independent black book stores, the merger of publishing companies,the disappearance of sections in bookstores devotedto black writers, we understand whatthose challenges are. our students are reading andwriting in different ways,

and we cannot ignore the21st century technology. have you witnessed those students,who, when they read the poem, they come up with their ipad? they're reading from their ipads. right. you know, they'renot reading from the text. so we have to find away to draw on that. i mean, how often do yousee a young person sitting down and reading a book? and look at what's happened, atleast in brooklyn, in the libraries.

the libraries are full withyoung people in the afternoon, and that's because there's noother place for them to go. they go to the library. it becomes a placewhere they can hang out. they're not necessarily reading, butwe can draw on that and capitalize on that to create a space to get them more involvedin reading and writing. which means we have tosupport the libraries more, they have to be funded more.

we have to demand that. when we look at reading behaviors,someone mentioned the third grade. the third grade becomes that firststep when you lose the readers, and then it's the sixth grade. there's a correlation betweenstudents' reading behaviors in sixth grade and thenwhat happens later on? so we have to -- we havesome formidable challenges, we have to make theliterature produced by writers throughout theafrican diaspora more available

in our schools and forthe general public. which means we have to make sure that we get librariansto order those books. and in our schools, we haveto make sure that they're part of that cannon, which isone of the things we do in our re-envision ourlives through literature. a large part of what we have todo is professional development for teachers, so that they'renot just teaching the add-on, the one book.

like, how do you incorporate booksby people of color, and black books in the curriculum, so that itbecomes part of the curriculum? we have to find ways of -- wehave to support the black writers by buying their books, evenif we have to give them away. and i like -- i love what i hear -- heard this morning aboutgiving the books away. so you may not want it,so you give it to someone. and then, we have to support theconferences and the festivals, column [phonetic] book festival,

national black writersconference, this festival tomorrow. i hope all of you are goingto come out and see it. one of the things i did as i waslooking at what was happening, preparing for this panel, i lookedat the "new york times" book review and i realized thatover the last year, every week there's one bookreviewed by a writer of color, usually african american. one book. which means thatwe have to have more people who are writing those reviews,and we have to populate that.

they find that oneperson to do that -- and, as you know, in thenewspapers and in print, book reviews are disappearing. which means we have tofind ways to write them. and then, perhaps we need to go backto the bookstores and say we have to have a section onafrican american writers. because if you're going into thebookstore and you're looking to see who the writers are, if youdon't know who those writers are, you're not going to find them.

you have to go through the entirebook; maybe we have to go back. and even i understand some of thelibraries have taken away some of the african americansections, because we are what? post-racial, right? we have to say that we're not. and we have to supportour bookstores. one of the messages that cameout today is, telling our story. one -- i remember valerieboyd, who wrote the biography, the most recent biography,of zora neale hurston.

and she said she wrote thatbiography because robert, i think, robert hemingway, thewhite biographer, had said, "it's time for a black woman totell zora neale hurston's story." we have to tell our story. and she said when shewrote it, she was called. she felt a callingto tell that story. so in closing, i teachafrican american literature and the early part, inthe first book we read, is "the interesting lifeof olaudah equiano,"

or "the african," writtenby himself. and of the things we talk aboutis there's been controversy as to whether he wrotethis -- his book. but one of the important messages is that this book was a formof liberation for him. he eventually bought his freedom,and he wrote his way into literacy. as is phillis wheatley,the first african american to publish a book of poetry. she used literacy to writeher way into freedom.

our young people have stories thatrepresent liberation narratives, and there are many examples of liberation narrativesthroughout the cannon so our role is to teach thesewriters, these historians, and educators and find creativeways for our young people to develop their ownliberation narrative. so, the end of my letter. yours in solidarity, brenda. >> bahiyyah muhammad:good afternoon,

it's such an honor to be here. i come to you directly from asia, where i spent two months doingresearch in the prisons, in asia. i went to bangkok, i went tocambodia, i was in thailand, malaysia as well, and vietnam. the king in asia apparently feltthat incarcerated individuals who were mothers were unfit tolive in prison with their children. and therefore, he released all of the incarceratedmothers and their children.

and so, i was brought in to dopolicy implications with them. and so, i come to you from that. it's such an honor to be here. thank you very much for the invite. there's so much creativityhere, there's so much power, and there's so much strength. and i wouldn't want to beanywhere else right now. i want to start by reciting apoem for you that i performed for the mayor of newark, ras baraka,during a meeting two months ago,

when i spoke with himabout the importance of creating a family halfwayhouse, the first in the nation, in the world, in newark, new jersey, that would be directlyconnected to my research. so it was really interesting;i walked into his office, this was the first time we met, andhe says, "begin wherever you like." and this is what i said. ivory tower blues. my mind and intellect and criticalthinking skills are at an unrest.

i mean, my brain is exploding,erupting like a volcano. hot lava flows from my soul,burning and paving a new path. a new way towards academic success, a new collegic [phonetic]yellow brick road that truly leads lost souls home;the true and only way to the top. the ivory tower is mylighthouse, not my safe haven. a place i go to garnerthe verbiage needed to overturn the miseducationof modern day research. i keep a ladder in my briefcase toclimb down from the tower's balcony

that overlooks it all; thegood, the bad, and the ugly. my phd is my access, my abilityto walk freely between the hood, my roots, and the blindingtower of untold truths. this phd is my over ground railroad,an unhidden pathway of truth and familiar resources thatkeep children, parents, and families bonded by embracingthe root, the root causes of intergenerational curses;miseducation labeled as technology, politics as revenue, andparental incarceration. listen to me, i'm tellingyou something.

something that nobody, imean, no b-o-d-y wants to see, or hear, h-e-a-r and h-e-r-e. you, come here. come over here and listen. listen to this message,because it must be told. this message is for thosewith eyes who can see. those with ears who can hear. those with hearts who can love. and those with light, to brightena path that will lead the way.

now, move out of my way as i chargeforth with this message of truth. researchers, how dare you? politicians, how dare you not? ten-year track, why would youprofessors, how could you? department chairs, deans, and theapt committees, cut those shackles. peer reviewed articles, journals, why don't you incorporateinnovation? innovation that pushes thoseresearch subjects involved to a new place.

why do articles takethe place of the people? how can secondary databe respected as human? why are we bringing life tostatistics and not to people? research has to stop killingthe people, to save the numbers. percentages and greater likelihoods of a negative outcomecannot be the norm. there has to be more to the story. i'm not asking forremorse, rather, reality. nothing is single sided;everything has another side,

an additional angel. i advocate for the fullview, not just a zoom. and if you want your dose up close,move up close and personal and talk to those have lived itand walk at every step. use their narrative to createand not the other way around. i've done it, and it works. fifteen years of ridingbuses with children affected by parental incarceration has givenme the courage to be the truth, write truthfully, and create nothingof lies, deceit, or one-sidedness.

conducting interviews inlocked bedrooms of children, it gets no more truthful than that. i can still hear the tears shed andthe whispers of help to this moment. i remember every qualitativeinterview and every quantitativefile assessed. i put this experience inevery fiber of my soul. i live it, but i am not it. i am impassioned byit, but not lost in it. i am simply leading theway, creating a new path,

the only path to thetop, the true top. i use my research to createan educational coloring book for children of incarceratedparents, "the prison alphabet." it was born out of mr.critical fill-work jr, married to mrs. critical me. it is a publication thatgives back; it is a legacy. the legacy, my legs,that allow me to see. a literary masterpiece thataddresses illiteracy, lies, knowledge, and the unknown;all empirically based.

it is accessible infour different languages and used in various countries. its knowledge is a legacythat belongs to the world. "the prison alphabet" has been usedin uganda, dubai, europe, and asia. the truth is unstoppable,and it doesn't end here; it never ends where it started,rather travels far beyond. howard university. hu, you know, pridesitself of truth and service. and that is what mytrack record shows.

the ivory tower blues,ivory tower blues. the ivory tower is blue and cold. and it's easy to make it warm. create and make for the community,serve the people, and allow them to help you serve, create, and makefor the community, serve the people, and allow them to help you serve. climb out of the ivorytower and walk onto the ground amongstthe people as one. find the answers tothe next creation

and fully support it,support the truth. support the truth. support those who support the truth. support truth. i am the truth. i support you. you support me. we support me. when? now.

ivory tower dismantled. now we have ivory grounds,ivory minds, ivory souls, ivory everywhere, ivory shared. so truthful, so true. i have access to the ivory toweralthough i don't reside there. no more blue ivory tower. no more you ivory tower. [ singing ] so thank you very much.

i just wanted to share brieflythat the present alphabet, the educational coloring book,was born out of the spirit and the energy of the children. i read literature for many yearsthat identified these children as angry, as frustrated, asnon-intellectual, and when i went into the homes to interview thesechildren, they were brilliant, they were bright-eyed, they wererespectful, they were remorseful, and they were not their parentsalthough they loved their parents. so i knew that at the end of thisjourney that i would spend the rest

of my life allowing the worldto see that true narrative. right now i'm workingon a book called far from the tree and it looks atsuccess stories amongst children of incarcerated parents, oneof the things you don't hear. right now we use the statistics that identifies children havea greater likelihood of going to prison if theirparents are in prison. if they knew the parents are not. one of the things that wedon't balance that argument

with is the reality thatafrican americans supersede a lot and sometimes it'sthe worse situation that builds the brightest stars. so i have been travellingall around the nation and interviewing amazing children attop ivy league universities, yale. some individuals who have jds, whohad parents in prison knew the truth about their parents beingin prison, accepted it, and were able to movepast it and be an example for their parents once theyre-entered, to not recidivate.

>> bomani armah: good afternoon. my name is bomani armah. before i do anything else,i'm a hip-hop artist. i'm a poet. i'm an [inaudible], so igot to make sure the energy in the room for [inaudible], right? when i count to three, ineed everyone to say peace and throw up the deuces like this. all right, you all ready?

here we go. one, two, three. >> peace. >> bomani armah: not bad. it's a small room so if youdon't participate i can see you [laughter]. let's try this again. >> bomani armah: thankyou very much. i needed that.

that helped me. in fact, a bunch of smiles comingthis way now, so i appreciate that. i am blessed to be in this audienceand being a part of this panel. once again, my name is bomani armah. i am not a rapper. i am a poet with a hip-hop style. if nothing [inaudible] today,please check out my website. it's www.notarapper.com. i have a -- that's not a joke.

it's literally my website. go check it out. i realize some people thinki was joking with that. so i have a bunch of aliases. i'm a hip-hop artist so ihave a bunch of aliases. i'm the watermelon man. i am mr. read-a-book. that's probably the mostrelevant to today's panel. i am the hip-hop levar burton.

i am the black colin powell. i have a bunch of them. i'm not going to gothrough them all. but i take my art and my poetryand my activism very seriously. the first thing i wanted to do. we [inaudible] just becauseof my energy and the events over the last couple of days, iwant to encourage everyone in here, i want to encourage the previousgeneration, my parents' generation, their parents' generation,that black people,

young black people,we are doing good. all right? we're not doing exactly what wewant to be, but we're doing good. we are doing betterthan we were [applause]. yeah, you all give thatup for young black people. sometimes we get discouraged. sometimes we get discouragedand we believe, and we think and we internalize all the negativepress that we hear about ourselves. but the energy that has beenfighting against us for 400 years

of slavery, 450 years of de factoslavery, is strong and insidious. it keeps coming at us withdifferent things all the time. nobody was ready for thecrack epidemic of the '80s. nobody was ready for theeconomic bubble burst in the '90s. nobody was ready for theeconomic class of 2015 -- or 2008. so all these thingskeep happening to us, but black people are still fighting, young black peopleare still interested in the liberation of their people.

do not get twisted by themedia that you're hearing. i work with them directly. they tell me directly. they're very interestedin the struggles and don't feel discouraged,all right? you're doing a very good job. i'm at the age now where collegekids are half my age so i'm in that weird timeframe,you know what i'm saying, where they're trying to explain

to me how broke j coleis, and i'm like, really? you know what i'm saying? i wanted to come up here to tellyou a little bit about what i do. i am a product of the free blackspaces that we have been trying to create for the last century. my mother's side of the family movedup here to escape south carolina and the oppressiveness ofracism and no job opportunities. my father moved here from southcarolina to go to howard university. they met here.

i'm so into being black. it's like one of my favoritethings about myself [laughter]. it comes from growingup in this community. it comes from being a product ofmarion barry's washington d.c. it comes from being aproduct of p. g. [inaudible]. my father brought me -- they camebefore columbus when i was 13. like that doesn't happenin like normal households, you know what i'm saying? i had to have one my [inaudible]employees make me understand what

kind of free black space i lived in where my father wouldbuy me that kind of book. i'm in the same generationas dr. green. in fact, i'm a huge fan of his. so this is the resultof that happening. so i don't want us tobe discouraged at all. what i do for a living-- i am creative. i'm a poet, an m.c., aproducer, and an edutainer -- a term coined by [inaudible] wheni used education to entertain.

i am the director of poetryevents for busboys and poets which is a chain of restaurantsthroughout washington, d.c. there're six of them. we do 39 open mics a month. i direct all six ofthem which actually -- i miss, actually, being inthe crowd and being the host so i'm going to goback to that soon. but we take freedom of speech veryseriously here in the literary and black communityhere in washington, d.c.

we currently have thenational slam champion team. we currently have the national teenslam champion team take writing and literacy very seriouslyhere in washington, d.c. when i'm not doing that, ihave a creative writing program that i do mostly through anorganization called young audiences of maryland. but i'm actually doing a workshop onjuly 1st at mlk library with teens. if you have teenagers who are intowriting, have them come see me. i just, this past week,ironed out the deals

to teach my creative writingworkshop to other teachers through the kennedy center. the first workshop willbe march 16th [applause]. i'm excited about that. the first workshopwill be march 16th, and the way my workshopworks is it shows how -- our kids are into hip-hop. it shows how a well-written songresembles a well-written essay, with the chorus being the --

with the chorus being theintroductory paragraph and the verses being thesupporting paragraphs. showing how the writingprocess is the same across the board no matter whatstyle of writing you are doing. i got my break intothe literary world as a 19-year-old workingfor karibu books. there's a whole bunch of locals here who probably won'tunderstand what karibu books. i was responding to the [inaudible]system [inaudible] press sometimes.

i was really cool to actuallymeet dr. myra [inaudible]. i was sitting behind -- a lady turned around andsaid, "oh, you're bomani." i was a kid. i'm bomani. she's like, "oh, myson's named bomani." i was like, "cool. he must be handsome andintelligent" [laughter]. she said, "yeah."

then dr. [inaudible] said, "can mywife come up to the stage, please." she walked up and saidhello to everybody. i said, "whoa." my life is like a poem in so manyways i can't begin to describe it. but, anyway, it started from there. the first day at karibubooks, one of the owners, yao glover, pulls out the lease. he doesn't pull out theinstruction manual, the instructions for being a good employee.

he's like, "i understand you'rejust passing through here. i want you to see whatkind of business i run because telling ourpeople's stories is what i do for a living and ithas to continue." so the first thing hedid was show me the lease so i could see what kind ofmoney he was paying p.g. plaza, you know what i'm saying, and howwe worked out our best when i get to my own level oftrying to understand that in education --i mean, in business.

so i am very much hands-on. one of my very next jobs wasworking for martha's table. i lived above martha's table. there's an apartment there. i don't know if you'refamiliar with it. it's on 14th and w street. it's basically a soup kitchen. i lived above it as an employee. one of the most amazing things

that i saw while living therewas gentrification in action. it was something thati was able to take to the prison systemwhen i talked there. fourteenth and w streetis notorious. what is notorious? eighties and '90s. i joke with people all the time. if you got caught at 14thand clifton, 14th and w, you call somebody to come get you.

they'd tell you to walk a coupleblocks south before they came get you, right [laughter]? so i'm living abovemartha's table, 2003 i think, before they broke ground forwhat is now busboys and poets. once again, the corner's notorious. you know the signsof gentrification. first you start seeinghomosexual couples because they've been ostracizedfrom the rest of their community and so they come to the placewhere they can buy stuff.

then this is what happens next. i saw it right on my corner. they brought in the national guardwith [inaudible] and m16s and camped out on the corner for a month. right? during that month they shut down whatever illegaloperation was going on. then they brought in thedevelopers and broke ground, right? i saw the process happenout of my window, and what blew me away the most wasthat as notorious as 14th and w was,

the government, the politicians,the military, the police, could have shut itdown at any moment -- during the '80s, during the '90s,when it was dangerous there. they could have shutit down at any moment. they waited until theyrealized there was a point when it was valuable to them,and then, all of a sudden, all the crime stoppedimmediately [finger snap]. then the next stageof gentrification, when you see whites goingjogging with their dogs at 11 p.m.

you feel weird about it becauseyou're like why do they feel safe? they shouldn't feel safe. someone comes -- i'm not the onlyone who's been making these things, right? i've lived this thing andseen it happening first-hand. so when i've walked to thesedifferent prison institutions and talked to young peopleabout writing and about reading, the first thing they always sayto me is, "no one understands me. no one gets what i'm trying to say.

no one gets my words, myfeelings, my emotions." i'm thinking, ah, literacy andwring is exactly what we need in this situation -- the abilityto tell each other stories. so what i'm able totell young people back, that that's what they're missing. their inability to articulate theirfeelings comes from their inability to read, from theirinability to write. now i'm automatically ableto spark their interest. most of these young people havechildren, have younger brothers

and sisters, and they wantto be able to use their story as a positive message inorder to change the world, and so they're able to dothat once they learn how to be literate and communicate. when i use literate, i don'tcompletely just mean book literacy. we definitely need multimedia,social media literacy at this point. it's unavoidable. most young people are getting theirnews through facebook and twitter and instagram, so showing people how

to navigate these thingsis a very important thing. we also need musical literacy. i have people get theirpolitical/philosophical philosophies from rappers. they're quoting kendrick lamar. they're quoting j cole. so we need to start breakingdown poetry for them. that's been my blessingthrough my entire adult life. so i'm really intopractical solutions about how

to affect our young people andincrease their literacy rate and to move on to the nextgeneration even stronger. my favorite quote isfrom jonathan b. clark. when i was into tattoos i wasgoing to get it tattooed on me but i changed my mind, so it's good. that is, "we must start projectsour grandchildren will finish." >> oh, okay. >> bomani armah: he said, "thereshould be a railroad across africa. but no one man will ever live tosee it happen, so no one does it

because you have totrust your children and your children'schildren to do it." that's what we have tostart talking about. that's why i'm encouraged. that's why the state of ourstreets doesn't bother me because we're better than we usedto be, and we're moving forward. dick gregory says all the time,"don't let people tell you you need to go back to the old days. there is no better olddays to go back to."

we're all moving forward. so these are some of the things iwant to start moving forward with. first of all, as a community weneed to start adopting our schools. they entire building,the entire block. everyone who lives withina 10-block radius -- someone said something close to this-- a 10-block radius of a school. they need to think ofthat as their school. they need to be havingtheir events there. they need to be doingtheir birthday parties

and their bar mitzvahsat that school. they need to be -- we needto feel free that if we're in the 10-block radius ofa school, and we see some of those obviouslyschool-aged, we need to feel like we're in our community. we can tell them, "whyaren't you in school?" we can ask them do they understandthe importance of their education. the same thing with the libraries. now from what i understand aboutthe libraries - they might not be

as visible as d.c. library, butd.c. library has treated me well and i feel like it treatsthe people of d.c. very well. there are always opportunitiesfor the young people to come in and learn something. opportunities for young peopleto come in and be read to. one of the biggestproblems with learning how to read is you need to be read to. so there a whole bunchof opportunities for that with the d.c. public libraries.

in our black communities, we need to make sure all the librariesare operating like that. we need to do -- i've donethis because i don't sleep. we need to do a surge the wayiraq got the surge, right? i calculated the [inaudible]one of the school -- johnson square elementaryin baltimore is one of the worst educationalschools i've been in. what i did was i went and foundout how many professionals live within baltimore cityand baltimore county,

how many black professionals, right? if we get -- i forgot exactlywhat the numbers are -- but i calculated what it would take,how many volunteers it would take to put a volunteer adultin every classroom, every week for an entire year. what these teachers need areother adults in the room. they don't even necessarilyneed other trained educators. they need other people who arewilling to be a fellow third-grader for a day, and when they're teachingthat third-grader their basics

of reading, you can sit at the table and give the kid moreinput, all right? there are definitely enough blackprofessionals surrounding baltimore that, if each of them tooka vacation week and did it for one week, we coulddo that and make sure that the student/teacher ratio,the student to adult ratio, is no greater than oneto seven or one to six. that needs to happen. we need to take our owntalent and not even wait

for the federal governmentto clear a program. it's a long-time dream of minebut i already put it out there because i feel like i'm in a room with like-minded people,so i'm excited. we also need to have ourability to empathize for people who can't read, gobeyond the children. we say, oh, this poor, this18-year-old can't read. oh, this 12-year-old can't read. oh, this 16-year-old can't read.

oh, this 20-year-old is on her own. it's like you're notmaking the connection, that that 20-year oldneeds to be able to read so the next eight-year-old can read,and the next four-year-old can read. so i think that it needsto be extended well beyond when they're cute, and wehave to do that as a group. one of the things i'm realizing,and one of the myths that happens with young people is that theythink that learning isn't cool. it's a myth that we've beenrepeating over and over again.

all kids know learning is importantand they all know it's cool. what it is is once you get intothe third grade and you can't read, you realize you're never goingto catch up, and so your goals in the classroom settingbecome different. they become getting attention. they become being cool. they become living yourlife at that moment because you know you are lost. you know that what the teacher justwrote on the board is not going

to have any effect on your lifebecause you cannot comprehend it. they understand that they need it. what they need is moreunderstanding. they weren't readywhen they got there. so we need to have thatempathy go all the way to the heart of who they are. let me see. i want to share with you guyssome good ideas that i've seen. there's a brother -- if you followme at notarapper.com or on twitter,

there's a brother who has a kitwhere you can buy a bookshelf and a pack of books that you might-- somewhere i'm out of time, but a pack of books that youcan put in black barbershops, and what we're encouragingblack men to do is if you see a childin the barbershop, someone will pick up a book and readit to them, to leave the books there and just read them at all times. kids who have adultsread to them read better. one of the hardest things for methe last couple of days was looking

at the whole situationat emmanuel church. i personally am workingon a poem, play, a whole bunch of thingsabout denmark vesey. that was denmark vesey's church andit's been burned down four times. the saddest part of what we'regoing to have to explain this story to young people, is this -- isthey don't understand the story of that church, all right? we have to make sure thatdoesn't happen anymore. it's an interesting story.

it's a gangster story. there's no way why we shouldn'tbe able to tell the story of emmanuel ame church to agroup of 12-year-olds who are into like thug rappers and tell themthe story of the ame church like, yo, these people went hard. they saw a battle. they [inaudible]. that's what young people --we all remember 13/14 roles. they're rebellious, youknow what i'm saying?

they want -- all thesekids want to fight and we're not tellingthem who to fight. we need to tell them who to fight. we need to tell thestory of emmanuel church and do a much better jobof articulating that. i'm going to share with you all thethree creative writing rules i give all my students. first rule is, the only wronganswer is a blank answer, all right? make sure you tellyoung people that.

we are trying to get their opinion. we are trying to getwhat they think. you cannot possibly getthat wrong, all right? we can make you improve on it, but the only wronganswer is a blank answer. number two, artistsdo not make mistakes. we make discoveries. when i tell this story i talk aboutthomas edison who quote/unquote, "discovered the light bulb".

evidently at one timehe electrocuted himself and made his hair stand up on endand all that kind of stuff, right? when he finally did it,he did a press conference and the reporters asked him howdid it feel to fail so many times? he said, "i did notfail a thousand times. i discovered a thousandways that did not work." we need to make sure these youngpeople understand they are not writing down the wrong word, they'renot writing down the wrong phrase, they're not writingdown the wrong sentence.

they are writing downthe words, phrases, and sentences that will leadthem to the words, phrases, and sentences that they want to use. they need to talk about it. they need to do research. but they can always improve. the third thing that's involved. this will be the third thing. do not edit in your head.

that's the rule i haveto use myself. i'm so bad about that. some of my best ideas were badideas that i wrote on paper and i saw them, andi rearranged them. when i go over to these classroomsi will pictures of eminem's notebook which makes absolutely no sense, but he comes up withthese incredible rhymes. so these are the things we needto be telling young people. to end with, what made me infamousis eight years ago i did a song

called "read a book." it was the subject of ananimated video that was on bet. bet basically hired ananimation department that started doing all these jokesabout how bad bet programming was and putting it on the air. i was a part of that. the song is called "read a book." it used a whole bunch of profanity. the idea of the song was to make funof the current state of the hip-hop

when all they do in krump musicwas curse and repeat themselves. so i made a song like that. most of the educatorswere down with me. most of the educators knowwhat we're dealing with. a couple of dignitariescame against me. jesse jackson came out against me. he said whoever wrote this song wasilliterate, uneducated, and unkempt. i gave him unkempt but the othertwo were like really uncalled for. but the biggest piece that'smissing in transferring literacy

from one generation to the nextgeneration is the older generation's inability to try and relate to thenext generation in their art form, in their culture, and theway that they are illiterate. jesse jackson's organizationrevealed accidentally that they don't haveanybody younger than 40. because somebody wouldhave gotten the jokes. someone would understandwho little john was. someone would have been --understood the reference. the reason i am sayingthat is we have

to open our ears tothe young people. the young people knowwhat's going on. they want to know who to fight. they want to know how to fight them. they want to know how toget their skills together. so please don't be discouraged. there was one morething i wanted to say. i'm always [laughter]. i'm always afraid i'mgoing to miss one

of the crucial pointsi wanted to make. but i advocate for thesepeople, for young people, even when they make mistakes. that is my job. even when they aren't followingmy instructions correctly, even when they argue withthese bad things in the street, i'm still advocating for them because i understand what they'reworking against, and it's my job to help them articulatetheir story better.

this is the point i wanted to make. every generation thinks thenext generation is going crazy. i saw young peopleyelling to get the story, because i don't haveany young hip-hops, so i'll tell you a better version. i've seen clips of ella fitzgeraldin the middle of a concert in the '60s breaking down, like i don't know what the heckthese young people are listening to. she goes into a james brownimpersonation, all right,

because in her mind jamesbrown is the kid doing this what-in-the-heck-is-that-music? every generation thinks thenext generation is crazy. as the older generation, we needto start breaking down that wall. i want to believe that'snot an african thing to do, that every generation respects theother generation, and understand that they are carrying on thetradition but also building one. so what we have tostop doing is thinking that the young people are crazy.

the young people are a part of us. they're taking what we're doingand remixing it in their own ways, and we have to embrace themand help them become better at articulating their voices. thank you very much. >> rahman branch: i always hatefollowing polson mcs [laughter]. hate it. every timei speak in a place and there's a folder mcthere i always [inaudible]. they're like the headliner, right?

i've known bomani foryears and i never want to go behind him [inaudible]. my name is rahman branch. i'm a liberator by definition,and i say that because so many things being similar,my first gift from my uncle at 12 was stolen legacy , which kind of spiraled mybelief system and such. but i think i've usedseveral different things over the last many years topush for black liberation.

what i've used in thepast has been education. i've used politics. i've used music, and i thinkall those different ways to get to the goal. but i've started tofind ways to kind of incorporate everything together. currently i'm the executivedirector for the mayor's office on african americanaffairs here in washington, d.c. but my most exciting jobever, and my most loved job ever,

was as a high school principal. before i took over that i was a highschool principal of a school here in d.c. called ballou high school. anyone know ballou a little bit? >> rahman branch: a little bit? yeah? it's the best school. it's a -- hello. it's the m.c. in me. ain't that right?

a ballou high school? >> bomani armah: yeah. >> rahman branch: sodoes anybody know that ballou high schoolis the best school in the city of washington, d.c.? you understand that. got to make some noise [laughter]. >> bahiyyah muhammad:make some noise. >> rahman branch: geez.

so i adopted a high school where,on my first day as i'm walking into the hallway, there'sa young man sitting on the floor smoking a cigarettein front of the main office. it was a school that waspopular for all the wrong reasons and there was a teachable momentat that point, on my first day, seven minutes into the day, andi encountered an opportunity to help someone understand thatthey're meant for something better. so i began to actually step over theyoung person to get to the office and he makes a noise asif i'm invading his space

and he's offended by that. the young man kind of makes a noiseand kind of stands up to his feet and at that moment, for meas the adult, i wanted to -- i had the unchoice to make, and the choice was do i let theseyoung people know that you're crazy and i have to now address that? do i take that routeor is there another way to have a teachable moment? every young personwill tell you at ballou

that i've always used the term"conversation brings about clarity," so the conversation i hadwith the young man was that what you're doingis unacceptable. i introduced myself as anadult, not as the principal, and that there should be adifferent exchange we have. the young man thoughtthat wasn't good enough and so then my teachable momentbecame -- i'm six foot five, 320 pounds [laughter],and i'm not an easy take. so we had a different kind ofconversation at that point.

so there was a teachable moment in that [laughter]moment right there, right? it was we can go about this oneway or there's another series of things that can occur. needless to say, we got toa agreeable place [laughter] and that young man moved forward. one of the things thati realized when i got to the high school was theamount of despair that existed, the lack of belief that existed,the level of apathy that existed,

and that's before i metany of the children. that's before i met anyof the young people. that's where i met adults inthe neighborhood and adults in the school who had lost hope inwhat our children could accomplish. the conversations that kind of ensued always becameabout those kids. at some point the conversationhad to turn into these kids are aproduct of what we have or haven't done as adults.

that case was making many ofthe decisions that brought them to this space physically,that brought them to this space emotionallyand mentally. it's what we have or haven't doneas the adults who are responsible for the care of and theteaching of these young people. so the conversation that webegan to have, had as a staff, began to turn because one of the things i thought was the mostimportant lesson we teach the school was literacy.

it came from the reading of thelast valedictorian's speech, the valedictorian of theclass before i arrived. seeing the speech of thisstudent who was the valedictorian with a 3.9 grade point average, and recognizing fourth-gradeliteracy skills within it, and the kind of crimethat was committed by so many adults toallow this to happen. the crime that had beencommitted by so many people to say this our brightest star.

we're going to put this person onstage for the world to see knowing that we haven't donethis child justice. there was the necessityof having the culture of conversation at our school. everything was on thetable to talk about. we were able to discuss everything,and that was from decisions that i'd made as the principal,that was decisions that our adults in the building had madethat i clearly wanted to have a discussion about.

that came with the conversationthat we had to have with children because we all were assumedwe knew what they wanted. we all assumed we knewwhere they were coming from, and we were way offtrack to the point of what exists in various cultures. our young people were speakinga language that identified with the culture that many adultshad chosen to remove themselves from as if they'renot of it or from it. there was a teacher who told hisscience class and, pardon my french,

but i'm quoting him directly. "i'd make more money off youniggers opening a funeral home than i would teaching you." yeah. so we had -- so there's a -- so in a cultural conversation therewas the necessity of understanding that this person had severe,severe issues mentally to think that was all right to sayto a roomful of children. we had to then -- so wehad a teachable moment with that teacher and myself.

it entailed a closed andlocked door and [laughter] at a conference room table and,needless to say, he made his exit from ballou soon after that. but there was the necessityof fighting for our children, which a lot of us aren'tdoing, and in fighting for our children there is anecessity of letting them know. that was an amazing poem that iactually wrote into my device here which is that we start[inaudible] our grandchildren. well then we're finished.

there's a necessity in makingsure we understand that continuum as not just one directional. we have an obligation to learn andunderstand who our children are because then we canimpart information to them in a much better sense. so as we got to the place wherewe had a culture of conversation, we made sure that wehad opportunities for young people toexpress themselves. in my other life in music irepresented a group called the

unspoken herd. there's a young man named asheru,a young man's named blue black, and we were hip-hop musicians. still are to some degreebut at some point you put on a shirt and a tie for songs. so what we did was we brought thatgroup into the school and we had to figure out ways to get literacyacross to our young people. we found values in ouryoung people's value system. we found valuable information in thenews our young people listened to.

the beautiful thing about hip-hop -- and i am also of thehip-hop culture -- and i had to put that out therefirst most times that i speak. the thing about hip-hopthat's so beautiful is that there is a blendingif you will. there's a real blurredline between what is adult and what is not adultas far as music. within hip-hop you can turn onthe radio station and your child and you are oftentimes listeningto some of the same music.

so we found commonplaces within that. by finding those common places -- the young man asked aroommate, a remarkable product. i think he'll be here shortly. he made a remarkable productcalled the help project, and the help program isa hip-hop literacy tool. he'll do it much better than i can. but it ultimately takespopular hip-hop music with a socially conscious messageand it binds literacy lessons to it,

based upon nationalreading standards. as i looked at the product and i thought it would bea great opportunity for us, we brought that into the school and we saw young people'sengagement increase. their interest in whatwas going on increased. their participationin class increased because there were teachable momentsboth ways, from both the adult and the child around this workbecause kids saw themselves

in the work and they were ableto express a level of knowledge about what was being presented. they were in-room expertson the topics. a lot of our teachers, one of them walking away havinglearned a whole heck of a lot, one of those things being avalue in who our young people are and what they're expressing. a really, really exciting thinghappened as a result of that. we saw our math and reading scoresthat year go up by 18 and 20 points

which we thought, orthe world thought, would never happen atballou high school. but it was funny because oneof the young men who had been in asheru's class says to ourclass of students, "the cool thing about this is now that they know wecan learn, they'll no longer come and tell us what we have to do. they'll come and askus what we want to do." that's how empowerment was probablyone of the most beautiful moments that we experienced at the school.

it became the lynchpin for allthe things that we began to do. someone else in this room isof ballou experience as well. there's been severalopportunities for us to make sure young peoplehave avenues of expression. when they have those avenuesof expression they want to make sure they come offcorrect, that they perform, as they communicate, well,so they're opening this -- their willingness to literatureand literacy began to skyrocket. "i want to say this rightin front of the crowd.

can you help me with this speech? i want to do this right in front of the chancellor whenwe show our psa's. can you help me write the script? i'll [inaudible] better." so young people, as they startto see relevance in the work that we're providing and opportunityto express themselves within it, their engagement and desirearound academics began to increase and it was our cool scoopful ofsugar to help the medicine go down,

if you will, and it's thatkind of work that i feel -- it has to continue to happen. i see that my time is up. but literacy is important. once we understand that youngpeople have information to give, then literacy can go both ways. what is my role? as the executive director of theoffice on african american affairs, what i envision my role to be?

to continue this conversation,move this platform forward, and also get residentsof the district engaged in supporting this effort. okay. so, but the big three for theoffice of african american affairs in direct conversation withmy immediate supervisor, mayor muriel bowser, is topush housing, education, and economic opportunity. if we want african americansto thrive in the city, we know that housing is wayout control as far as cost.

we know that educationis a situation that needs to be drastically improved. we know that there has to be moreopportunities for african americans to open businesses, toestablish themselves financially in the district. specifically around education,i think that the first thing that i would probably say, and thisis a shameless plug, is that events like the juneteenth bookfestival need to be a part of our annual conversation.

it needs to be partof annual programming, not just from an independentorganization but from the city's standpoint,from the community's standpoint, we have to begin to make surethe world knows that we want this and we need to have thisconversation consistently and constantly. the more we make noiseabout its importance, the world tends to respond. if i've seen anything throughoutthe history of the diasporas,

that when we make something a bigdeal, that the universe responds to meet our needs, and so ithink that's the first thing that the residents shoulddo is make sure we're vocal. it's important to anevent like this. additionally, bomanibrought up a great point about the algorhythm he kind ofdiscovered in baltimore, right, by professionals andgiving some time to your local school inthat 10-block radius. the funny thing is, at ballou wemade -- we had a little struggle --

sure it was with a six-block radius. but in every direction wecalled that my country, and we figured it was ourresponsibility to make sure everyone in the community was awareof, and felt a comfort in engaging the school,because the days of the adults are inside thebuilding, and so we don't have a lot of energy to go and poke it loud. but we did want to make sure we madean inviting situation for anyone who wanted to give to orsupport our young people

because the more hands we haveon deck, the easier the lift is. >> [inaudible] you're thefirst director of the office on african american affairs. do you think this is going to be atradition that tries to [inaudible] around america or [inaudible]? >> rahman branch: so in looking itup, i am the first in d.c., yes. in looking it up, i think there -- i'm the first one in thecountry in a major city. yeah. i --

>> you laid the foundation forwhat happens in [inaudible]. >> rahman branch: ha-ha. >> bomani armah: good. >> bahiyyah muhammad: yeah. >> bomani armah: thedirector of african affairs, so he used to be calledthe mayor [laughter]. >> rahman branch: yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah. so the awkward thing is that -- as we've seen gentrificationoccur we do know

that in 1990 there were -- this is away tangent so i'll be really brief. we know that in 1990,washington, d.c. -- 71% of the district of columbiaresidents were african american. we know that in 2013it dropped to 49%. so if anyone tells youthat's not alarming, then they're completelybuggered out. it's not just a d.c. phenomenon. it's happening in northnew jersey where i'm from. it's happening in chicago.

>> bahiyyah muhammad: new york city. >> rahman branch: it'shappening in new york city. it's happen -- i mean,brooklyn is not brooklyn any -- it's not the planet anymore. >> bahiyyah muhammad: that's right. >> rahman branch: it'ssomething much different. so there is a need for this templateto be followed in other places. >> bomani armah: i got you. i think we have to start --

we have stop guaranteeingour children things based on the united stateseconomic [inaudible] policy. i think we have to stop saying that if you get educatedyou'll get a job. if you do the rightthings you'll get a job. that if you participate, thesegood things will happen for them. well, when you starttelling young people this -- you need to learn to be literate,you need to learn to be educated so you can relate withyour own people.

so you and your people can makeit better no matter what goes on around you. i think that -- you staydown here and what you see -- your daughter may tell you son isthat there's some kind of guarantee in literacy beyond theability to communicate. there is no guarantee otherthan the ability to communicate. but that ability to communicatecan lead to a whole bunch of other beautiful things. but i do like -- i personallyam wary of telling young people

to further [inaudible] to enterthe system that we have here, that if you pass and you getthe stamp from the state council or the county council in educationthat you have an education, that that guarantees you a future. i mean we have enough issue to knowthat that's not necessarily true. i also think that we are stillbegging for a group to see us as human, to invite us in, andthey do every once in a while, but we need to be okay whetheror not they let us or not. i got asked in an interviewthe other day how i felt

about black lives matter. i'm sorry. paying a little bit of attention. how i felt about black livesmatter, and i am unable to repeat it forcefully becausesaying black lives matter feels like saying water if wet. it feels like -- itshouldn't be news. if we're still explaining to peoplethat we are human, we need to -- like that was my father's fight.

i'm done with that fight. i'm done explainingto people my humanity. i'm trying to learnhow to communicate with other african americans,other people who relate to african americans and providejob opportunities amongst us, so it doesn't matter if theysee me [inaudible] or not. people ask me for -- why'd yougive your sons such funny names and not be able to get a job? good. good.

all right, folks, if you're workingfor a racist who doesn't like you because you have someracial or ethnic connection that you feel strong about, butyou've saved yourself some time by having that name and them[inaudible] over your application. my sons learn [inaudible]other africans and african americanslooking for jobs. so i would encourage your child toread so he can better communicate with his community, with his people,and that we will find a way whether or not they hire him or not.

here's the other one, and thisis what i tell all young people. tell your story. so that they -- andthis especially coming from the hip-hop angleworking with young people. it tells young people thattheir story's interesting. so i will go into a classroom,i will go into a prison, i'll go somewhere and belike, yo, so what's going on? where you from? what are your aspirations?

i may be [inaudible], i want to bea lawyer, i want to be a track star, i want to be an engineer,i want to be a biologist. i'm going to be this,that, and the other. okay. you want to learn how to rap. we'll put on the beatimmediately [rapping]. like they automatically -- because they'd been told thatis black art for masculinity. they go to that. like, no, we just spoke.

your mom's a doctor [laughter]. we just talked, like that's not you. like i really wantto know your story. what's going on in your life? at one point it changeda little bit. at one point -- the reasonwe come [inaudible] is like in the [inaudible]top 10 artists, seven out of 10 arealways a gangster or very closely gangster related.

i would go into theworst neighborhoods. i'd go to trinidad. i'd be like i'll showthem this stat. i'll show them the seven [inaudible]recognize who are gangsters. sometimes eight or nine. i'm like, so they sayeight out or nine people in the black communityare gang/drug related. i'll say, "do you live in trinidad? are eight out of every 10 peopleyou know are drug related?"

they're like, "yeah." i'm like, "no, think about it. eight out of 10? like that's the mailman. that's a sunday school teacher. like there's a whole lifehappening outside of this." so my four [inaudible] the firstis, please tell your story. don't feel the need to say whatyou think black people are supposed to be doing.

one of my favoriteblack -- oh, who is it? [inaudible] was getting a lot offlak for not writing black poetry. he wasn't writing about black stuff. he said, "i'm black. i wrote a poem. it's black poetry [laughter]." that's what we got totell our young people. they need to tell their story. >> i just want to add to that.

i would say also findout what your passion is because i think that'swhat's motivating the people. what if it that you like? what are you passionate about? make that your life's work. it's not -- don't beconcerned about finding a job. be concerned about findingwhat your passion is, and then you won't evenrealize you're working. >> bahiyyah muhammad: mm-hmm.

>> bomani armah: amen. >> hi. i'm marita golden,writer, literary activist, and head of the zora hurston/richardwright foundation [applause], and i just was just so amazedby this wonderful panel, and the brother mentioned -- yousaid komunyakaa, and i have to, now that i have a captive audience, let you know that thisis the 25th anniversary of the hurston/wright foundation, and for 25 years we've beencreating community safe spaces

for black writers, teens, adults, and the internationalcommunity of black writers. october 23rd will be 25thanniversary celebration and annual legacy award. this year we will behonoring edwidge danticat with our north star award. yusef komunyakaa and nikkifinis have been asked to compose original poems that theywill read in honor of zora hurston and richard wright, andthe law and order lady,

effie pinker merkison[assumed spelling] is going to be our mistress of ceremony. we have a wonderful -- wehave 18 black writers from all over the world who had beennominated for the legacy award, and who will be in attendance,including charles blow, the new york times columnist,chris avanni [assumed spelling], and so it's going tobe a wonderful event. go to www.hurstonwright.org.,join our mailing list. i'll see you there.

>> we have the great honor of having with us congresswomaneleanor holmes norton, and the congresswoman is now -- -- i'm really -- we'rereally delighted, honored, and -- i don't know. i'm losing my words. but, anyway, we'redelighted to have you. congresswoman norton is now inher 13th term as a congresswoman for the district of columbia.

she's the ranking member of the house sub-committeeon highways and transit. she serves on two committees,the committee on oversight and government reformand the committee on transportation infrastructure. before her congressional service,president jimmy carter appointed her to serve as the first woman tochair the u.s. equal employment opportunity commission. she came to congress as a nationalfigure who had been a civil rights

and feminist leader, a tenuredprofessor of law, and a board member at three fortune 500 companies. congresswoman nortonhas been named one of the 100 most importantamerican women in one survey, and one of the most powerfulwomen in washington in another. the congresswoman's work forfull congressional voting and presentation and forfull democracy for the people of the district of columbiacontinues her lifelong struggle for universal humanand civil rights.

her accomplishmentshave been enormous and i will just skip a number ofthem just -- and point out to a few. the most significant of hereconomic development projects that she's had was to bringto d.c. the u.s. department of homeland securityheadquarters compound, which is the largest federalconstruction project in the country. she has also been successfulin bringing to the district the newheadquarters for the u.s. department of transportation and the bureauof alcohol, tobacco, and firearms,

along with an additional metrostation at new york university -- new york avenue, sorry, whichhas resulted in the development of the [inaudible] neighborhood. the congressman who taught law for a time before being electedis a tenured professor of law at georgetown university, teachingan upper-class seminar there every year. after receiving her bachelor'sdegree from antioch college in ohio she simultaneously earnedher law degree and a master's degree

in american studiesfrom yale university. yale law school has awardedher the citation of merit for outstanding alumni, andyale graduate school of arts and sciences has awardedher the wilbur cross medal for outstanding alumni, the highestawards confirmed by each on alumni. she's the recipient of morethan 50 honorary degrees, and i'm just cutting it very short so that we can hearfrom the congresswoman. >> thank you very much.

it is a very special honorto say a few words to you at what is your firstjuneteenth book festival. i appreciate this english speakerswho have spoken and will speak. i particularly appreciate your themethat relates juneteenth to literacy, to literature, to american artists. juneteenth, of course, isnot nationally celebrated because it is not well enough known. that's why i appreciate thathere in the nation's library of congress you arehaving this symposium,

this two-day book festival,which will draw attention to this very important, yes, eventin our nation's history, and, of course, i note that we're in the150th anniversary of the civil war. you have found a reallyseminal way to link our past with our future because, if youjust think a moment about it, literacy is as much a key to thefuture of our young people today as the slaves regarded it ascentral to their own freedom. what was a free man or woman? well, a free man or woman didn'tgo around saying free man or woman.

but a free man or woman hadsomehow overcome the resistance of the master to literacy. a free man or womancould read and write. how rare in a country and at a time when it was understood the mostdangerous thing you could do for a black man or a black womanis to teach them to read and write. keep him ignorant and youwill keep him enslaved. that was a cardinal principle. you know, in a real sense it worksbetter today than it worked then

because as illiterate as theywere they yearned for freedom, and the first things they wanted todo was first find their relatives who had been sold off intoslavery god knows where, and then they wanted to learn,to do what was forbidden. there must be freedom in it ifthey said we couldn't do it -- >> -- so we got to learn to readand we've got to learn to write. >> what a yearning there wasat a time when learning to read and write certainlydidn't guarantee you a job. you could read and writeas much as you wanted to

and you will still be scrubbingfloors if you could get a job at all as a free man or a free woman. yet, if you wanted to feel free -- you knew your mind was free whenyou could put that mind on a piece of paper or on a book,see what it said, let alone write it for yourself. somehow or the other we have gotto be able to convey that sense that the slaves understoodinherently of what it meant to be free to our childrenand our young people.

the most tragic deficiency a childcan have is the inability to read. even if somehow she can't speak,if she can read she's on her way. so for us and for theafrican american community, reading is as much a prioritytoday as it was 150 years ago. in a real sense if itwas seen as the key to freedom then it is obviouslyessential to freedom today. when reading and writing isnot enough, when appreciation for literature, for culture, for the world in whichyou live is now required.

but you can't do that ifyou can't read and write. so how to inspire our youngpeople, how to use our history. that is worth. laid out for us to inspire ourown young people to learn to read and write in the very sameway that their forbearers did. in this city we are especiallyinspired by juneteenth because in this city the slaves wereliberated nine months before the emancipation proclamation . we were the first to be liberated.

so on april 16th in the districtof columbia that liberation is so important that it is a holidayin the district of columbia. don't even go to work [laughter]. that's how important it is. so there's a big parade downtown. that's our wig day wheneverybody else is working. well, we're walking inthe district of columbia because we understand howimportant being free and free first. oh, my goodness.

my own great-grandfather, richardholmes, was in the district of columbia on that day thatthe slaves in the district of columbia becamethe first to be freed. he was not a free man. he was a runaway slave. he walked away from a slaveplantation in virginia and made his way to washington. now i don't tell any storieson miss about richard holmes. he didn't gather himself togethera group of slaves and said,

let's sneak away from themaster and look at the hour and then hear my calland let's be gone. richard holmes looked around. when he saw nobody was looking,he left that plantation, and for three generationsin the district of columbia, if your name was holmes, youlearned to read and write. you went to the public schoolsof the district of columbia and you learned to read and write because you rememberedrichard holmes

who did not know howto read or write. but his son knew howto read or write, and his son knew howto read or write. so, when i understoodthat here in our own -- in the nation's library of congresswe were commemorating juneteenth i then understood that theprocess of national education of our people of everyrace has begun. they will be grateful tohave another occasion, particularly during this 150thyear of the end of the civil war,

another occasion to celebratethe liberation of slaves. but you will go far and wide beforeyou find any people than the people of the district of columbiawho are more grateful to what you're doing today as thefirst to be liberated and who, as a people will notentirely be liberated here in the nation's capital untilwe become the 51st state of the united states of america. thank you for whatyou're doing today. >> thank you, congresswoman.

we're really moved byyour words, by your story, by the story of yourfamily, and we hope very much to continue the traditionthat we started today. now we will continuewith our third panel. eve ferguson will moderatethe panel. she is a reference librarian foreast africa and also a journalist, also a graduate ofhoward university, and one of our very own scholarson africa and on african americans. so eve ferguson.

>> eve ferguson: thank youvery much and good afternoon. i'm glad that you all stuck aroundfor the best, the last panel. i really feel spoiledbecause i picked this one. so we are going to hear somereally wonderful presentation. i just want to saya couple of things, and that is that i was aschool teacher for 16 years. the thing that -- the thing that made me the saddestwas when i had to teach children who were reading ona third-grade level,

and they were in junior high school. that really bothered me. that was in florida. but then i came to d.c. and i taughtremedial reading to udc students, and i'm saying, how are thesestudents getting into college and they don't know how to read,and they didn't know how to read. so we tried using toni morrison butthat was a little bit too complex, so we had to bump itdown to the house on mango street andanybody who's been a teacher

in here knows the houseon mango street . it's a middle school reading level,and that's what we had to go from, so we have a long wayto go for literacy. but i applauded those studentsbecause they went to college anyway, even though they couldn'tunderstand what was going on. they used to come and tell me, miss, this is like 13th grade,and it was in many ways. but they had the ambition totry to overcome their obstacles and i really had to beappreciative of that although i knew

that those kids came fromhouses where people didn't read. i started reading at three. that's really early but i have asister who's about three years older than me and another onewho's five years old than me, and my middle sister used towhisper in my ear the words to the book as i'm turning the page. she said one day shewasn't whispering but i was saying the words. so did i memorize it?

was i reading? so they kind of did an experimentand they gave me another book that she hadn't whispered the words. but i did know how to read. so ever since then it's likereading has been important. you cannot read if you can't write, and you can't writeif you can't read. so the two go together. i just want to say toanybody who has a college-age

or high school child, please don'tlet them do all their research on the internet. they end up using wronginformation and creating what i used to call the scotch tape special-- cut and paste from everything. that does nothing for their learningexperience so read books with them, newspapers, have them around thehouse or something like that. so, to go on, i have this greatpanel back here, and i'm not going to take a lot of timebecause we're running behind, and i want them to have their say.

but our first panelist was one ofmy instructors at howard university. i dropped his class [laughter],which he's never forgiven me for. but we went on further to worktogether and when i was a senior at howard i wrote thefirst article on his work for the washington post . so we've always keptin touch since then. he has constantly told me,"you have to tell your story. you have to tell your story." i haven't told it yet, but i will.

so we have the distinguishedprofessor haile gerima from the film departmentat howard university. he's a celebrity in his own right. i don't even have to talk abouthis movies sankofa, teza, bush mama, harvest 3000 , right? harvest 3000 ? yeah. that was actually thefilm that i did the story on. so we are glad to have haile here. been trying to get him inthe library for a long time.

next to haile we have hafizshabazz who i met yesterday and i find him completelyintriguing. he is a professor at dartmouth. he teaches a coursewhich is called -- -- let me make sure i get it right. i don't want to get it wrong. oral tradition musicianship? is that right? yes. oral traditionmusicianship at dartmouth.

so i really want tohear what that is. but he's also adjunctassistant professor and director of world music percussion ensemble. he's the producer of morethan 85 major concerts. i was absolutely flooredtalking to him yesterday, and i'm sure that what he has to say today will also giveyou all something to take away from here and think further about. next to hafiz shabazzis beverly east.

she is a leading authorityin handwriting, international forensicdocument examiner. i want to know what that is. i'm not sure what it is. she's author of bat mitzvah girl, memories of a jamaican childwhich i hope she'll discuss because that's been -- iknow a number of book clubs like the caribbean professionalstook up that book as one of their books to readin the book club.

i haven't read it yet, but i will. last but not least isgabriel asheru benn. now what i have to say about his ishe must have a reputation everywhere because in the last three daysi've gone to three public events and at every public eventthey have mentioned his name. monday at busboys and poets,wednesday at eatonville, and the third one i don'tremember but it was somewhere. so he is listed as aneducator, youth activist, international hip-hop artist,

co-founder of educational lyricswhose cornerstone program is help. we heard a little bitabout that earlier, the hip-hop educationalliteracy program. now i'm just so curious to knowabout him as an artist and now that his name is all over the place,next time it pops up i'll make sure to hear what he has to say. then i just wanted toleave you all with a poem that is really my favorite poem bylangston hughes because i think -- i always thought langston hugheswas a children's poet because he was

so present in our house as well as he wrote short poetsthat you could memorize. so i didn't realizeuntil i was much older that he wasn't a children's poet. but i'm glad that myparents exposed me to him. but one of my favoritepoems by him is "dreams," and everybody probably knows it. i have it on my phonebecause i'd had a tendency to change the words around.

but he said, "hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is abroken-winged bird that cannot fly. hold fast to dreams for whendreams go life is a barren field, frozen with snow." these panelists will talk abouthow they made their dream reality, and i hope it will be inspirationfor everybody to hold fast to your dream, tell yourstory, and pass on the torch. >> haile gerima: first ijust want to thank you, my [inaudible] and my supporters.

miss ferguson, i don'twant to say her first name, but i'm very grateful to allthe nice words you had to say. but i am very nervous andi feel i'm like i was sent to siberia [laughter], and i haveto first paraphrase my presence of how i got myselfinto this situation. a sister who i would consider -- itold my wife, "this sister is crazy. she wants to do this thing. i know she's not going toput it and i'll say yes because it's not going to happen."

that's how i got in trouble. this is miss marie fenton heresitting next to my sister. so i will tell you that i neverwanted to set foot in this place. i don't know why. but you got me trappedand i have to admit that you are a very powerful person. i just hope you were acounsel outside the institution where i met you because we don'twant to lose the people's story that doesn't get to make it here

with all these jeffersonleftover books. but i want to speak aboutthe stories because i felt at this short time the onlything i could do is speak about the battle to tell the story. it's only bourgeoisiepeople who want to make it look likeit's entertainment. but every battle incontradiction is built on stories -- whose story are we telling? the official story where thatnegative run of the official story?

there's the unofficial story. now, for me, i don't think -- the human beings thatwent into the caves to write their storyanticipated war, conquering, enslaving, et cetera. they were just saying this is whoi am, this is who i belong to, and this is where i came from. all human beings do this without anyinstructions because it's very human that changes us or distinguishesus from the animal kingdom.

we pass our story. but it's not also anticipated thatwe will enter this digital period where stories cross-dress thinkingthey are our stories when, in fact, they are really the officialstories that possess our tongues and our minds to tellthe official story and make us pretend we aretelling the unofficial story. that's the time we live in. i have my students. i tell them, "empower your story."

they think story is what theysee on television and film, and their grandmother or grandfatherdon't figure out in this idea of storytelling because once[inaudible] is made, it's impossible for black people toempower their story from the time they came in contact. this is not just every contact. it is the colonial contactushered, the middle passage. now in storytelling a lot ofpeople talk about sankofa , and they don't knowwhere it comes from.

they don't know how to trace me fromethiopia to chicago to california, and the most agonizingjourney i took to know who these black peopleare in america. i'm still trying to figure outthere's black people in america because they're a symbol of acomplicated journey of a people. i will not underestimateby saying i know. i'm learning. i'm in the university ofblack people in america because it does havea direct relationship

to my personal life in africa. not many people know that. so the battle in americais one that -- for example, when i wanted to dosankofa white people wanted me to tell the story in theofficial story-telling of their empowered position. black people did not have thepower to begin to infiltrate into my consciousness toinfluence me any other way. i knew who they were.

i knew my brother haki. i knew baraka. in fact, i was really going totribute my [inaudible] to baraka because i used to do the dutchmanat the goodman school of drama just to liberate myself and try toget in touch with black people. he usually said drama, that scaresthe hell out of white people, and a lot of black people whofeel excluded in the acting world of the goodman school of dramajust -- there's no parts for them. hamlet comes.

no parts for them. macbeth comes. othello comes. they still have a white guypicked to playing othello. so what do they do? they do the dutchman inthe revenge, just to revenge in that house at thegoodman school of drama. i took that all the way toucla because i wanted to kind of why people -- no, i amnot a grateful foreigner

because i have liberated myself from that gratefulposition thanks to racism. so stories is a battleground. a simple illustration is inthe palestinian struggle. it's a struggle of stories. whose story is what? the same thing in america. when it comes to race issue,slavery is a contention. slavery is a story not tobe told by black people.

the monuments and poetry and booksto be written officially have to be commissioned by white artists. but what are they taking whenthey take a black film away from a black filmmakerdealing on slavery issue, they are denying the blackartist to exorcise the demon and toxic ingestion ofa thing called slavery. white people in their [inaudible]of position snatch the story from a black personand make films that -- i don't have to enumeratethem for you,

but amistad would be agood enough story for you. i don't know. black filmmaker in school -- we never fantasized to somedaydo a film on [inaudible] because it spoke somethingdifferent to us. yet, not only are theydenying the black filmmaker -- they're denying the blackcommunity to make that leap because when an artist, when a blackartist makes a monument he exorcises this evil toxic into arriving there.

in so doing, he or she takesthe community by that act. that is a very privilegedposition only given to white people in america. face it. every story blackpeople want to do is scrutinized and realigned by white dictatorshipi would call it of storytelling. they used to have this game called"what's your point of entry?" point of entry means do youhave a brad pitt in your story? point of entry does not mean whataristotle's idea of storytelling is. no. it's the empowerment of whitepeople over black consciousness

or to divert and obstruct theright to imagine the future from the present circumstanceshe or she finds herself. so it's very importantthat you should know -- i think we will arrivesomeday somewhere where stories would exorcisethe evil toxic of all that is passed to all of us. in this case, racism. the most divisive toxicon earth is racism. we know it; we see it here.

i don't have to mention to you. but what helps you to exorcisethe toxic divisive nature of racism is not allowedto be exorcised because of the dictatorshipof white supremacy in america. when i speak about this-- i don't have time -- but i'm also talking aboutthe vocabulary and tradition and convention of storytelling. i'm talking about themindset, the thought process. white america would wantthe whole world to think,

to go into the thoughtprocess, the thinking source where you imagine storyis obstructive. when a black kid goes to say, "iwant to write a story," and when he or she bends and takes thepencil, this subliminal power of white supremacy enters the brain,deflecting you from what you are about to exorcise, thepoints that you're trying to get out of your system. it's not allowed. even in the sankofa it'san imperfect gesture,

imperfect gesture. why? because thereis not black finance. there is not black power. there is no black economic power. distribution, exhibition,completely controlled. even when we had it out and we were in the berlin filmfestival competing with every big budget filmincluding malcolm x by hollywood, the white american press boycottedus throughout and throughout.

that's why black people inamerica -- i went and saw -- in washington i said tothem, "you know what? i made the film. i exorcised it." i know i owe people with my way. we're going to pay for it. but if you don't showthis film it's on you. i have made it and i'mgoing back to howard, my other plantation,earn my money, and pay.

but i'm not going to fightto distribute this film. black people took it on there. made it a world phenomenon. it's not repeated again. the whole sankofa family from hereto ohio, san francisco, chicago -- when haki opened it had hyde park. nobody had ever penetratedthe system in our terms, without letting them own it. i'll tell you, my life

as a filmmaker would havechanged had i given my film to white control from the outset. but i knew that was a kiss of death. i knew it was the end of meas a person, as an individual. so i just go on andbogart the time here. but i'm saying when we talk aboutstory, we're talking about war. we're talking about war. you talk about proclamation without[inaudible] who actually unleashed without [inaudible]who actually unleashed

until the white power structuressay if i'm never going to be free, you're not going tohave a good life. gabriel prosser confrontedthe founding fathers and stories are notgoing to be told. in fact, the macarthur foundation,when i applied, came and asked me, "you're talking about a slaveconfronting the founding fathers?" yes, gabriel prosser,1802, they were on there and they were running the country. there were vice presidents.

they were all the founding fathers. he said, "this revolutionis for you, not mine." whose story? that story's never toldbecause there are not gutsy, black capitalists who understand that their capitalism could alsotransform when they allow people to transform storiesthat need to be told. >> hafiz shabazz: good afternoon. >> good afternoon.

>> hafiz shabazz: myname is hafiz shabazz. my father gave me thename terrell johnson. however, i chose to change my namebecause i want to know who i am, and by doing that i learned agreat deal about the shabazz, the lost tribe, thosewho don't have a home, those who do not have aplace to call their own. so, therefore, i began to searchand find out where i came from. i searched to some extentin vain, but i went a lot of places, and so i'm multitude.

i'm a number of people. i'm mixed of everything thatyou could possibly imagine because i am the original man. now one of the things that led meto this journey that they asked me to find out who i am, was my drum. by the time i was seven years oldi wanted to drum because inside of me i was a violent person. i wanted to tear stuff up. i wanted to hurt something.

not necessarily people but everything i touchedi would tear up. so my father, he said, "son,i'm going to give you a drum." he says, "you can hit thatand it won't hit you back." that was a good thing. however, studying the drumi wanted to be the best, so i studied the masters. i went to ghana. i went to [inaudible].

i went to brazil. i went to cuba. i went to haiti. all of these places tostudy with master drummers. so i have all of thatinformation and as a result of studying drumming ilearned much more about music and i also learned a great dealabout each one of those cultures. i refer to those cultures inmy study as haitian studies because i studied the haitian peopleand how difficult their lives was

and how hard their liveswas, and how everyone on the planet hated the haitians,even after this last earthquake. they were just devastated. the red cross, okay, the red crossactually decepted these people. they took money, did notbuild homes for them. they're not curing theirillnesses and whatnot, and they spent themoney on themselves. the haitians. so i studied the haitians and iwent to haiti not because of that,

because that was -- i went tohaiti a very long time ago. as a matter of fact, it was1971 when papa doc divided -- was the president or primeminister or whatever. so i went there becausei wanted to study voodoo. as i say the word voodoo, folksshudder because they always say, well, you stick pins andall those kind of things. well, i said i wanted tosee this sticking of pins. i wanted to see allthose various things. but i did go to a ceremonywhich was for baron samedi,

and baron samedi was the god of thecemetery, and there was a festival for baron samedi where aperson stayed in a coffin, slept in the coffin for seven days. at the end of those sevendays there was a ceremony and at the ceremony there was food. there was food, there was a lotof drummers, a lot of dancing, and i saw within the dancing, people were getting possessedby their spirits, okay? that just shows the power of belief.

they believed so powerfullyand so devoutly that their god couldactually heal them, could actually give themthe strength to live long and to make their lives meaningful. however, there was thishoungan who was the priest. a little small man. couldn't have weighedno more than 100 pounds. there was a bull inthe hunt for them. hunt [inaudible] a place where the[inaudible] ceremonies take place.

so the bull was tied to theperistyle, and there was a pole that held up the roof and whatnot. he was tied to it. a bull. i'm going to say that again. a bull. this little man. so the bull wantedto go out and leave. he wanted to leave. he was pulling the poleand pulling and pulling. so this little man satdown behind the bull,

held both of the bull's hindlegs, and steadied the bull. the bull could not move. a hundred pound man. i mean it. so he was exceptionally strong because he believed this iswhat he was supposed to do. so i learned about the voodoodrumming to the point whereas if you believe, i can playmy drum and possess you. you will then transform.

neurologically you transform. so you could be actuallyi'd say to the point where pain could notinvade your body. you could be painless. you could feel wonderful justfrom listening to this drum. the exact same thing. belief. people were gettingpossessed by their gods and goddesses, the orishas. they could transform.

they could speak in what wecall speak in tongues, right? they could heal you. so i learned that through drums. the same thing. so we, if we choose tobelieve that we're powerful, then we could do whatever it is thatwe choose to do and be successful. all we have to do is believe. that was from drumming,learning about the cultures, quote/unquote cases, studies.

i am now an ethnomusicologist. i went to school andlearned what to say and how to say it, what to study. i went to school to learn. but i did that naturally because ilove my culture and i love drumming, and i love hitting stuff. i still drum. i'm 68 years old andi play every day. when i leave here i'mgoing to go play.

>> you don't want to stop. >> hafiz shabazz: well,this is not the point. it is not the point. i wanted to tell you the truth. but nonetheless, that iswhat actually healed my soul. i cannot get away from [inaudible]. there was a school in philadelphia, an independent schoolcalled [inaudible]. they were, i think, a school

of humanitarianism,for humanitarianism. it was to teach people to love oneanother, to love your black brother and sister, not to kill yourblack brother and sister, not to hate your black brotherand sister, but to love them, and [inaudible] is in your [inaudible] language,it means house of love. i studied there and played thereand i became the master drummer of the dance ensemble for [inaudible] africanamerican dance ensemble.

i was the master drummer. all of those cultures that istudied, i taught young brothers and sisters, seven yearsold, five years old, 12 years old, even adults. now i teach at dartmouth college. been there 30 years. i teach three terms a year,in every term, every term. i have a waiting listof 200 students. a waiting list.

i only allow 25 into myclass because it's special. that's how i live my life. it's how i support myself, andthat's what i continue to do. so that's my story. >> beverly east: goodafternoon, everybody. my name is beverly east andit's such a honor and a pleasure to be here, especially sittingup here with three mindful, progressive, wonderful,handsome men. you don't know how it feelsto be up here [laughter].

i'm very pro the black manbecause i had this wonderful father who gave me so much love that wheni hear women or anybody talking about my black man,it hurts my heart because of the man that raised me. because of the waythe man raised me, my father raised me tobe proud of who i am. don't let this britishaccent fool you [laughter]. i am a jamaican woman who happensto live in other parts of the world. but the diaspora that i comefrom, i walk with pride.

so my story is that i had yourtypical nine to five job in london. i was a manager for a large retailcompany, the only black woman in the entire company ina management position -- 45,000 people in that company. i'm the only blackmanager in the company. one day i am told that a customercomplained that it was unhygienic for me to be standing near the food. i'm not touching the food. i'm not supervising the foot.

i'm not selling the food. i'm just in that divisionof the company. i was told to move to thebra section, the manager. so i moved to the bra sectionand that night i got home, i packed up my -- and came backto london, and didn't resign like you're supposedto -- give notice. i just quit. my family was worried becauseyou need that reference from your last job to get anotherjob, and i didn't have a reference,

and i wasn't goingback to say sorry, and i wasn't having a badday that day that i quit. i just had it. so i decided -- the kind ofpersonality i have i need to set up my own company, do my own stuff. so that's what i've done. i am a handwriting examiner,a forensic document examiner. so what the hell is that? i don't read palms.

let's just get what idon't do [laughter]. i can't tell you the future. what i do is i look at handwriting, identify the authenticityfor forged signature. do you know how manypeople forge documents? i didn't think this businesswould survive the way it has. so i do two aspects. i look at profiling. i look at handwritingand your personality,

and i look at handwritingfor authenticity. so it's two different fields,but i'm qualified in both. i just so happen tobe the only woman in the world who'sjamaican qualified in both. so for a long time noone took me seriously, not even my motherwho really loves me. so she would tell people. she's married to a lawyer. she would never say what i did,

like i was a hooker orsomething [laughter]. so for years that wasmy claim to fame. so i decided -- well,a friend suggested, "why don't you write abook about handwriting?" so i says, "yeah, but itwould have to be academic and who would want to read it?" then this can onlyhappen in america. i was asked to talk about thejonbenet ramsey ransom note back in the time.

i did not have the letter. hadn't seen the letter. just knew the basicstory like all of us. but i was asked 26 times to goto 26 different events to talk about a letter that i had not seen. i would tell them i hadnot seen the letter. come, come, come. so i did. twenty-sixspeaking engagements, for pay, across the united states, to talkabout a document that i hadn't seen.

only in america. so then i get thereand then i'm not white because they hear me on the phone. they think, oh, she's white. i get that i'm not white. then it's a whole another palaver. one man said to me, "oh, you're notat all how i imagined you to be." i says, "maybe a littletaller, yes [laughter]?" so on this trip of going on -- icall it the jonbenet ramsey tour.

poor baby. what was the most questioni was asked? "i met this man in barbados. what can you tell meabout his handwriting?" no one wanted to talk to meabout the murder of this child. first of all, i was offendedthat someone would be -- i'm here to talk about the deathof a child and you're coming to me to talk about some manyou met in barbados. so after about 15 cities i'mhearing the same question.

i'm thinking this might be thebook that i'm supposed to write. so that is how finding mr.writ , w-r-i-t, came about, which is handwriting, howto look at handwriting and identify personality traits. so this was my first book. i got a major bookdeal with random house. major, major book dealwith random house. i couldn't even believe it. because my mother always said,isn't she married to a lawyer?

so i asked the lawyer i was marriedto to read the 15-page contract to make sure i wasgetting a good deal. so i did. i got a two-book dealwith random house -- unheard of. so i'm really an author now. i've always wanted to be an author. but when you're a littlegirl you keep it to yourself because you don't wantto speak it aloud because you don't wantto sound silly. back then.

i'm an old woman, so back then. so i had read fanonand james baldwin and so how could i be an authorbecause the people i was reading, they were so phenomenal, so howcould i be one of these people? so then when i'd writtenthis book and then i was on good morning america withdiane sawyer and we sold 6000 books in eight minutes, i was like, whoo,i really am an author [laughter]. so i had to go back into myhead because there was a story in my heart that had been inmy heart from when i was 18.

what had happened is my fatherhad lost 14 members of his family in one night in a train accident. two-hundred-and-fifty peoplehad died, 14 from my family, with the same name as me. that night my father locked itaway, had not spoken about it. so i started to go tojamaica to research that book. but because i grew up in englandi didn't really know enough and i wanted to givethe story justice. so i moved to jamaicato write that story

because after -- i'm an author now. i can do this. so i go to jamaica, spendtwo years in jamaica, and i write reaper of souls . the story that wasuntold in jamaica. i didn't realize how manypeople were still walking around from this terrible nightunresolved, emotions unresolved. this book is now in thehands of a director. i would have come toyou first [laughter].

with a movie director. this book is with them. but the thing with this bookwas i was told by random house that it wasn't jamaican enough. so i was like, oh, thank youvery much, me gone [laughter]. so i didn't try to -- i don't knowwhat it is to be jamaican enough. i'm not a raster. i don't smoke weed. i listen to more than reggae.

so is that all it is to be jamaican? i do have more than one job though. so i kissed random house goodbye,went to an independent publisher in jamaica, and had thebook published in jamaica. then i fell out with thembecause if you don't do it my way, none of it works, so. it was mainly inexperience,the small press in jamaica. so then my final -- well,i shouldn't say my final. my third book, because i'mworking on a fourth book.

because i lived in london andno disrespect to any woman in this audience, but icannot define my childhood through somebody else's childhood. there are so many young girls whohave been molested as a child, and beaten, and gone to bed hungry,and all these things, that we -- you know preciousis a typical example of how young blackgirls are defined. i am not one of them andi'm not ashamed to hide that i'm not one of them.

i had a father that loved me. would come home from work 3:30in the afternoon to be home so when i got home from schooli wasn't a latchkey kid, and would stay home with me,cook dinner, and stay with me until my mother came home. i could never get intotrouble you know. there was -- the leash was so tight. so i wrote this book as myyoung life, bat mitzvah girl , and the reason why it's calledbat mitzvah girl because i had my

mother and i had four jewishwomen across the street from my house who had no children. so i became their girl. so it's these four sisters, mylife with them, and my life back and forth from london to jamaicabecause i went to jamaica to live with my grandmother fora while, and i'm so happy for that two yearsthat i had with her. so i wrote this and actually for thefirst time self-published, which, for everybody in the room that wantsto do a book for the first time,

it's really not as easyas they tell you it is. because i had a database fromthe random house and a template of the marketing, it'sdone very well. but i always feel as a first-timeauthor you try and get a publisher to help you because it's notas easy as people try and do. so, i thank you verymuch for listening to me, and i knew i [inaudible] talkfor five minutes so i'm sure that five minutes is way, way up. >> gabriel benn: good afternoon.

>> gabriel benn: my nameis gabriel asheru benn. i am an educator. i've been an educator here ind.c. for 18 years as a teacher and as an administratorfor an after-school program and a summer program, and et cetera. i'm also an artist,a hip-hop artist. i go by the name asheruso i guess in the effort of telling my own storyin self-discovery. asheru is a name that igave myself at 17 years old

when i was in college, my quest. yeah, my story is ever evolving. i feel like i'm just kind of movingthrough my story as it's being told or kind of creating it as i go. but because i have these twobackgrounds of being an artist and an educator, i've kind ofspent my whole life finding a way to bridge the two. early-on, i put on my firstindependent project in '97. it was a vinyl.

it was a vinyl and tape. i was very proud of that, to be ableto put something out with my name on it, something that i wrote, something that i created,and i still am. i continue to be proud everytimei release something new. but i also was in [inaudible]at that time on my first year as an educator, as a teacher,and i never -- i went to school. i studied anthropology. my dream was to workin the smithsonian.

i want to take down that -- just be a global traveler andstudy different cultures and write and just -- kind of likewhat anthony bourdain does -- food, everything. just experience the wholething and report back up. so that was kind of my thing. when i got back home from school,the job that i thought i would get, because i had interned and donesome stuff with the smithsonian, when i got back, thejob wasn't there.

so i took this menial jobsitting in a cubicle, and one day, hating my job, i lookedin the classified ads, and i saw an ad for a teacher. it said, "teacher wanted." it just said, "teacher wanted"and a phone number [laughter]. i know. i called it. a guy answered the phone. he was the principal of the school. he had called it [inaudible]elementary.

it closed down in '06, but heanswered the phone and he said -- i said, "yes, i'm callingabout the ad." he said, "you want to teach?" i said, "yes." he said, "when canyou get over here?" i said, "right now." i got in a cab and i rode tounion station to southeast. walked right up in the school. i introduced myself and he askedme if i had ever taught before.

i told me no, but i really -- ithink it was something that i -- all of my mentors wereteachers coming up. i felt like it wassomething that i'd like to at least experience, to try. i guess he was very desperatefor a teacher because -- this was a wednesday, and hesaid, "can you come on monday?" i said yes. he said, "you got to turnin two weeks or whatever?" i said, "no, let meworry about that.

i'll be here monday." i went back to work, i quit,i went home, i got ready. i started that monday. i learned everything on the curve. the students taught me everything. the students in -- i had a coupleof older teachers who were kind of mentoring me through my firstyear, and i really realized that not only did i enjoy it,but then i saw a real need and a real servicethat had to be done.

so i just, from that point on,committed myself to doing it. now, while i'm doing this andlearning more about myself and being -- and what itmeans to be a teacher, i'm still working onthis music stuff. i had family that said, look,you're going to have to give one up. you'll never be able to do both. you got to -- eventuallyyou're going to have to choose. everytime i came to that pointwhere i felt like i had to choose, i had come to that fork in theroad, and i just -- i can't choose.

i'll go straight. so my whole life from there has beena merging of these two passions. so, to fast-forward. a few years after that istarted working a private school with edle students. if you're not familiar, thatmeans emotionally disturbed or disabled students. i was encountering students, likeyou said, students who were 13, 14, 15 years old, but readingon a second

and third grade reading level. i'm sitting there likehow am i supposed to teach the student thisstuff that you want me to teach and is graded age appropriate,when they're reading on such a low reader level? it was something that i struggledwith for a while, and yet i just -- i thought about it and i said,well, hip-hop taught me everything. when i was growing up people likemike kemp, [inaudible] mc light, native tongue, these groups werelike -- they were my teachers.

i learned about drag nationalism. i learned about manhood. i learned about america. i learned about history. i learned about ancientegypt, black panther movement. i learned all of it through hip-hop. so i said, well, maybe i canjust take some of these lyrics and make textbooks, makeactivities where they could -- they already know these lyrics sowhy don't we use this as our text,

and then i could kind offinagle the rest from there. so that's how i created the hip-hopeducational literacy program. we made 13 titles, we travelled allover the country, and we started to learn that teacherswere gravitating to it more than the students becauseteachers were saying, "look, i have this issue, too. what can i do for thesekids that i have?" it turned into a professionaldevelopment model. we started talking to teachers

about culturally responsiveeducation using these hip-hop materials and other things. so that kind of spun into mereally stepping into being, i guess, a hip-hop educator. it was not meaning that i'mcoming in to teach you how to rap. more that i'm teaching you howto look at the world critically through the lens of hip-hop cultureand the culture that i identified with as me being a hip-hop person. so that kind of started my quest.

i still carry thatbanner to this day. currently i'm doing a lot of workwith culturally responsive teaching. i just quit dcps in august of lastyear from just fatigue i guess and students getting killed. i went to my last funeral and ijust decided in august i was done, and i left in -- i'm going to tellyou a quick story because i could go on forever, but i can kind ofsum it all up in this story. so i quit in august. in october -- i mean i'msorry -- in september i --

now let me not just say i quit. i quit knowing, okay, i havea little bit of savings. i have a wife, three children. i didn't just recklessly walkaway, but i knew, okay -- let me start stopping for right nowbecause come august i don't want to stop in the school year. i want to find my new thing,whatever it is i'm going to do. so i had a little bit of savings, what have you, except-- august i quit.

september i'm stillworking, figuring things out. not at school but working onmy own and doing my own thing. october comes around. same thing. i'm lecturing, i'm doing somelittle shows here and there. i got an ambassadorshipwith the state department -- i'm actually a globalhip-hop cultural ambassador -- who sent me to bangladeshfor the month of november. so i said okay.

so i'm good until november, andthen when i come back in november, i mean from this trip, i don'treally know what i'm going to do and to figure it out. so i go out to bangladeshand i'm almost -- not poor, but i'm getting there. i'm rapidly approaching. i'm over there, i'm overseas, andi'm enjoying the whole time there. our job was to kind of use hip-hopas a form of cultural diplomacy. so leading these workshopsfor students and learning

about their culture and reallyfacilitating the process for these youth to telltheir story through hip-hop. some of you may or maynot know but when i do -- when you go overseas and youmeet young people who are in hip-hop culture, they'reheavily, heavily influenced by american black hip-hop culture. yes, most of them -- what'syour first memory of hip-hop? most of them will tell you chuck d.public enemy is my first inspiration of hip-hop.

it's not that now, butthat was their first. so it was a big deal forpeople to empower themselves through hip-hop, totell their stories. then once they stoppedspeaking in english and speaking their mother tongue and tell you the story,it's a whole new level. so being over there andgoing through this transition and seeing these youth that arestarting to step into that realm of speaking in theirmother tongue and speaking

to tell their story,i was very inspired. i met these artists called[inaudible] musicians who dedicated theirlife to reading poetry by this poet named [inaudible]and some other poets. but they dedicate their life to thispoetry, this poetry so to speak. i collaborated with one of theartists, and he was singing a song, and the song gave me chills. to hear this man singingit just gave me chills. i didn't know a wordof what he was saying

but it was a moving, moving song. so i asked one of thepeople who were with us. i said, "what is hesinging about in this song?" he was like, "he's singing aboutthis bird called the chatak bird, and the bird floatson water like a duck, but he never drinks thewater under his feet. he only drinks water that rain --he drinks the rain what comes down. it's almost like thisbird is dedicated. he's patient and he's dedicatedto what the creator gives him.

he doesn't want to drink the waterthat he's swimming in everyday." i was like, wow, that's amazing. so the whole arc of thesong i guess is what happens when it doesn't rain? oh, wow. all right,i'll make it very quick. so the story is whathappens when it doesn't rain? what does this bird do? he leaves it hanging. you never really get the answer.

it's left for you to imaginewhat does this bird do? so i come home and i'm backfrom this amazing trip. i look in my account and i'mlike, wow, i'm really stuck. at this point i'm like,well, i got to do something. so i'm doing these littleodd things, and i said, well, maybe i can apply forunemployment just as something. they were like, well, no, youcan't apply for unemployment. you quit your job. you weren't fired.

you don't -- you can't justquit and get unemployment. so i'm like, wow, ican't get unemployment. i'm thinking aboutthese other things, and then i thought about that bird. i was like you know what? i'm not going to drinkfrom that water. i'm just going to let therain fall and i'll be fine. so november comes, decembercomes, and i'm like whoo, now i'm really being tested.

january -- because i actually-- the end of december, my birthday is december 29th, so right around my birthday iget a phone call from this sister who i had hired maybeeight years prior to work on this educational literacy thingthat i was telling you about. she calls me, and she's like "i've been looking foryou for two months." she said, "i got this job. i'm in chicago right now.

i'm working with discovery , and i think this jobwould be perfect for you. the only thing is yougot to come to chicago." i was like, "okay [inaudible]. tell me when it's bad." she's like, "no, that's it. you just got to come to chicago." so i landed and took thisjob from a woman who had -- who was my employee years ago.

she turned around and hiredme, and now when i do -- after i left in august, i said iwouldn't come back to this kind of thing, now i've been kindof deployed to the south side of chicago, and i do the samework on the south side of chicago. i do it four days a week,and i come back home. so i commute back and forth, buti'm working in the same community. this is a sign for me that nomatter how much i try to walk away, it's never going to happen. i'm always going to bepulled back, and that's fine.

i'm perfectly fine with that. but i think it just speaks to the -- i think that's why i'm thekind of artist that i am, the topics that i speak about,the things that i talk about, are all in that same vein ofbeing in service to my people, and the fact that i'm -- ican never be torn from it. i'm always a part of that fabric andi'm always going to speak about it in every forum that i can, so. >> eve ferguson: wow.

so everybody has a story, right? but these were somefantastic stories, and i hope you wereinspired by them. i'm going to take the liberty of --before i open it up to the audience to ask questions -- to ask asheruif he can give us a little sample of that which his name has beenso on the tip of people's tongues. could you do that? >> gabriel benn: sure[applause].over there? >> eve ferguson: yeah,you can come -- yeah.

>> gabriel benn: i'm goingto dedicate this song to -- this story, to the filmsankofa because it meant a lot to me when i watched it. it kind of inspired this beast. okay. once upon a time in the outerreaches were coal-black knights met white hot beaches. the destroyers cameashore and left speechless by mysterious peopleswith sunburnt features.

among them, healers andeven teachers who knew of god before theyeven heard of jesus. it was fate that theywould cross paths. neither side would come outthe same in the aftermath. off to the new world,through the door of no return. broke our mind, body, spiritwith very little concern. i guess over time welearned how to adapt, make a brand new second handout of these old scraps. now we influence the whole planet.

better or for worse theeffects are titanic. different branch from the same tree. no matter where i findmyself i'm the same me. it's a new place to be in, anew breed of human being made of africans, indians, and europeans. went from their goose to niggers,from [inaudible] to cotton-pickers. still god lives through. it takes a lot to kill us. when you talk about thiscountry we the builders,

and that there is an actual fact. but i don't hyphenate the name. hold my head with no shame. i ain't african american. i'm black. no matter where yougo, there you are. no matter when yougo, there you are. no matter where you go. i wear it like a suit of armor.

my [inaudible] to bringme good karma. so my seed worth a plowlike a good farmer. it's out of every trayvon or obama. lots of potential tobe great or die trying. the odds are stacked. ain't no point of mebeing a shy liar. i walk with a certain pride and moveby a code that go for what we know. more like what we're owed o make upfor the lies that the media tells, like being black is hell.

death, crime, and jail are theonly outcomes with few exceptions. we're here to changecourse in a new direction. use talent to provide balance. advance through the corporate tomake them forfeit or give a fatigue in the ivy league and watch themall fall short on the ball court. never forget who you are,what we've been through. how what we did don't compareto what we're meant to. and the best is yet to come sowhat's essential that we wake up before we get that wake-up call.

we don't all have to agree, but weall have to be committed to a degree to do for you the sameas i would do for me. if we could do that we'll finallyget to see what we've been fighting for this whole time to get free. often imitated. never duplicated. always underestimated. cash money generated. fear, love hated.

especially the highly-educatedor the ones from the bottom they thoughtnever would have made it. which we never tolerated beingso degraded, lands invaded. soon as oil and gold mines raided,incarcerated, socially castrated, separated at birth fromthe very root they gave it. still feel the pain. we self-medicated. stay faded from the projectsto communities is gated. i won't overcomplicate it.

i simply state it. look, the world is in trouble. we going to be theones that save it. [ applause and cheering ] >> eve ferguson: i knowit's hard to ask a question after that [laughter],but let's open it up. any questions? yes. >> you talk about travelling throughbangladesh and doing this work and

taking my message toother parts of the world. do you envision thatcontinuing, and how do you take that message to parts of europe? my grandchildren are infinland where fins have one of the highest educated populationsin the world from the [inaudible] -- >> gabriel benn: correct. >> they all have a highpercentage of suicides. so, tell me how this can applyin other parts of the world. my son has an interest inchildren and hip-hop and --

>> gabriel benn: well, imean i've been to finland. i've travelled to -- i've beento 24 countries doing this work. but what i've always found isthat hip-hop specifically is kind of that voice for people who feelvoiceless, for people who don't feel like they're beingheard loud enough. they take to that culture andthat music because it's kind of the underdog culture,underdog kind of music. but i use it as a platformfor youth to tell their story. so, for example, in bangladesh we'reworking with youth whose parents,

whose families are telling themthis is a fruitless endeavor. don't do it. i want you to go to school. this is -- culturallyit won't help us. they have all of these pressuresaround them telling them not to engage in, to hip-hop. what they're trying to sayis, this is saving my life. i wouldn't be here ifit weren't for this. i wouldn't have the opportunities.

i wouldn't have the support system. i wouldn't have the worldview that i currently haveif it weren't for this. if i lose this i will havenothing is what they were trying to tell their parents, because theydidn't feel empowered to do that. our job -- well, i took it uponmyself just for the ones who were with me, was to give themthat platform to write and to tell their story, andto say it to their parent or elder who's around them.

ironically enough, at the end of the workshops wedid a culminating show in the national theater. it was standing room only. all of their families came out, and a lot of the familiesafterward were coming up to -- i would observe themspeaking to their youths. some of them came up to meor some of the other people who were facilitators, andthey were like, "thank you.

i needed to -- it gaveme a different way of looking at my child." to be honest, i kindof sympathize with it because my father didn't supportme making music for a long time. it wasn't until my dad was injapan and i called him and i said, "i'm doing a show injapan next week." my father saw me perform for thefirst time in another country. but it was the first timehe had ever seen me perform. i think, for him, it was like,"wow, well this is different

than i thought it was [laughter]." you know what i mean? but it was how you do it. i've been trying totell you forever. so here it is. other kids say that. it was empowerful. it was as impactful. i'm not from bangladesh, but wecould still relate on that thing.

in finland, whether it's insenegal, south africa, wherever, we all have a common story, andthat common story is what we share through the culture. whether you're finnish ordutch or what have you, there are certain things that weall have in common, and the key is to find where do we intersect? where's that thingthat we both can share, that we can talk about,and relate to? >> bahiyyah muhammad: for me,i think we always have to know

that everything black people createas a healing process, whether -- what you have to be very concernedis about the africans in america who did not debate their freedom, did not give anybody thejurisdiction, including [inaudible], because everybody saysyour master was nice but i ain't a slaves isthe discussion there. so, to me, there were africans who would never acceptthe very idea of slaves. even now, [inaudible]would say slave.

slave means genetically slave. but enslavement is the grammar mostprogressive afrocentric people put out to correct this idea of myslave father doesn't even sit right. so black people have to knowin america it is unfortunate. i don't want to be -- they haveto be as greedy as white people when it comes to producing, archiving their intellectualproperty, because in those days, the imagination of a people. the kind of world they want to see.

so, for me, whatever you label it, it could get lost inthe american shuffle. for me, don't ever forget menendez. study fort mose, john horst. they're black people. i'm going to go to mexico tointerview their descendents from florida withinthe whole black african and native american,seminole, [inaudible]. those people never needed thesanctioning of american historians.

they continued for 100 years. they continued to commemoratetheir historical journey. what is very importantis whether it's -- underground railroad isvery, very important. but you have to know thatthere is another movement that did not include whitepeople, and all gutsy people, white or black, haveto endorse those people for their qualitativecontribution to change america. they were very violent,as violent slavery was.

it's hard to sometimes to choosefor people who are trying to say, look at the past and insteadas a uniter but as a divider, it's very hard for them to look. i am very impressed for me andmy african friends when i go to a panel discussion inafrica, in south africa. i tell them, yeah, [inaudible]in the united states of america. this was from virginia all the wayto florida, mississippi, alabama. their history is critical because-- a little kid says, if he says, "abraham lincoln liberatedme," that is not liberation.

that is mortgaging, eternalenslavement, because you're saying to me, "somebody hada lock to my freedom." in that whole drawing,the very drawing -- that image, visually,that "free me." it is a burden to blacks;it's a burden to white kids, to reallocate the idea offreedom to another human being. that debate has to die in america. that debate of saying,"i freed you," for every ignorant white person togo around accusing black people,

well, you don't seemto be responsible to enjoy the freedom i gave you." that's every violenceagainst blacks. free black people says that. so i'm saying change the narrative. everything good black peopleinvent could also be poisonous. my brother's amazing. but i'll tell you, some of the[inaudible] that is enriching sony and et cetera and etcetera is not trickling

down to black economictransformation. black people now cannot economicallyproduce their own anything. that's the [inaudible]we're inheriting now. >> hafiz shabazz: true. >> bahiyyah muhammad:it's very difficult. book publishing --haci, [inaudible] press, black classics, three black people. even then, they don'teven have the money to really show you how manyblack people are writing.

in this kind of situation youcan't be flimsy at the expense of black people, especially to me. i'm a foreigner. i'm here as a guest to blackpeople as far as i'm concerned because they embraced me whenracism tried to mess with my mind. they embraced me. they called me brother when i didn'teven know the meaning of brother. therefore, i can'tcompromise black people. i will not make a movie if ihave to compromise black people,

and every deal that would come tome is to compromise black people by saying, "do anotherdriving miss daisy . >> haile gerima: miss daisy. >> bahiyyah muhammad: doanother barbershop 22 . do them. no. i will not buy that. to me, every black person whodoes, it's their business. but i will not be in that position. so, for me, this isfantastic and positive first.

but where do you take it? do not lose, do nottake everything black -- don't go take it and take the toothout just because it's a piece of -- or it creates a career for people. as far as i'm concerned no livingblack person, including black people in america, have no right to compromise the historyof black people. >> gabriel benn: thank you. i think it is a bigissue doing that.

but the -- i have hitrobots myself as a teacher. when you have black history andblack history month comes around and you have students who say offthe top, "i don't want to talk about martin lutherking and rosa parks and george washington carverand the peanut issue." they say that. i hear that every year. i hear students --somebody complains, somebody says that -- and it is.

it's on us to show a broader aspect. what i tend to do is not -- i mean,i can't -- you can't skip the past. you have to talk about the past. but what i tend to do is tryto show it in the context. context is everything. so even like what the brotherwas saying about hip-hop artists. i take the same positionhe does where i don't work to compromise the integrityof my people in my heart, so i don't do that.

now, will that make me pay? probably not. i can't sustain a living off of it but that doesn't meandon't make the art. so i still do that,but i guess the -- to answer your question moredirectly, it has to be put in a context of present and future. it can't just be past. it's the past, and how do we takethe past when it's happening,

and what does that mean inthe context of white male? then how do we take thepast and what does that mean in the context of what could be? but not -- what we tendto do is we just focus on the past and say, "never forget." but the application in thesynthesis of what we learn from about the past is what is goingto give the students the context for why we are askingthem to learn this and why we deem it importanteven if they don't initially.

because once you putit into context, then they can see whyit's so important. so like for example, this whole --this started happening with trayvon and mike brown, all of theseyouth that are getting killed. i'm talking about it in a elementaryschool on the south side of chicago. it's right around the corner from a street calledemmett till road, right? so we're talking about mike brownand trayvon on emmett till road. when i ask, "do you know whoemmett till is," some of them knew,

some heard about the name. they didn't really knowthe story and why -- in context that is so pertinent toright now, and so you have to -- like i say, if you'regoing to do it -- first of all, it can'tjust be in february. that's number one. number two, you have to put it in acontext where you can see what's -- how it relates to right now,how it's going to happen. i mean how it relates to thefuture, and then also using the film

and all the other arts because that's what buildsthese images in our psyche. if you're going tochange our psyche, you have to use themedia that's created to do that, and we don't use it. it's being made, but we're not usingit strategically to change that. so that's a lot of the work thati'm looking forward to doing in the future and partnering withpeople who do, because the media of literacy is a big part ofthis literacy conversation.

how do we contextualize thismedia and use it to our benefit? that's a longer story, but, yeah. >> beverly east: i am not inthe education system, per se. i would not have thepatience to teach. my personality does not allow it. somebody would be dead andit wouldn't be me [laughter]. i think a lot of ourhistory has to come from our home, from the parents. i know everybody's busy, but ithink it comes from the home.

your self image comes fromyour home or somebody. it doesn't necessarilyhave to be your mother. it can be your grandmother. it can be somebody. then black history's every day. every day something is created. i was just asked am i goingto write about my father. my father is in this book. my father's story isin the other book.

his people died and thejamaican government -- at the time we were notan independent island. we were under village rules soit was all hushed up and covered. so when i went to jamaicato write that story, everybody thought i was some kindof spy or what has she come to do? what she really come to do? so i think especially -- [ inaudible speaker ] >> eve ferguson: pressthe button on the bottom.

>> beverly east: just press this? >> eve ferguson: thebutton on the bottom. >> beverly east: on the bottom. >> eve ferguson: it's on the side. >> beverly east: on the side. i just think individually we haveto make it our duty to speak, speak up when we see something. i have a son who's 23, and when hewas a teenager i used to watch -- i can't remember the name of it now.

nine-o-two something. >> nine-o-two-one-o . >> beverly east: yeah. i used to watch that 10/15 minutes aday so i knew what he was listening to and what he was-- what he enjoyed. so one day i'm in the car and isaid to him about little wayne, and he says, "mom,mom, stop, stop, stop." but at least i knewwho little wayne was. but he was -- but i felt theonly way i could reach him

when he was 12 was throughrap music, and so my mother, who is 80-something years old,she started to listen to jay z and everybody, so whenher grandson came to london she knew whathe was listening to. so i think it's anindividual road for all of us. when i see young black men onthe street i speak to them. if they've got earphones on,what are you listening to? they look at me like well, huh, huh? i tell them to pull their pants up.

pull your pants up. pull up your self-esteem. it helps. it helps. >> gabriel benn: especiallyfrom a woman. my son would always say, "mom,don't, don't, don't do -- don't tell me what i can't do." so -- >> hafiz shabazz: i just want todovetail what beverly is saying, is that all of us, whenyou speak about history,

we should journal our dailylives, everything we do every day. we should write it in a journal. i don't need that. write it in a journal, day by day. then you actually recorda living history. so when your children and otherpeople want to know what's going on in the lives oftoday, you have a journal. actually write it down. that's what i tell my students.

each day write it inyour -- a journal. then it's going to turn intoa book where you can sell it, but that's not importantbecause no one is going to actually tell our lives. >> beverly east: i [inaudible]. >> hafiz shabazz: noone is going to do that. so you have to do it yourself. >> eve ferguson: okay, we're going to let dr. madhubutihave the last word.

we started with him,so we'll end with him, and that means we'vecome 360 degrees. >> haki madhubuti: haile gerimaand i are of the same generation. so we come at this really ina liberated way, all right, that we're not askingpermission for doing that stuff. that what he does in his filmand what i do in my books -- the way he does this thing[inaudible] create an institutional structure in d.c., and what we dois try to fill [inaudible] school. we need to liberate a zone.

we need these zones so we can comeand talk and share and not hold back and tell the truth becausewe do have traitors among us, and then we have to bevery clear about that. so we have been stopped by peoplewho going into secret meetings after they leave us, and,therefore, we cannot move. what i think that we need toreally begin to understand that we do not have in our communitythat we need -- we need wealth. we need wealth. i mean, even this meeting requiredsome money to get [inaudible].

where did it come from? it came from us, [inaudible]. we need wealth ourselves. well, we can't even get past it inthis kind of economy because most of us do not [inaudible]. thanks so much. but like this youngman is [inaudible]. >> i'm not blood. >> you're not?

>> haki madhubuti: heain't but [inaudible]. >> gabriel benn: that's my brother. >> haki madhubuti: that's his. >> gabriel benn: that's my mayor. >> haki madhubuti: that's anational program right there. that's an international program. i'm so glad you [inaudible]. we are international people. >> gabriel benn: yes.

>> haki madhubuti: all right? we're not just righthere in washington, d.c. or the south side of chicago. we travel all around the world. but the point is thisis our home base, right? he's not a foreigner. he's my brother. >> gabriel benn: that's right. >> haki madhubuti: youdon't ask permission.

you hear that? so the key point now -- always when we leave here today iswhat will we do tomorrow? how do we, each ofus, involve ourselves in creating these liberated[inaudible]? so we can't move in [inaudible]. and, finally, thisis very important. we have to pay for it. if you think you're going tocreate anything that's going

to represent us with a grant for macarthur [laughter],we [inaudible]. that means that you come out ofyour pocket, you pay dues just like you pay that 10%at your church. then this is a liberatedzone church, right? when [inaudible] says give me$200 so i can get a new jet, i said i'll give you $200 fora new jet if you just get away from here, leave, don't -- [ laughter and applause ]

>> first of all, i want tothank you all for coming here, and i know that you've come frommany different areas of the country, so thank you for being here andfor being here the whole day. i want to thank our speakers. they were marvelous. i know that we're all here becauseof them, because they've added so much to our knowledge,to our enthusiasm, to our division here,and to the library. i want particularly tothank dr. maria fenton.

she has been the initiator. she has been the flamethat started this, and i want to recognizethe work that she has done. so, thank you, maria. i want to thank our owndr. sibyl moses [applause]. she has been extraordinaryworking and organizing and putting together this program. our own eve ferguson whohas just been fabulous and has [applause] alsoworked very, very hard.

our marita harper who hasbeen there [applause] night and day, working on this program. behind the scenes we've had thepeople who've put together the sound system, the film people who havebeen standing here the whole day [applause] filming us. so thank you. thank you for being there,and they're always there. they're always doingthe work together. i want to thank thelibrary, and by the way,

we were not involved in money. believe it or not, there was nomoney that put this together. it was just the goodwill of everyoneworking very hard and wanting to have this event [applause]. so, thank you, dr. madhubuti. thank you all for being here. >> this has been as presentationof the library of congress. visit us at loc.gov.