May 30, 2025 • 34 mins
In this powerful Foremother Friday episode, Vanessa sets the tone with a reflective porch meditation inspired by the wisdom and resilience of Ella Baker. Morgan then takes listeners on a journey of empowerment, teaching how to call on the names of our foremothers in times of struggle and offering a practical 101 guide on running for office. Our homegirl, Trelani returns to share ancestral wisdom. As we close the week on a high note, trekkers earn their Ella Baker badge, marking their steps forward in honoring history and shaping the future. This episode is a celebration of legacy, leadership, and the transformative power of knowing our history.
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(00:07):
We are sick and tired of being. Sick and tired, the.
Disrespected person in America is the black woman.
But still like dust. All right.
Pretty girls in the VIP they came with.
(00:30):
Drain. They'll need ideas.
The revolution will not. Be televised, brother.
You are like a new. Joe, John.
Even if you are not ready for the day, it cannot.
Always be night freedom. Freedom.
(00:51):
Freedom. Welcome family, welcome to
self-care School from wherever you are walking, whoever you
are, you are welcome. Here we are girl Trek.
We are 1,000,000 black women strong.
(01:12):
We walk to heal our bodies, inspire our daughters, reclaim
the streets of our neighborhoods.
We are on a mission to increase life expectancy by 10 years in
10 years. And this self-care school
experience, 10 weeks each week, walking through a powerful
lesson guide by a foremother is a part of the strategy that we
are using to get there, y'all. And today is Friday for Mother
(01:33):
Friday. That means that if you have a
ride that today you have walked five days this week.
And I want you to do what I wantyou to give yourself a high 5,
even if you have to clap your own hands.
This week was a good week, y'all.
We walked in power. And we're not talking about the
kind that dominates. We are talking about the kind
that dignifies, that organize, that ignites.
(01:55):
And today, as you celebrate 5 days of walking, I want you to
know that you have earned an Ella Baker badge.
Yes, come on. And that's who's today's
Daughters of Porch Meditation isgoing to be about.
So if you've laced up your sneakers, if you're outside, if
you are ready to go, I want you to know this Ella was a master
(02:15):
organizer. She was the strategist behind
the scenes. She was the one who taught us
that movements are built in community and that you are
powerful enough to lead right Where are So before we step in
today's it fully in today's episode, I want us to ground
down right now, right? I'm doing this too with with
(02:36):
with y'all guys, let's shake ourshoulders out.
Let's take a deep breath. Let's feel our feet on the
ground. Let's lift our spine like a
torch. This is what power feels like.
We are the daughters of Ella Baker.
(02:59):
She organized for the NAACP. She Co founded the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference,She trained the youth who formed
the SNCC. She believed in the power of the
people, not one voice, but many.It was Ella who said strong
people don't need strong leaders.
(03:20):
Give light and people will find the way.
She didn't seek the spotlight, She lit the path.
And today, as you walk, so do you.
So place one hand on your belly,one hand on your heart.
Feel your light, feel your power.
(03:42):
And say this with me now, out loud or in your spirit.
I am the daughter of Ella Baker.The light I carry is enough, I
lead with love, I walk in power.I am the daughter of Ella Baker.
The light I carry is enough, I lead with love, I walk in power.
(04:07):
Now we step off of our porch andget ready to walk.
The light I carry is enough. The light I.
Carry is a love. I lead with love.
I walk. In power with love, I walk in
power. I love it so much.
And Vanessa, you could not imagine how aligned we y'all, we
don't coordinate this. We just take our assignments, do
(04:29):
our homework. We're good students.
We're good students. OK?
We stand chapter ahead. But it's so aligned what you
did. And you'll, I'll tell you why in
a second. Y'all, just get started on your
walk. It's Friday.
We're going to be free. We don't need to do no oddest
step forward if you're out outside.
That's what you need to do. Step forward if you're outside
because you have made it to the end of the week.
I am so grateful, I am so grateful to be with you here
(04:50):
today. I am so grateful for that
opening meditation. Y'all we going to do 15 minutes
out, 15 minutes back. We going to learn 2 skills
today. The number one skill Vanessa.
We going to learn how to call the names of our foremothers
when we feel powerless. When I tell you it is a life
saving skill, to know the names of women who have been here and
(05:11):
done that and did it masterfully, to know the stories
of the names of the women who have been there, who have done
that, who have done it masterfully is a life saving
skill. That's number one.
The second life saving skill you're going to learn today is
how to run for office. All right, y'all, we've been
doing a lot of beautiful work this week talking about power.
And you may have mentioned that I had a conversation with this
(05:32):
brilliant brother named Carlos, who's from the ANI Institute,
and he just cracked open to me what organizing was like.
I had really felt some kind of way like, I don't really know
what grassroots organizing is. I know it when I see it kind of
thing. But he was like, no, it's five
things is when you change your behavior in the context of
impossible odds and you inspire other people to change their
(05:54):
behavior in that context, that'sthe first way that we organize.
The second way that we organize is he said you change culture
and values and you usually do that through a narrative.
That's the second way we organize.
Then he said there are three ways to organize with or against
or through systems. And number three-way to organize
is to organize within a system. Right within a system.
(06:15):
We'll talk more about it. The fourth way to organize is to
disrupt a system. And the fifth way to organize is
to build your own system. And so I just, for me, it was
like, whoa, now I understand what we're doing here together.
Now I understand what I'm doing in my community.
Now I understand what I'm doing at the state level, at the
national level, at the, at this movement level, at the global
(06:37):
level. There are options.
There are pathways for movement building, for grassroots
organizing. And then as he was talking, I
was like, oh, yeah, I like the Harlem Renaissance or oh, yeah,
yeah. And I had all of these kind of
recalled stories. And I want you to hold on to
those stories as you navigate these trying times.
(07:00):
I want you to hold on to these stories as you navigate
understanding that we have been here before and we have
succeeded. And not only have we been here
before and succeeded, but we arein it now.
We are organizing and we are going to win.
So I found a story, Vanessa, foreach of those organizing
principles. And I want you to call out their
names with me. And I'm so grateful that you
started with Ella Baker because she's the architect of
(07:21):
Grassroots movement building. I'm glad we chose her as the
badge and I'm glad that you led the meditation with her this
morning. Like really telling her story.
So you got to start it already. So we just learned a bonus six
story. So thank you so much for that
being. So the first person who changed
the world with her behavior is none other than Phyllis
Wheatley. So y'all, I want you to imagine
(07:44):
a teenage girl sitting there quiet with her pen in her hand
in the middle of Boston. Her name was Phyllis Wheatley.
Phyllis, the name of the ship that she came in on.
Wheatley, the name of the white family that bought her.
Phyllis Wheatley was bought fromWest Africa at age 7 years old.
She didn't even speak English atall.
(08:06):
She spoke her mother tongue and when she arrived within 16
months, she was fluent and not just English, but Latin and
Greek. And she became genius level,
masterful at theology. At just 20 years old, she
published the first book ever ofpoetry of a woman and and she
(08:33):
was an African American woman. And it's it wasn't just art, but
it really was evidence of her intelligence.
Y'all. So her words made all of America
face the dangerous idea that they were holding that black
people, African minds were not equal.
And she was proven to them that maybe we wasn't equal.
Maybe we had vast capacities, evolutionary capacities, that
(08:57):
they couldn't even imagine. So there's a little known fact
that in order to get her book published, Phyllis Wheatley had
to appear in front of this groupof like 18 Boston men, and it
was including John Hancock. She had to stand in front of
these men in Boston and prove that she was actually the author
because they thought it was too brilliant for this young girl
(09:19):
that her intellect could not be at that level to have written
that book. So she had to defend her book in
front of John Hancock, y'all, the founder, one of the founders
of the country she had to defend.
She even wrote letters to GeorgeWashington when she was a
teenager and he read them. She was so intelligent that they
brought her to the Queen of England to read her poetry.
How did Phyllis Wheatley do power differently?
(09:40):
Well, she didn't shout, she didn't March.
She wrote. And with every single word,
every single metaphor, every single simile, every single
rhyme, she chipped away at the myth of black inferiority.
She organized a revolution of her own behavior.
She was compelling. She was a genius.
(10:01):
She studied hard in a society and forced them to rethink how
they saw, how they treated, and how they imagined the black
intellect. And so that is the first way
that she organized herself and her behavior.
And from that, we got so much inspiration.
I want you all to think about somebody in your life that is
just doing power differently through their own behavior and,
(10:25):
and just give them a shout out. Just give them a text.
Just say I see you sister. I see you son.
I see you mother. Look at yourself in the mirror.
If you are doing power differently, know that you are
creating a movement of self likein the in the footsteps of
Phyllis Wheatley. So that is the first spotlight
and the name you should call when you feel like I can't even
move on. Phyllis Wheatley was this child
(10:46):
who created a revolution throughher writing.
All right, y'all. So the second away that Carlos
taught me that we can organize really is through organizing
through culture and organizing through culture change.
And I can't think of anybody more powerful on the planet who
did this better than Queen and Zynga.
So I want you to imagine it's the year 1624.
(11:08):
In the lush, contested heartlands of Central Africa, a
woman in warrior armor negotiates with the Portuguese
colonizers. Her name was Nzinga Imbandi,
queen of the Ndongo, born into royalty but never expected to
rule. And Zinga was trained in
(11:29):
statesmanship by her father, whosaw something fierce in her from
an early age. She watched her brother fumble
and fold under the colonial pressures, and when he died,
Inzinga seized the throne. In her legacy, she became the
first diplomat to meet with the Portuguese.
And when they refused her a chair, there is a famous story.
(11:51):
All that. She looked at one of her aides.
She asked the aide to kneel down.
She sat on the aides back and she said, you will not look down
on me. There's a little known fact that
Queen and Zynga not only led thetroops into battle well into her
60s, but she also reshaped the kingdom's culture, freeing the
(12:12):
enslaved Africans within the country of Angola, adopting
Christianity as a strategic move, and incorporating both
male and female advisors in her court.
And to this day, Angola has like50% of their leaders are female
to this day because of what Inzinga did.
And so how did she do power differently?
(12:32):
How did she organize? She didn't just fight the
invaders head on. She rewrote what it meant to be
African. She rewrote what it meant to be
woman at a powerful, powerful age of domination and
imperialism. She wielded culture like a sore
jaw. She said this is who we are as
Africans. This is who we are as women.
(12:54):
And and Zynga really used like female leadership as a value, as
A to hold up the culture. I'm just thinking like, what are
the values right now that black people have that we really
should be leaning into to make this political moment to to
exert our power in this political moment, You know, so
thinking about how we organize around radical joy, how we
(13:14):
organize around history, how we organize around community care
is like how you start to become a grassroots movement builder,
y'all. It's what movements are made of
is values oriented culture propelled organizing.
And so just thinking about like,it doesn't have to be no
justice, no peace all the time. We can organize around our
(13:35):
shared values. So behavior was 1.
Phyllis Wheatley, our shared values is 2.
That's Queen and Zynga. And you should be right at the
15 minute mark. And so I want you to celebrate
yourself and turn around. And on the turn around, we're
going to hear some of the so from the actual words of some of
our foremothers. Trellanie, I'm so glad you're
here today. What are you going to share with
(13:56):
us today on Foremother Friday? I wanted to lean into like, I
know when we talk about power tome, I think we also need to talk
about anger. So for the reading, I chose
Audrey Lorde's essay The Uses ofAnger.
To me it's. I love it.
Yes, and that's what when you say like, we were so aligned.
I was like so aligned because this is one of the serious
(14:16):
expressions to me of what power can look like when it's rooted
in truth and community and all the things, even joy.
So Auntie Audrey, she writes. I am a lesbian woman of color
whose children eat regularly because I work in a university.
If they're full of bellies make me fail to recognize my
commonality with the woman of color whose children do not eat,
(14:39):
or the woman who chooses silenceinstead of another death, then I
am contributing not only to eachof their oppressions but also to
my own. I am not free while any woman is
unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
And I am not free as long as oneperson of color remains chained.
Nor is anyone of you. So when you Morgan, when you
(15:00):
said earlier, like we and our sisters keepers, we are our
sisters. I was like, yes, because we hear
Audrey's quote a lot about, you know, not being free when others
are unfree often, but we don't often expand on it, expound on
it or hear her words surroundingthat quote.
And then she goes on to say we use whatever strengths we have
fought for, including anger, to help define and fashion a world
(15:22):
where our sisters can grow, where our children can love, and
where the power of touching and meeting another woman's
difference and wonder will eventually transcend the need
for destruction. For it is not the anger of black
women which is dripping down over this globe like a diseased
liquid. It's not my anger that launches
rockets, that spends more than $60,000 a second on missiles and
(15:45):
other agents of war and death, that slaughters children in
cities, stockpiles nerve gas andchemical bombs, sodomizes our
daughters and our earth. It is not the anger of black
women which corrodes into blind,dehumanizing power bent upon the
anniation of us all unless we meet it with what we have our
power to examine and to redefinethe terms upon which we will
(16:08):
live and work. Our power to envision and to
reconstruct anger by painful anger, stone upon heavy stone.
A few culture of pollinate indifference in the urge to
support our choices. End Quote.
I love it. I was like, man, So even when
hearing you and all of these stories, I was like, man, our
policy ain't just our power. It ain't just in policy.
(16:31):
All those shout out to Vanessa for wanting to run because I'm
like, yes, girl, but it's also in presence and it's in poetry
and it's in speaking and it's insitting in literal man made
chairs when the oppressors refused to give you a seat.
It's refusing to let our anger be twisted into something ugly
or shameful. Like you know that the
oppressors are so good at doing the angry black woman, right?
(16:52):
Our anger is fuel and it's sacred and we should use it to
build a better world for ourselves and each other.
Because that is the kind of leadership that Ella Baker still
look for. Oh, I love it so much.
So we got Ella Baker, we got Phyllis Wheatley, we got Queen
and Zynga, and now we have Audrey Lorde.
Call on their names When you feel powerless, when you feel
(17:15):
like you can't get out of bed, when you feel like you can't
open the door and go for a walk because you are locked into fear
of the systems that were so brilliantly described by Audrey
Lorde and so beautifully recitedby our sister here.
I know Trellini has to hop off. We will talk to her soon.
Thank you for that, Vanessa. It was such a beautiful,
beautiful transition that she just read into systems change.
(17:39):
I want to talk to you around systems change.
We talked about three ways to organize around systems change,
but NASA, I cannot think of a better person.
We talked about working within the system that we can call on
as an example that is just more powerful than Septima Clark.
So she was the inside the systemchange maker.
(18:02):
So imagine that it's the year 1954.
Well, Vanessa, that that might ring a bell in your head because
that was the year that the Supreme Court ruled on Brown
versus Board of Education, whichwas the segregated schools.
It was also the year my mom was about to graduate from high
school fee. So 1954 she was in South
(18:24):
Carolina. She was a black teacher.
Her name is Septima like September, right?
Septima Clark. And she was a a black teacher
and she was fired because she was a member of the N double
ACP. Now Septima Clark was a daughter
of Charleston. Her family had been active and
respective respected citizens. She was educated in segregated
(18:46):
schools and she trained and and learned all of the methods of
like civil disobedience as a member of the NAACP.
So she learned pace, patience, never passivity, but always
patience. So when the courts failed and
and did not support her and she lost her job, she turned to the
(19:07):
community and she developed something called citizenship
schools. If you've seen our second Ted
talk, we talk about her citizenship school, Septima
Clark. And she started to.
Shout out to that Ted talk, which is called The Most
Powerful Woman you Didn't Know. And I just checked, it has over
2 million views. Wow, yes.
(19:28):
Yay. So her name is Septima Clark.
She is the most powerful woman. She started to teach thousands
of black adults, mostly farmers in South Carolina, how to read,
how to write, and how to pass strategically those racist
literacy tests designed to suppress our votes.
It was such a way for her to deploy her skills as a teacher
(19:51):
and her training as an activist to make systemic change.
She knew she wanted all of the black people in South Carolina
to vote. She knew that they were not
literate and she needed to teachthem.
So she created Citizenship schools.
Now, there's a little known factthat Septima Clark trained Rosa
Parks, that Septima Clark actually LED citizenship schools
(20:13):
for Fannie Lou Hammer, for all of the women whose names we
know, they started in citizenship schools.
And this was months before the Montgomery bus boycotts.
This was months before all of the work and sitting at the DRC
with Fannie Lou Hammer. They were with Septima Clark,
the master teacher. She didn't just torch the
system. This is how she organized
(20:33):
differently, y'all. She didn't just burn down the
system, she used it. She trained people.
She taught them how to navigate the system.
She used literacy as liberation,y'all.
And in the back rooms of churches, under constant threat,
in basement, she quietly taught a generation how to read, how to
vote and how to lead. And so I just want you to be
(20:56):
inspired and remember the name of Septima Clark.
Some of y'all right now are in cafeterias.
Some of you are in classrooms, some of you are in pulpits.
Some of you are working desk jobs, some of you at UPS, some
of you at the post office, some of you.
And shout out to our sisters whoare in foreign aid, who are
helping, who are lawyers on the front lines of immigration, who
(21:18):
are, I mean, all of the kind of like broken systems that
Trellini just read. Oh, you were in the military,
You were on the front. Some of y'all, some of y'all
called in during Black History Boot camp said y'all are in FEMA
walking with Girl Trek, rescuingpeople and waiting for somebody
to rescue you. And I am telling you, look to
(21:38):
the name of Septima Clark to figure out how from the inside
of the system you can be a change maker.
Y'all, if you feeling it like I'm feeling it like we got to do
something, I want to. I want you to feel it.
I just want to take a pause now.Maybe we do a recess.
I want to do a recess with some affirmations.
So Vanessa, this is a quick recess.
(21:59):
It'll take about two minutes. I'm going to ask you to pull
over to the side. Imagine yourself being brave
like Bree Newsome. And I want you to imagine
yourself being smart and strategic like Septima Clark.
I want you to imagine yourself being fearless like Queen and
Zynga and being just a genius with discipline and dedication
like Phyllis Wheatley. And I'm going to say some
(22:22):
affirmations. And the reason I didn't do the
assessment earlier is because I just want us to step forward on
on for Mother Friday. So I want you to take take a
step forward with each affirmation because I want you
to embody this. All right, Are we ready?
Here are calls to action, y'all Sisters, if you trust your voice
even when it shakes, step forward.
(22:44):
Sisters. If you are done waiting for
permission, step forward. Sisters.
If you believe what you dream you can design, step forward.
Sisters. If you turn pain into purpose,
step forward. Sisters.
If you speak truth where others stay silent, step forward.
Sisters, if you were building what has never been built
(23:06):
before, I want you to step forward.
Sisters, if you are here to disrupt systems that destroy us,
I want you to step forward. Sisters, if your power lifts
others as it rises, please step forward.
If you know that you are the power that you have been waiting
(23:27):
for, Sisters, step forward. And sisters, if you are ready to
become the legacy in motion thatour daughters need, I want you
to step all the way forward. Say it loud and say it proud.
We are the power we have been waiting for.
Say it again. We are the power that we have
(23:49):
been waiting for. We have been.
Waiting for. Yes, now let's go ahead and
walk. Let's lead, let's lift, let's
build, let's win, y'all. With that, we're going to take a
break before we share our last story, and I'm going to teach
you how to run for office in 2 minutes.
Before we do that, it is a solidarity spotlight with
somebody who could teach you better than we can.
(24:10):
Higher heights, Vanessa. Higher heights.
That's right. Vanessa been an early supporter
of higher higher heights. What you want to say about MV?
I just want to say that from thebeginning, I know that it it was
a collective of women who reallyunderstood that we can empower,
teach and prepare everyday womento be to run for office and to
really take up space. And so Higher Heights, it's
(24:32):
started by a woman named Glenda Carr.
It's really community driven. They fundraise through support
of their actual membership and it's they're doing really great
work. They are doing great work.
Shout out to y'all. Officially the higher.
Higher Heights is the only national organization
exclusively dedicated to building the political power and
(24:53):
leadership of Black women, from the voting booth to elected
office. I was like, y'all better come on
with that sentence. That's excellent.
Founded, You're Right by Glenda C Carr and her sister Kimberly
Peeler Allen. Higher Heights was born out of a
clear vision that Black women are not only the backbone of our
democracy, but the key to its future.
I love that. So there's some real services
(25:15):
that higher heights is perform, is performing for our community.
First of all, they are they havetwo entities.
They have AC4, which is higher heights for America that passes
policy. And then they have AC 3, which
is higher heights leadership Fund and it and they give a lot
of or like a, a wide variety of services to us.
First of all, the hashtag Black women vote campaign, that's
(25:38):
higher heights. So if you saw it, that's Higher
Heights leadership development. They do training and resources.
You can go to their website. They do policy advocacy and they
do fellowship programs. If you want to run for office,
y'all, they do fellowship programs, but in solidarity.
This is our spotlight for today.So if you want to run for
office, if you feeling fired up by the foremothers and our
sister Bree, decide what office you want to run for is step
(26:02):
number one. Consider your strengths, what
are your passions, what are yourexperiences?
What is your community need, right?
So consider those things and then research the terms, the
duties and the election cycles. The second thing you need to do
is check if you eligible. Check if you eligible.
The basic criteria is age, residency, citizenship and
(26:22):
sometimes party affiliation for some of the roles.
You have to be a registered Democrat or a registered
Republican for some of the roles.
And then where to look. You can look in your local
election board or your Secretaryof State's website for rules of
what you need to do #3. You got to build a knowledge
all. You got to attend the public
meetings. You got to understand how the
decisions are made. You got to talk to former office
(26:44):
holders and talk to the people. So you got to build up your
knowledge base, build up your network is #4 #5 is you got to
file that paperwork, y'all? That's the first thing.
If you want to run for office, Vanessa, you got to declare your
candidacy officially with the appropriate election office.
That's what Dick Gregory did. He declared his candidacy
officially. You got to get on the ballot.
(27:05):
And this often involves collecting required number of
signatures. All right?
So you got to get on the ballot.You got to set up a campaign
committee. I could be on your committee,
Vanessa and register with the FEC If you're running for
federal office, you got it. Then number six, create a plan.
What's your goals, define your message, map out a timeline and
#7 you fundraise, set a goal, start small, ask your friends
(27:28):
and then #8 is build a team and even small campaigns really need
help. This is something for y'all to
all to know your family not going to be able to do it all.
You do need a campaign manager, a communications lead, a
volunteer coordinator, A treasurer.
Keep that money right. You need some people helping you
and then nine connect with voters.
You canvas, you go door to door,you go to community events, show
(27:50):
up and talk. There's so many women out here
who I hope you taking notes and I hope you're about to run and I
hope you're about to run Y'all, I hope you're about to run.
Do some digital engagement. You can do it on social media
and you can get some endorsements from organizations
and and you can get some endorsements from organizations
and churches and community community leaders and even
newspapers. And then last but not least,
(28:14):
just make sure y'all, that you comply with the law.
We don't want y'all out here. We don't want y'all out here.
Comply with the law, track your donations and expenses, file
your financial reports, and follow your advertising and
campaign guidelines and ethic rules.
But that's it, y'all. If you want more training, you
can go to higher heights. There's organizations like
Emily's List, like Emerge America, like she should run,
(28:36):
like run for something. They're all online.
They give you training resourcesspecifically for women,
specifically for people of colorand specifically for first time
candidates. So get out there Y all.
Let's do it Vanessa. Finally, stretch break.
We're in the final lap. I want to give you one more
name. Who Vanessa.
Her quote is maybe my favorite quote ever.
(28:57):
When we are talking about ways to organize, we've talked about
in the system, we've talked about disrupting the system.
The last one is to create your own system, Vanessa.
I don't think anybody has done that better than the late, great
Toni Morrison. All right, Vanessa, Toni
Morrison built a new system of change.
(29:19):
Imagine it's the year 1970. Think of that picture of her and
Angela Davis walking down the street of New York in the 70s
with a cute little afros. All right, In publishing houses
across New York, editors said that Black books don't sell.
And a young editor named Toni Morrison disagreed.
(29:40):
She was raised in Ohio, y'all. Her family was seeped in in
folklore and survival. And Toni Morrison knew the truth
about black life from it's both.It's brutal and it's beautiful.
So she published one of my favorite books, The Bluest Eye,
giving voice to the interior world, creating new worlds of
(30:00):
black girlhood. It was unflinching and it was
unfiltered. And she changed the world with
that book. There's a little known fact that
actually, before she became a Nobel laureate, that Toni
Morrison was the first black woman senior editor at Random
House. Vanessa did a beautiful Black
history boot camp episode on herif you want to learn more.
But while she was a senior editor, she championed the works
(30:23):
of Angela Davis. She lifted up the voice of
Muhammad Ali and so many other revolutionaries.
She made black literature powerful.
She created whole worlds in her book, like Sula, her book like
Sangha Solomon, like Beloved, whole Black world Vanessa, She
did not ask to be included. That's how she did power
(30:45):
differently. She never asked to be included.
She authored a new world throughher stories.
She built new language, new characters, new systems of
truth, new morality, new memory where blackness was not
explained but it was exalted. And I was just like, I want you
(31:07):
to think about being an organizer and wielding your
power in the ways that our foremother did.
Don't believe the hype that you got to have some bullhorn and be
some lone soldier out there. Be some martyr.
You can do power differently. Y'all and I on For Mother
Friday. I just want to encourage you to
lean into your power. We're going to end with Toni
(31:27):
Morrison and she needs no introduction.
Let's hear it. Talk to Y'all later.
Arthur Ashe was here, the late Arthur Ashe, and he said to me
as he said it, one other place, he said in a much quoted
comment. He said living with AIDS is
easier than living racism. It's a harder struggle against
(31:52):
racism for me than it is againstAIDS.
What it meant to me is that there's no way for the rest of
us to understand that daily encounter.
Which brings me to my question to you.
Do you still have that encounter?
Do you, Toni Morrison, Pulitzer Prize winner, successful,
honored in the halls of academe,etcetera, still have that
(32:16):
encounter? Yes, I do, Charlie, but let me
tell you, that's the wrong question.
OK. What's the right question?
How do you feel? Not you, Charlie Rose.
But don't you understand that the people who do this thing,
who practice racism, are bereft?There is something distorted
about the psyche. It's a huge waste and it's a
(32:40):
corruption and a distortion. It's like it's a profound
neurosis that nobody examines for what it is.
It feels crazy. It is crazy and it leaves.
It has just as much of A deleterious effect on white
people and possibly equal as it does black people.
(33:04):
I always knew that I had the moral high ground.
All my life I always thought those people who said I couldn't
come in the drug store and I hadto sit in this funny place, I
couldn't. Go in the park.
I did. And I thought they knew that.
I knew that they were inferior to me morally.
I always thought that and my parents always thought that.
(33:24):
You said your father was racist because he always felt like he
always felt. That's right.
He always felt superior. And that was a form, you know
of, of defensive racism. But if if the racist white
person, I don't mean the person who is examining his
consciousness and so on, doesn'tunderstand that he or she is
also a race, it's also constructed, it's also made, and
(33:49):
it also has some kind of serviceability.
But when you take it away, I take your race away, and there
you are all strung out and all you got is your little self.
And what is that? What are you without racism?
Are you any good? Are you still strong, still
smart? You still like yourself?
(34:10):
I mean, these are the questions.It's part of it is, yes, the
victim, how terrible it's been for black people like that.
I'm not a victim. I refuse to be 1.
And the victim is the other person who is morally inferior
and. That's what that's a serious.
Question of course race is if. You have the whole.
Or his or her own self esteem and definition.
(34:30):
If you can only be tall because somebody's on their knees, then
you have a serious problem. And my feeling is white people
have a very, very serious problem and they should start
thinking about what they can do about it.
Take Me Out of it.
We are sick and tired of being. Sick and tired, the.
Disrespected person in America is the black woman.
But still like dust. All right.
Pretty girls in the VIP they came with.
(00:30):
Drain. They'll need ideas.
The revolution will not. Be televised, brother.
You are like a new. Joe, John.
Even if you are not ready for the day, it cannot.
Always be night freedom. Freedom.
(00:51):
Freedom. Welcome family, welcome to
self-care School from wherever you are walking, whoever you
are, you are welcome. Here we are girl Trek.
We are 1,000,000 black women strong.
(01:12):
We walk to heal our bodies, inspire our daughters, reclaim
the streets of our neighborhoods.
We are on a mission to increase life expectancy by 10 years in
10 years. And this self-care school
experience, 10 weeks each week, walking through a powerful
lesson guide by a foremother is a part of the strategy that we
are using to get there, y'all. And today is Friday for Mother
(01:33):
Friday. That means that if you have a
ride that today you have walked five days this week.
And I want you to do what I wantyou to give yourself a high 5,
even if you have to clap your own hands.
This week was a good week, y'all.
We walked in power. And we're not talking about the
kind that dominates. We are talking about the kind
that dignifies, that organize, that ignites.
(01:55):
And today, as you celebrate 5 days of walking, I want you to
know that you have earned an Ella Baker badge.
Yes, come on. And that's who's today's
Daughters of Porch Meditation isgoing to be about.
So if you've laced up your sneakers, if you're outside, if
you are ready to go, I want you to know this Ella was a master
(02:15):
organizer. She was the strategist behind
the scenes. She was the one who taught us
that movements are built in community and that you are
powerful enough to lead right Where are So before we step in
today's it fully in today's episode, I want us to ground
down right now, right? I'm doing this too with with
(02:36):
with y'all guys, let's shake ourshoulders out.
Let's take a deep breath. Let's feel our feet on the
ground. Let's lift our spine like a
torch. This is what power feels like.
We are the daughters of Ella Baker.
(02:59):
She organized for the NAACP. She Co founded the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference,She trained the youth who formed
the SNCC. She believed in the power of the
people, not one voice, but many.It was Ella who said strong
people don't need strong leaders.
(03:20):
Give light and people will find the way.
She didn't seek the spotlight, She lit the path.
And today, as you walk, so do you.
So place one hand on your belly,one hand on your heart.
Feel your light, feel your power.
(03:42):
And say this with me now, out loud or in your spirit.
I am the daughter of Ella Baker.The light I carry is enough, I
lead with love, I walk in power.I am the daughter of Ella Baker.
The light I carry is enough, I lead with love, I walk in power.
(04:07):
Now we step off of our porch andget ready to walk.
The light I carry is enough. The light I.
Carry is a love. I lead with love.
I walk. In power with love, I walk in
power. I love it so much.
And Vanessa, you could not imagine how aligned we y'all, we
don't coordinate this. We just take our assignments, do
(04:29):
our homework. We're good students.
We're good students. OK?
We stand chapter ahead. But it's so aligned what you
did. And you'll, I'll tell you why in
a second. Y'all, just get started on your
walk. It's Friday.
We're going to be free. We don't need to do no oddest
step forward if you're out outside.
That's what you need to do. Step forward if you're outside
because you have made it to the end of the week.
I am so grateful, I am so grateful to be with you here
(04:50):
today. I am so grateful for that
opening meditation. Y'all we going to do 15 minutes
out, 15 minutes back. We going to learn 2 skills
today. The number one skill Vanessa.
We going to learn how to call the names of our foremothers
when we feel powerless. When I tell you it is a life
saving skill, to know the names of women who have been here and
(05:11):
done that and did it masterfully, to know the stories
of the names of the women who have been there, who have done
that, who have done it masterfully is a life saving
skill. That's number one.
The second life saving skill you're going to learn today is
how to run for office. All right, y'all, we've been
doing a lot of beautiful work this week talking about power.
And you may have mentioned that I had a conversation with this
(05:32):
brilliant brother named Carlos, who's from the ANI Institute,
and he just cracked open to me what organizing was like.
I had really felt some kind of way like, I don't really know
what grassroots organizing is. I know it when I see it kind of
thing. But he was like, no, it's five
things is when you change your behavior in the context of
impossible odds and you inspire other people to change their
(05:54):
behavior in that context, that'sthe first way that we organize.
The second way that we organize is he said you change culture
and values and you usually do that through a narrative.
That's the second way we organize.
Then he said there are three ways to organize with or against
or through systems. And number three-way to organize
is to organize within a system. Right within a system.
(06:15):
We'll talk more about it. The fourth way to organize is to
disrupt a system. And the fifth way to organize is
to build your own system. And so I just, for me, it was
like, whoa, now I understand what we're doing here together.
Now I understand what I'm doing in my community.
Now I understand what I'm doing at the state level, at the
national level, at the, at this movement level, at the global
(06:37):
level. There are options.
There are pathways for movement building, for grassroots
organizing. And then as he was talking, I
was like, oh, yeah, I like the Harlem Renaissance or oh, yeah,
yeah. And I had all of these kind of
recalled stories. And I want you to hold on to
those stories as you navigate these trying times.
(07:00):
I want you to hold on to these stories as you navigate
understanding that we have been here before and we have
succeeded. And not only have we been here
before and succeeded, but we arein it now.
We are organizing and we are going to win.
So I found a story, Vanessa, foreach of those organizing
principles. And I want you to call out their
names with me. And I'm so grateful that you
started with Ella Baker because she's the architect of
(07:21):
Grassroots movement building. I'm glad we chose her as the
badge and I'm glad that you led the meditation with her this
morning. Like really telling her story.
So you got to start it already. So we just learned a bonus six
story. So thank you so much for that
being. So the first person who changed
the world with her behavior is none other than Phyllis
Wheatley. So y'all, I want you to imagine
(07:44):
a teenage girl sitting there quiet with her pen in her hand
in the middle of Boston. Her name was Phyllis Wheatley.
Phyllis, the name of the ship that she came in on.
Wheatley, the name of the white family that bought her.
Phyllis Wheatley was bought fromWest Africa at age 7 years old.
She didn't even speak English atall.
(08:06):
She spoke her mother tongue and when she arrived within 16
months, she was fluent and not just English, but Latin and
Greek. And she became genius level,
masterful at theology. At just 20 years old, she
published the first book ever ofpoetry of a woman and and she
(08:33):
was an African American woman. And it's it wasn't just art, but
it really was evidence of her intelligence.
Y'all. So her words made all of America
face the dangerous idea that they were holding that black
people, African minds were not equal.
And she was proven to them that maybe we wasn't equal.
Maybe we had vast capacities, evolutionary capacities, that
(08:57):
they couldn't even imagine. So there's a little known fact
that in order to get her book published, Phyllis Wheatley had
to appear in front of this groupof like 18 Boston men, and it
was including John Hancock. She had to stand in front of
these men in Boston and prove that she was actually the author
because they thought it was too brilliant for this young girl
(09:19):
that her intellect could not be at that level to have written
that book. So she had to defend her book in
front of John Hancock, y'all, the founder, one of the founders
of the country she had to defend.
She even wrote letters to GeorgeWashington when she was a
teenager and he read them. She was so intelligent that they
brought her to the Queen of England to read her poetry.
How did Phyllis Wheatley do power differently?
(09:40):
Well, she didn't shout, she didn't March.
She wrote. And with every single word,
every single metaphor, every single simile, every single
rhyme, she chipped away at the myth of black inferiority.
She organized a revolution of her own behavior.
She was compelling. She was a genius.
(10:01):
She studied hard in a society and forced them to rethink how
they saw, how they treated, and how they imagined the black
intellect. And so that is the first way
that she organized herself and her behavior.
And from that, we got so much inspiration.
I want you all to think about somebody in your life that is
just doing power differently through their own behavior and,
(10:25):
and just give them a shout out. Just give them a text.
Just say I see you sister. I see you son.
I see you mother. Look at yourself in the mirror.
If you are doing power differently, know that you are
creating a movement of self likein the in the footsteps of
Phyllis Wheatley. So that is the first spotlight
and the name you should call when you feel like I can't even
move on. Phyllis Wheatley was this child
(10:46):
who created a revolution throughher writing.
All right, y'all. So the second away that Carlos
taught me that we can organize really is through organizing
through culture and organizing through culture change.
And I can't think of anybody more powerful on the planet who
did this better than Queen and Zynga.
So I want you to imagine it's the year 1624.
(11:08):
In the lush, contested heartlands of Central Africa, a
woman in warrior armor negotiates with the Portuguese
colonizers. Her name was Nzinga Imbandi,
queen of the Ndongo, born into royalty but never expected to
rule. And Zinga was trained in
(11:29):
statesmanship by her father, whosaw something fierce in her from
an early age. She watched her brother fumble
and fold under the colonial pressures, and when he died,
Inzinga seized the throne. In her legacy, she became the
first diplomat to meet with the Portuguese.
And when they refused her a chair, there is a famous story.
(11:51):
All that. She looked at one of her aides.
She asked the aide to kneel down.
She sat on the aides back and she said, you will not look down
on me. There's a little known fact that
Queen and Zynga not only led thetroops into battle well into her
60s, but she also reshaped the kingdom's culture, freeing the
(12:12):
enslaved Africans within the country of Angola, adopting
Christianity as a strategic move, and incorporating both
male and female advisors in her court.
And to this day, Angola has like50% of their leaders are female
to this day because of what Inzinga did.
And so how did she do power differently?
(12:32):
How did she organize? She didn't just fight the
invaders head on. She rewrote what it meant to be
African. She rewrote what it meant to be
woman at a powerful, powerful age of domination and
imperialism. She wielded culture like a sore
jaw. She said this is who we are as
Africans. This is who we are as women.
(12:54):
And and Zynga really used like female leadership as a value, as
A to hold up the culture. I'm just thinking like, what are
the values right now that black people have that we really
should be leaning into to make this political moment to to
exert our power in this political moment, You know, so
thinking about how we organize around radical joy, how we
(13:14):
organize around history, how we organize around community care
is like how you start to become a grassroots movement builder,
y'all. It's what movements are made of
is values oriented culture propelled organizing.
And so just thinking about like,it doesn't have to be no
justice, no peace all the time. We can organize around our
(13:35):
shared values. So behavior was 1.
Phyllis Wheatley, our shared values is 2.
That's Queen and Zynga. And you should be right at the
15 minute mark. And so I want you to celebrate
yourself and turn around. And on the turn around, we're
going to hear some of the so from the actual words of some of
our foremothers. Trellanie, I'm so glad you're
here today. What are you going to share with
(13:56):
us today on Foremother Friday? I wanted to lean into like, I
know when we talk about power tome, I think we also need to talk
about anger. So for the reading, I chose
Audrey Lorde's essay The Uses ofAnger.
To me it's. I love it.
Yes, and that's what when you say like, we were so aligned.
I was like so aligned because this is one of the serious
(14:16):
expressions to me of what power can look like when it's rooted
in truth and community and all the things, even joy.
So Auntie Audrey, she writes. I am a lesbian woman of color
whose children eat regularly because I work in a university.
If they're full of bellies make me fail to recognize my
commonality with the woman of color whose children do not eat,
(14:39):
or the woman who chooses silenceinstead of another death, then I
am contributing not only to eachof their oppressions but also to
my own. I am not free while any woman is
unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
And I am not free as long as oneperson of color remains chained.
Nor is anyone of you. So when you Morgan, when you
(15:00):
said earlier, like we and our sisters keepers, we are our
sisters. I was like, yes, because we hear
Audrey's quote a lot about, you know, not being free when others
are unfree often, but we don't often expand on it, expound on
it or hear her words surroundingthat quote.
And then she goes on to say we use whatever strengths we have
fought for, including anger, to help define and fashion a world
(15:22):
where our sisters can grow, where our children can love, and
where the power of touching and meeting another woman's
difference and wonder will eventually transcend the need
for destruction. For it is not the anger of black
women which is dripping down over this globe like a diseased
liquid. It's not my anger that launches
rockets, that spends more than $60,000 a second on missiles and
(15:45):
other agents of war and death, that slaughters children in
cities, stockpiles nerve gas andchemical bombs, sodomizes our
daughters and our earth. It is not the anger of black
women which corrodes into blind,dehumanizing power bent upon the
anniation of us all unless we meet it with what we have our
power to examine and to redefinethe terms upon which we will
(16:08):
live and work. Our power to envision and to
reconstruct anger by painful anger, stone upon heavy stone.
A few culture of pollinate indifference in the urge to
support our choices. End Quote.
I love it. I was like, man, So even when
hearing you and all of these stories, I was like, man, our
policy ain't just our power. It ain't just in policy.
(16:31):
All those shout out to Vanessa for wanting to run because I'm
like, yes, girl, but it's also in presence and it's in poetry
and it's in speaking and it's insitting in literal man made
chairs when the oppressors refused to give you a seat.
It's refusing to let our anger be twisted into something ugly
or shameful. Like you know that the
oppressors are so good at doing the angry black woman, right?
(16:52):
Our anger is fuel and it's sacred and we should use it to
build a better world for ourselves and each other.
Because that is the kind of leadership that Ella Baker still
look for. Oh, I love it so much.
So we got Ella Baker, we got Phyllis Wheatley, we got Queen
and Zynga, and now we have Audrey Lorde.
Call on their names When you feel powerless, when you feel
(17:15):
like you can't get out of bed, when you feel like you can't
open the door and go for a walk because you are locked into fear
of the systems that were so brilliantly described by Audrey
Lorde and so beautifully recitedby our sister here.
I know Trellini has to hop off. We will talk to her soon.
Thank you for that, Vanessa. It was such a beautiful,
beautiful transition that she just read into systems change.
(17:39):
I want to talk to you around systems change.
We talked about three ways to organize around systems change,
but NASA, I cannot think of a better person.
We talked about working within the system that we can call on
as an example that is just more powerful than Septima Clark.
So she was the inside the systemchange maker.
(18:02):
So imagine that it's the year 1954.
Well, Vanessa, that that might ring a bell in your head because
that was the year that the Supreme Court ruled on Brown
versus Board of Education, whichwas the segregated schools.
It was also the year my mom was about to graduate from high
school fee. So 1954 she was in South
(18:24):
Carolina. She was a black teacher.
Her name is Septima like September, right?
Septima Clark. And she was a a black teacher
and she was fired because she was a member of the N double
ACP. Now Septima Clark was a daughter
of Charleston. Her family had been active and
respective respected citizens. She was educated in segregated
(18:46):
schools and she trained and and learned all of the methods of
like civil disobedience as a member of the NAACP.
So she learned pace, patience, never passivity, but always
patience. So when the courts failed and
and did not support her and she lost her job, she turned to the
(19:07):
community and she developed something called citizenship
schools. If you've seen our second Ted
talk, we talk about her citizenship school, Septima
Clark. And she started to.
Shout out to that Ted talk, which is called The Most
Powerful Woman you Didn't Know. And I just checked, it has over
2 million views. Wow, yes.
(19:28):
Yay. So her name is Septima Clark.
She is the most powerful woman. She started to teach thousands
of black adults, mostly farmers in South Carolina, how to read,
how to write, and how to pass strategically those racist
literacy tests designed to suppress our votes.
It was such a way for her to deploy her skills as a teacher
(19:51):
and her training as an activist to make systemic change.
She knew she wanted all of the black people in South Carolina
to vote. She knew that they were not
literate and she needed to teachthem.
So she created Citizenship schools.
Now, there's a little known factthat Septima Clark trained Rosa
Parks, that Septima Clark actually LED citizenship schools
(20:13):
for Fannie Lou Hammer, for all of the women whose names we
know, they started in citizenship schools.
And this was months before the Montgomery bus boycotts.
This was months before all of the work and sitting at the DRC
with Fannie Lou Hammer. They were with Septima Clark,
the master teacher. She didn't just torch the
system. This is how she organized
(20:33):
differently, y'all. She didn't just burn down the
system, she used it. She trained people.
She taught them how to navigate the system.
She used literacy as liberation,y'all.
And in the back rooms of churches, under constant threat,
in basement, she quietly taught a generation how to read, how to
vote and how to lead. And so I just want you to be
(20:56):
inspired and remember the name of Septima Clark.
Some of y'all right now are in cafeterias.
Some of you are in classrooms, some of you are in pulpits.
Some of you are working desk jobs, some of you at UPS, some
of you at the post office, some of you.
And shout out to our sisters whoare in foreign aid, who are
helping, who are lawyers on the front lines of immigration, who
(21:18):
are, I mean, all of the kind of like broken systems that
Trellini just read. Oh, you were in the military,
You were on the front. Some of y'all, some of y'all
called in during Black History Boot camp said y'all are in FEMA
walking with Girl Trek, rescuingpeople and waiting for somebody
to rescue you. And I am telling you, look to
(21:38):
the name of Septima Clark to figure out how from the inside
of the system you can be a change maker.
Y'all, if you feeling it like I'm feeling it like we got to do
something, I want to. I want you to feel it.
I just want to take a pause now.Maybe we do a recess.
I want to do a recess with some affirmations.
So Vanessa, this is a quick recess.
(21:59):
It'll take about two minutes. I'm going to ask you to pull
over to the side. Imagine yourself being brave
like Bree Newsome. And I want you to imagine
yourself being smart and strategic like Septima Clark.
I want you to imagine yourself being fearless like Queen and
Zynga and being just a genius with discipline and dedication
like Phyllis Wheatley. And I'm going to say some
(22:22):
affirmations. And the reason I didn't do the
assessment earlier is because I just want us to step forward on
on for Mother Friday. So I want you to take take a
step forward with each affirmation because I want you
to embody this. All right, Are we ready?
Here are calls to action, y'all Sisters, if you trust your voice
even when it shakes, step forward.
(22:44):
Sisters. If you are done waiting for
permission, step forward. Sisters.
If you believe what you dream you can design, step forward.
Sisters. If you turn pain into purpose,
step forward. Sisters.
If you speak truth where others stay silent, step forward.
Sisters, if you were building what has never been built
(23:06):
before, I want you to step forward.
Sisters, if you are here to disrupt systems that destroy us,
I want you to step forward. Sisters, if your power lifts
others as it rises, please step forward.
If you know that you are the power that you have been waiting
(23:27):
for, Sisters, step forward. And sisters, if you are ready to
become the legacy in motion thatour daughters need, I want you
to step all the way forward. Say it loud and say it proud.
We are the power we have been waiting for.
Say it again. We are the power that we have
(23:49):
been waiting for. We have been.
Waiting for. Yes, now let's go ahead and
walk. Let's lead, let's lift, let's
build, let's win, y'all. With that, we're going to take a
break before we share our last story, and I'm going to teach
you how to run for office in 2 minutes.
Before we do that, it is a solidarity spotlight with
somebody who could teach you better than we can.
(24:10):
Higher heights, Vanessa. Higher heights.
That's right. Vanessa been an early supporter
of higher higher heights. What you want to say about MV?
I just want to say that from thebeginning, I know that it it was
a collective of women who reallyunderstood that we can empower,
teach and prepare everyday womento be to run for office and to
really take up space. And so Higher Heights, it's
(24:32):
started by a woman named Glenda Carr.
It's really community driven. They fundraise through support
of their actual membership and it's they're doing really great
work. They are doing great work.
Shout out to y'all. Officially the higher.
Higher Heights is the only national organization
exclusively dedicated to building the political power and
(24:53):
leadership of Black women, from the voting booth to elected
office. I was like, y'all better come on
with that sentence. That's excellent.
Founded, You're Right by Glenda C Carr and her sister Kimberly
Peeler Allen. Higher Heights was born out of a
clear vision that Black women are not only the backbone of our
democracy, but the key to its future.
I love that. So there's some real services
(25:15):
that higher heights is perform, is performing for our community.
First of all, they are they havetwo entities.
They have AC4, which is higher heights for America that passes
policy. And then they have AC 3, which
is higher heights leadership Fund and it and they give a lot
of or like a, a wide variety of services to us.
First of all, the hashtag Black women vote campaign, that's
(25:38):
higher heights. So if you saw it, that's Higher
Heights leadership development. They do training and resources.
You can go to their website. They do policy advocacy and they
do fellowship programs. If you want to run for office,
y'all, they do fellowship programs, but in solidarity.
This is our spotlight for today.So if you want to run for
office, if you feeling fired up by the foremothers and our
sister Bree, decide what office you want to run for is step
(26:02):
number one. Consider your strengths, what
are your passions, what are yourexperiences?
What is your community need, right?
So consider those things and then research the terms, the
duties and the election cycles. The second thing you need to do
is check if you eligible. Check if you eligible.
The basic criteria is age, residency, citizenship and
(26:22):
sometimes party affiliation for some of the roles.
You have to be a registered Democrat or a registered
Republican for some of the roles.
And then where to look. You can look in your local
election board or your Secretaryof State's website for rules of
what you need to do #3. You got to build a knowledge
all. You got to attend the public
meetings. You got to understand how the
decisions are made. You got to talk to former office
(26:44):
holders and talk to the people. So you got to build up your
knowledge base, build up your network is #4 #5 is you got to
file that paperwork, y'all? That's the first thing.
If you want to run for office, Vanessa, you got to declare your
candidacy officially with the appropriate election office.
That's what Dick Gregory did. He declared his candidacy
officially. You got to get on the ballot.
(27:05):
And this often involves collecting required number of
signatures. All right?
So you got to get on the ballot.You got to set up a campaign
committee. I could be on your committee,
Vanessa and register with the FEC If you're running for
federal office, you got it. Then number six, create a plan.
What's your goals, define your message, map out a timeline and
#7 you fundraise, set a goal, start small, ask your friends
(27:28):
and then #8 is build a team and even small campaigns really need
help. This is something for y'all to
all to know your family not going to be able to do it all.
You do need a campaign manager, a communications lead, a
volunteer coordinator, A treasurer.
Keep that money right. You need some people helping you
and then nine connect with voters.
You canvas, you go door to door,you go to community events, show
(27:50):
up and talk. There's so many women out here
who I hope you taking notes and I hope you're about to run and I
hope you're about to run Y'all, I hope you're about to run.
Do some digital engagement. You can do it on social media
and you can get some endorsements from organizations
and and you can get some endorsements from organizations
and churches and community community leaders and even
newspapers. And then last but not least,
(28:14):
just make sure y'all, that you comply with the law.
We don't want y'all out here. We don't want y'all out here.
Comply with the law, track your donations and expenses, file
your financial reports, and follow your advertising and
campaign guidelines and ethic rules.
But that's it, y'all. If you want more training, you
can go to higher heights. There's organizations like
Emily's List, like Emerge America, like she should run,
(28:36):
like run for something. They're all online.
They give you training resourcesspecifically for women,
specifically for people of colorand specifically for first time
candidates. So get out there Y all.
Let's do it Vanessa. Finally, stretch break.
We're in the final lap. I want to give you one more
name. Who Vanessa.
Her quote is maybe my favorite quote ever.
(28:57):
When we are talking about ways to organize, we've talked about
in the system, we've talked about disrupting the system.
The last one is to create your own system, Vanessa.
I don't think anybody has done that better than the late, great
Toni Morrison. All right, Vanessa, Toni
Morrison built a new system of change.
(29:19):
Imagine it's the year 1970. Think of that picture of her and
Angela Davis walking down the street of New York in the 70s
with a cute little afros. All right, In publishing houses
across New York, editors said that Black books don't sell.
And a young editor named Toni Morrison disagreed.
(29:40):
She was raised in Ohio, y'all. Her family was seeped in in
folklore and survival. And Toni Morrison knew the truth
about black life from it's both.It's brutal and it's beautiful.
So she published one of my favorite books, The Bluest Eye,
giving voice to the interior world, creating new worlds of
(30:00):
black girlhood. It was unflinching and it was
unfiltered. And she changed the world with
that book. There's a little known fact that
actually, before she became a Nobel laureate, that Toni
Morrison was the first black woman senior editor at Random
House. Vanessa did a beautiful Black
history boot camp episode on herif you want to learn more.
But while she was a senior editor, she championed the works
(30:23):
of Angela Davis. She lifted up the voice of
Muhammad Ali and so many other revolutionaries.
She made black literature powerful.
She created whole worlds in her book, like Sula, her book like
Sangha Solomon, like Beloved, whole Black world Vanessa, She
did not ask to be included. That's how she did power
(30:45):
differently. She never asked to be included.
She authored a new world throughher stories.
She built new language, new characters, new systems of
truth, new morality, new memory where blackness was not
explained but it was exalted. And I was just like, I want you
(31:07):
to think about being an organizer and wielding your
power in the ways that our foremother did.
Don't believe the hype that you got to have some bullhorn and be
some lone soldier out there. Be some martyr.
You can do power differently. Y'all and I on For Mother
Friday. I just want to encourage you to
lean into your power. We're going to end with Toni
(31:27):
Morrison and she needs no introduction.
Let's hear it. Talk to Y'all later.
Arthur Ashe was here, the late Arthur Ashe, and he said to me
as he said it, one other place, he said in a much quoted
comment. He said living with AIDS is
easier than living racism. It's a harder struggle against
(31:52):
racism for me than it is againstAIDS.
What it meant to me is that there's no way for the rest of
us to understand that daily encounter.
Which brings me to my question to you.
Do you still have that encounter?
Do you, Toni Morrison, Pulitzer Prize winner, successful,
honored in the halls of academe,etcetera, still have that
(32:16):
encounter? Yes, I do, Charlie, but let me
tell you, that's the wrong question.
OK. What's the right question?
How do you feel? Not you, Charlie Rose.
But don't you understand that the people who do this thing,
who practice racism, are bereft?There is something distorted
about the psyche. It's a huge waste and it's a
(32:40):
corruption and a distortion. It's like it's a profound
neurosis that nobody examines for what it is.
It feels crazy. It is crazy and it leaves.
It has just as much of A deleterious effect on white
people and possibly equal as it does black people.
(33:04):
I always knew that I had the moral high ground.
All my life I always thought those people who said I couldn't
come in the drug store and I hadto sit in this funny place, I
couldn't. Go in the park.
I did. And I thought they knew that.
I knew that they were inferior to me morally.
I always thought that and my parents always thought that.
(33:24):
You said your father was racist because he always felt like he
always felt. That's right.
He always felt superior. And that was a form, you know
of, of defensive racism. But if if the racist white
person, I don't mean the person who is examining his
consciousness and so on, doesn'tunderstand that he or she is
also a race, it's also constructed, it's also made, and
(33:49):
it also has some kind of serviceability.
But when you take it away, I take your race away, and there
you are all strung out and all you got is your little self.
And what is that? What are you without racism?
Are you any good? Are you still strong, still
smart? You still like yourself?
(34:10):
I mean, these are the questions.It's part of it is, yes, the
victim, how terrible it's been for black people like that.
I'm not a victim. I refuse to be 1.
And the victim is the other person who is morally inferior
and. That's what that's a serious.
Question of course race is if. You have the whole.
Or his or her own self esteem and definition.
(34:30):
If you can only be tall because somebody's on their knees, then
you have a serious problem. And my feeling is white people
have a very, very serious problem and they should start
thinking about what they can do about it.
Take Me Out of it.
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