Good morning, everybody. We are going to start you off with a wrap called i love books, do we have any lovers in the audience. [cheering] i need to hear you. Book lovers in the audience. We are going to ask you to join us, i love books, i love books, i love books like you love candy. I love books like corn on the cob, i love books like corn on the cob, i love books like, because we have writers in the house im inviting you to offer us of the first of why you love books. I love books like i love books like, i love books like i love books like i love books like color blue, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like cotton candy, i love books like corn on the cup, i love books like love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like i love books like, i love books like. We need our audience to come up. I love books like, i love books like, i love books like a piece of candy, i love books like corn on the cob, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like. [cheering] i love books like i love books like i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like. [cheering] i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like, i love books like i love books like. I love books like i love the moon. I love books like i love to drive. I love books like, i love books like. I love books like. I love books like. I love books like. I love books life. I love books like. I love books like. I love books like. I love books like. I love books like. I love books like. [cheering] that tell the masters do it. Thank you so much. Thank you thank you. Welcome to the Second Annual breakfast party, and africanamerican reading, this is the 30th anniversary of the africanamerican reading which is an international event, i am Caroline Brewer, the founder and i am grateful to be here with our host Financial Credit Union, lets give them a round of applause. We are going to ask them to come up and give a nice warm welcome. And they can do a little wrap if they want to. Thank you caroline, i love my coworkers, thats why were holding hands. [laughter] happy black History Month, this is a exciting time were excited to have our Second Annual book read here and we love to open up our venue for events like this because we have design spaces and the artwork on the wall, were partnered with the hard school and we do art shows the first thursday evening of every month. We have a lot going on. It doesnt look like your traditional financial institutions. Not at all. We want to introduce herself, i am Vice President of the digital and im also the children click author im holding my book in my hand, im a creator like all of you here and would you like to introduce yourself . Im a senior Vice President of the Member Experience team and im responsible for the branches or if you call the call center. Thats what i do and i love what i do and im going to ask the rest of the team to come to the front to show much how much we really support. [applause] we just wanted to bring everyone who works at signal up you can see the signal as part of a community, if you are creative and looking for a new banking institution, signal is diverse, we are family and welcome people and they come into the branches and they know all of us by name and you have a home here. If youre looking for anything regarding Financial Empowerment, wealth building or a place where you feel like you will be heard, signal is really the place to be and come up and talk to anyone of these people and we will be happy to talk to you more about how we can help enable your Financial Empowerment or your creative journey if youre not there. [applause] thank you so much, another a round of applause. Signal financial as our host today. We hope you will follow signal Financial Credit Union on twitter, on linkedin and also on facebook as well as the authors that you are going to be hearing from today. Im Caroline Brewer in here to tell you a little bit about why we are here. We are here because of a woman named jerry cobb scott, a professor of english and more than 30 years ago as a member of the black caucus of the National Council of futures of english it became clear to her that she was not seeing a lot of black authors represented in the places that she visited in the university she was aware of and she understood it was important for us to see black authors to get to know their stories, to connect with them to bond with them when you read an authors work or here in author song you start to connect and bond and experience life from their perspective. Because African Americans are central to what the United States is today, she knew it was essential to find a way for us to see more authors and hear more africanamerican authors and so she found africanamerican reading, it was a oneday event and people from all communities from the very beginning were invited to host readings and gettogethers featuring the works of black authors. She invited in churches and Community Organizations and even from the very beginning prisons participated in having readins to gather around and hear the works of africanamerican authors red. Today 30 years later within 6 Million People all around the world have celebrated africanamerican reading and they celebrated in institutions as one that we are participating in today. One of the things that she also wanted was for local authors to be known and so that is why this event is happening because there is a tremendous amount of talent in washington, d. C. As youre all aware and throughout the metropolitan area, we are here because we want to celebrate those people who are poets, historians who are fiction writers, and newspaper journalist to and we have lots of exciting writers who are here today to share the works with you i hope you will sit back, relax and open your mind to a wonderful literature this morning. Another round of applause for Signature Financial for being our host and we are going to invite our first author to come up. In mourning. I am here with a book that grew out of my story experience, i am a storyteller and some 25 years ago or so i was in a play in my native new york called christmas comes to harlem. In the director needed a black night before christmas. And i said im a researcher offline one. I cannot find one. And it may still be there but i cannot find it. And when i came back i said dont worry ill write one. And he said 0, good. Well i did and i used a form of it but this is what i wrote at the beginning and i want to tell you people are big on saying the africanamerican is all about style. Its nothing about substance. I beg to differ. Our language not only bears our history, it also bears our intellectuality. Our ability, our range, this is a black night before christmas, christmas was just breaking. We were studying in the crib and christmas was just breaking, everything was correct and nothing shaking. I kick back and we were all ready to cut off some slack. We went out on the street some fool started to fuss so i went to check out who is raising the dust. The light from the lamps on the street filled with ice had a sparkly shine so it looked nice. Without the plane tricks on me, i looked and i blinked and i said no cant be. Eight dogs as big as reindeer was pulling a sled when a big man inside dressed rosie in red. He talked to each one they each had a name which was good because to me they all look the same. , sinead a, tshirt, chinese o,a minute old nick was in town. I said stop making some sense, some old man trying to climb your back fence. He shouldve known better and old man should be wiser, please act your age and not your shoe size why are you coming in here like that, for all decent people. He picked up his face and gave me a smile it look like someone i hadnt seen for a while, he said good old woman i came by to say Merry Christmas to you all all and then everything started to fall into place. And that voice match the face. Its been 40 years i think thats right, on Christmas Eve night. He yelled get up in the rocky i have a Little Something for your christmas stocking. My sisters face was a study and sleep until she caught on that lot i create. He hurt her in ways she would never show. But she started to glow with the deep inner light that went out when he left on the Christmas Eve night. Did he come back, i guess thats okay, yeah and Merry Christmas baby im going to sleep all day. The end. [applause] good morning, everybody, this is awesome. He gave me like five different analogies of why number two is really important. [laughter] just that i try to embrace all of the advice as i read to you from my novel i melt in the blues. In many ways its about the main character is about a man relationship to his family and his community as he tries to follow his dream of becoming a big bluesman in chicago. But right now hes in arkansas and hes on his porch and playing his guitar and he has a conversation with his son. Augustine scrapped his guitar let out a huge sigh and commenced to humming the blues. It was not too long after that when the piece was interrupted. This time by his youngest son. Charles had been listening from his bed but was drawn towards the music of justice was making outside and making its way inside. Those sounds are something deep within him that he did not understand but whatever it was it made him want to get right up under it. Write up under the source to fill the vibration as close as his daddy would allow. Augustines did not mind having an audience, he kept on strumming his guitar and humming until he came to a stopping point. Charles asked him, what is it that youre humming about. I hum the blues son. What . The blues. The blues what concerns you real deep. What do you mean concerns you . What bothers you. What you aint got that keeps you from getting what you want. Go get that piece of change for liquor, a good looking woman or some new threats, depends on the person i reckon. Whatevers on your mind is between you and your guitar. Your guitar lessons are your playing and it talks back to you. Most times its trying to tell you what you do got. And depending on the mood you all might argue, fuss and fight but sometimes you see i do i and thats a whole another tune together. No matter which way youre all thick as thieves, but this is beyond your comprehensive, right now but keep on living, like your mama seen you understand it better byandby. Keep on living, i guess just raised his guitar and shook in the air. Real proud about he put his words together. Like a smart talking preacher man. Daddy, what you aint got, whats in your guitar talk about. Boy did i just tell you thats between me and my guitar, you gotta listen to the music and try to figure it out. Can you teach me how to play customer. Before its all over i reckon i can but right now you aint got no blues. Charles thought to himself, that he should not know about the blues, his brother was always the blues, sometimes his mama was the blues, everybody picking on his little sister calling her slow and him having to fight all the time was the blues, not being smart like i was the blues. One was sweet potato pie and mama saying i have the last piece was the blues. Wanted to go far far away from china was the blues. Having music inside him that he wanted to let out but did not know how was the blues. He promised himself he would play music one day just like his daddy but then he figured hed have plenty of blues stored up. Augustine returned to his guitar and played and charles closed his eyes to take it all in. And finally switch places with the mood under moon and sing his own blues. [applause] good morning, everyone. I am alan king the author of drift and point blank, but i will be reading a poem from a forthcoming chapbook. Cricket smiling and the working title. Combing the bargain bin a woman who is not your wife brushes beside you asking if what youre holding is any good. She is close enough are you to smell her ginger body wash, the english she gives you and her leather armor jacket. The one unzipped showing a white tea retracing her athletic stomach and arms, the jacket with a college layer makes her a bright blossom along her neck line. In your fathers voice from two decades before with everything that you see. You were 16 the first time he told you when your hunger hovers like the summer at myrtle beach your sister strutting the boardwalk beneath the honey barbecue son who sweet light made each of them a long stretch of marinade, chromatic skill of phases along which your tongue was burnt into play. Isnt temptation always lurking, eager to hold our common sense hostage. You tell the woman you are married after she points to a flyer for show and says you all should go. When she asked are you happy, you remember a brother once asking how you could love one woman when the world is a buffet. The possibility is a pleasure laid out like jumbo crab cakes, lasagna rolls and buffalo wings. If not a symptom of her own hunger consuming us. Wasnt he selling for a handful of beans, you remember the story of the stock that almost made a hungry giant grub, you still hear the past of preaching about gluttons wearing the rags of drowsiness which is how your wife found you stumbling through the days, your life before her was a violin, a dark garden of wilted some flowers, a camper trailer resting against the moldy bear crawl, you were once a city of powerlines ordered a clock tower, jumped cars and blazing drum verifiers. What she saw and you only her heart moves, just like it new eb back in the listening booth watching the automatic doors close behind you at 16 use all other was of living was filling your appetite. Too young to know love is the everyday meal and the lack of it kills quicker than the absence of food. Thank you. [applause] good morning, everyone, my name is natalie im the author of gogo large gogo has been in the news because the movement from back in the spring ion activist posted a petition that got 80000 signatures to bring the return of the music on the Street Corner in washington, d. C. What was amazing about the 80000 signatures, they came from 94 Different Countries all around the world, every state in the union and places i was not really i did not know they were checking for gogo which was a local music form but the chapter of read from a book which came out several years ago and im so excited people are still interested is called call and response in them talking about the global dimension of gogo as an art form, it is local but not local. So open with a quote who is a lead talker and a familiar face, he said evolution for the past and the present, thats where this whole thing comes from, africa. Problems with youth to talk from tribe to tribe calling response in the whole thing so basically the foundation of gogo, on a visit to west africa i saw a lot of rhythmic drums, a lot of call and response, they just dont call it gogo. So it is one of those hot sticky summer days in washington when i come in my mother and my 6yearold daughter in my 9yearold in maverick head out to the carnival, the annual caribbean parade in Georgia Avenue. Maven way waves a flag and wall magic enter maverick embraces with a tiny green and black yellow flag with my husband parents native jamaica. My son sulks as we make your way down to the football field set up with food vendors in concert stages. He wanted to stay home and is hellishly hot, when i tried to hold his hand to avoid being separated in the crowd he pulls away for me, early onset teenager. I can order this as we crossed Georgia Avenue near the University Campus past the man wasting a beer in one hand and oxygen taken another. We walked past the mud splattered camps representing sierra leone and haiti. We passed the glittery peacock costumes in rows and rows of dancers. We take seats before the mobile stage on Academic High School field which is filled with people waving umbrellas and colorful flags. In a white tank top and jeans, tshirt tied onto his head paces the stage. I want one lady from jamaica, another from trinidad and another caribbean country, upon the stage row quick. Real quick real quick. About a dozen women quickly scale the stage and out of the loudspeaker as mc call out the country or the cities as a separator. Kingston, trinidad, panama, guyana, puerto rico, washington, d. C. , belize, one by one the women take turns on center stage. The rumbling begins in their thighs and shoulders and moves like an earthquake, rear and jet out sending ripples into motion, one leg up, head stands, skinny hips shake on a spin cycle and at the speed of popping corn. My 61yearold mother exchanges knowing looks next to her was about the same age. Thats my grandson over there she told the woman pointing toward maverick, his jaw dropped as a woman grind her hips against the state. The women both side, he will be all right the woman says, yet he will be all right my mom agrees as we leave our seats to buy some food my son claps his hand on right shoulder, peace offering, i am glad i came he said. I bet he was. When we get home maven reports the first trip to d. C. Carnival to emergency doctor in his 30s, there was bu tt shaking she says in her eyes growing big. He responds truly, thats the best kind. She took the soundtrack a little bit in the scene couldve happened at any given night at any gogo in washington, you find the same forensic movement, the same sweaty exuberant, the same overtly sexual commanded by a male gaze, the same sound system that crime grind into grl and rhythm. When people asked me about gogo and how i spent ten years, now 20 years, they say in writing the journalist, the best i can do is shrug, its a caribbean thing. Along with the church the caribbean greatly influenced chuck brown but the connection wave more a state of mind when i heard my first gogo broadcast on the radio i freshman year of housing diversity in 1994, my ears perked up in the same way they did when i heard hiphop show stilling guest box i feel for you at my canadian elementary school. When i First Experience gogo life by body begin moving unconsciously just like it did on a childhood visit to guyana when i first told her token music with a jump up rhythm. What was that music. I will stop there. [applause] great reading. Im going to flip the switch a little bit i am the author, i am so proud of the story because i wrote it just after having my son, i was working as a Television Host in richmond, i had my son and stayed home for a year. What i realized in that time as well it was not working for an organization, i was still interested in storytelling and i discovered that my skills for writing stories for broadcast could be transferred to writing stories for the new passion in my life which was my child and children all around the world. So this story started out as a handwritten note in a notebook and then i said more children need to hear this because i looked through board books like the one i have which is the baby book and i noticed they were not children who look like me, when i was a kid there was not children who look like my son in the vast majority of Children Books that you see on bookshelves. I thought just like tyler parise said, dont ask for a seat at the table, build your own table, i started writing and got connected with the wonderful Childrens Book author and she embraced me and this was the first title on her new Childrens Book and im proud to say it reached number one best seller in the sensation category on amazon before it was even released. To me that was a testament to parents all around the country wanting to see themselves and their children in the stories that were being told from the very, very beginning. So without further ado i present what is life. What is life, light can be many things such as the brightness are some bricks internet tran1. A butterfly captured in a jar, then the feeling when you let it go, the spark in your eye is like a glow. The bright greenleaf floating in the wind, the smile on your face when you see a friend. Light can be so many things, mothers love, turtledove. A colorful butterfly flapping its wings. What is the light that can be seen around you, it can be found in everything that you do. And especially inside of you. The end. I just want to add, this book is so special to me because its written by an africanamerican woman and mother published by an africanamerican woman and mother, illustration by an africanamerican woman and mother. I dont know too many Children Books that have that trifecta going on and im proud to say my second Children Book also inspired by my son, my rainy day rocketship coming out in may and im in the middle of writing another adventure story about a little boy who gets bored one day and decides to become a ninja. Cliffhanger. [applause] good morning. My namim the author and directf the kids series, i have a question, how many folks have ever had calamine before or heard of it . Quite a few people. It is a yummy spinach stew mostly eating in the caribbean but comes from west africa and this story, these stories have been away for me too express my experience growing up as a firstgeneration trinidadian american interrelation of the memories in the folklore in the language that is passed down through our food culture is what actually started as a theatrical play that i wrote about eight years ago and has transformed into book series, into a web series, animation we have been to hundreds of schools it is really given a chance of Young Children and teachers to get excited about the history about the black inner linkages. It is totally independent and has been produced by local black latino creative illustrators, directors, producers, actors in the first book im going to share with you guys in the series is a folktale that celebrates my heritage in trinidad and we have two other books, our second book celebrates puerto rican folklore and a third book celebrates the most recent, i am going to sta start. On one hot new york city summer day winston ate a bowl of his favorite dish callaloo, winstons eyes were always bigger than his tummy. But there was just something magical about his o en tees callaloo, it was a recipe passed down from his grandmother to his aunt t. Winston said his aunt, yet the belly of a goat, you ate all the callie lou, down to the shop on flatbush avenue and pick me up more dashing bush. So winston walked to the subway. Delish he also, wolf barked the neighborhood dog. While devouring two ics winston heard a whisper. What is that. Winston, he looked to his left, to his right and to his back. Where did that voice come from. He shrugged, then hopped on the train and headed to the shop. Sitting patiently winston gave the subway window, where did all the familiar city buildings disappeared to. For he was no longer in new york city but now on the caribbean island of tobago. Winston loved tobago. He often daydreamed about bathing in the Crystal Clear water, devouring morning gumbo and listen to his wise grandmother stories, he loved tobago even more than ics and callaloo. He could hear his grandmother calling him. Winston said grandmother the sun is almost set, go down to the river and pick me too crabs, we needed for the callaloo. So winston approached the river when he saw, wow, look at all these crabs, i will bring back to ill bring back four instead of two, my grandmother will cook them off for me. When suddenly a menacing shadow appeared through the trees, little boy why are you stealing from my forest . Peacekeeper protector of all the animals in the forest, winston ran off before they could utter another word. The day grew tonight and as winston sought to catch his breath he saw a man covered in black paint with curly fingernails and a hairy face for it was a log who, and i will stop that right there. Thank you for. [applause] thats a tough act to follow. My name is diana vega and i am reading a part of my short story the ancient heartache is silent and will be published in the literary magazine warehouse for the upcoming valentines day issue which is devoted and dedicated to black love and will feature writing fiction essays. Artwork all by black women. The white envelope had her name scribbled in purple ink on the front. She had not noticed it before when she first grabbed it from a pile of mail but now the more she stared the more she could see that he had squeezed the h between the seat and the as if he had forgotten how to spell her name and he had forgotten the first day like the night they had met, he bartender, she drinker, he was fine, to find her friend had said but she could not resist. He had smiled and they bobbed their heads to the music supplied by the dj. Flirted laughs, she had shared what he walked in went under the bar to the other with several colorful shots. Toward the end of the evening encouraged by her best friend and vodka, she had written her name and full number on the teal cocktail napkin and placed in his hand. She thought he wouldve at least waited until she was out of the door but as she gave him her back to put on her coat and slid as gracefully as possible off the barstool she heard, who spells nicole with an h. I do, the h is silent she said spinning back around to try to glare and smile at the same time. He smiled back wide and welcoming and said okay then that is different. I am turns within a so i guess we fit. So he definitely knew how to spell her name and it made her special. Now she stood in the middle of the living room staring at the bright purple ink in the age that could not fit, she was not sure which was worse that he had obviously forgotten or he had tried to correct the mistake. She shifted her focus and reach inside the envelope encounter the money for what felt like the hundredth time. But in reality was probably the h. As her fingers move she already knew when she was done there would be 3100 other bills, 150, 320s, four tens into fives, 460 total, Child Support she supposed could not call it monthly because she had not gotten any money from him in over two weeks and when he finally given would not cover daycare for two weeks. Of course he did not even have the decency to call first to let her know he was on his way because if he had she wouldve made sure to be home and wouldve made sure he saw his daughter and understood she was not a mailslot what was instead a real breathing laughing loving human being. New shoes, college funds, toys, food, thank you. [applause] good morning. I am lois cooper, the author of mama said. I want to talk a little bit about how that title came about. Its because almost every day i tell someone, mama said, mama used to say, mama said this. My mother Catherine Cooper everyone always asks where are you in the picture that was long before i was born. Thats actually my mom, my brother, my oldest brother, my oldest sister. I would like to start abby saying good morning. I would like to think Carolyn Brewer and all of you who came out early this morning to celebrate. I am lois cooper, the author of mama said, a story of unconditional love. Faith and endurance of the local centenarian who helped to shape her family, community, and the city. Catherine cooper is my mother, she is 102 years old. She still resides. [applause] thank you. She still resides at her home at 16th street with her family in the home that she and her husband bought in 1962. Mama said is full of stories, scripture, impressions from family, neighbors, and friends. At the end of the book there is a legacy space where readers can record their own family memories. I would like to share with you a reading about aband the sustenance of a loving family. I wrote this article for the a anews in october 2016. I dont remember the exact time or date in 2008 that moms diagnosis of dementia alzheimers became a reality to me. As a family we spent a lot of time trying to justify the signs and symptoms since mom was almost 90. It wasnt so much her forgetfulness but the decline in her ability to cook and prepare meals, which was the real signal. Mom had eight children and sometimes she would go through the list of our names before she got to the right one. That part was not unusual. We used to giggle about that growing up. Mom was a great vibration cooker, cooking without recipe. She took great pride in that. In fact, that was the way mom did everything. From cooking to sewing to patternmaking, keeping the family healthy to creatively inventing and repairing the things our family needed. When mom started over seasoning dishes with large amounts of pepper, salt, garlic and other spices, we knew something was wrong. Once she started burning food, we convinced her that the stove was broken and she could no longer use it to cook. I think that revelation dimmed a light on it. [applause] good morning. Last year i was part of a team that did a series on 1619. Sorry. They did a series of 1619. That series published last year i was a part of several of the stories and one of the stories was chronicling the journey of a woman named wanda tucker back to angola. Wanda believed her her and her family believed they were the first descendents of the first africans that arrived in the english colony. So we went back with her. Another part of another story we did i worked on in particular was tracing my family history. In trying to use my journey as a way to help africanamerican and others look at how they might do that as well. There was one thing that made that story extra interesting is that my familys name, my grandmothers familys name was also tucker, which is also what wandas name was. Its the first of the series. This is in wanda. Wanda tucker stepped off the plane to a sky is gray as the tarmac. She inhaled, balanced her new bed with a strong handle and stepbystep by step made her way down the middle stairs. It had been 40 hours since she left virginia before her 61 years had caught up to her. Something about flying over that why dark water had brought home the reality of what she had come here to do. The plane hissed, the faces around her were brown like hers but their words were scrambled in sound. She boarded the shuttle bus and plopped on the seat nervously tapping her knee with her left hand at first she brushed away the tears then ignored them. It was hard, so hard to breathe. Wanda and her family believed they were descended from the first africans ab they hadnt proved it but they didnt doubt it. Here she was in the place those ancestors had called home, dusty, mysterious, angola. She would walk the roads they walked by the rivers they fished under the stars that guided them. She would confront as courageously as she could the reality of what happened to them and those left behind. Wanda believed her ancestors had called her here but sometimes she found it hard to listen and she didnt hear them now. She had come so far and felt so alone. She said out loud, could somebody give me a hug . I cowrote that story with kelly french. Later on there was another story as i mentioned about tracing my history and part of that we did a dna test, my family and wanders, we waited to see. This is the end of that story. We waited for weeks for dna results from african ancestry. Com the testing required a male from each tucker line, my cousin sonny and wandas brother vincent agreed to take the test. The call came in last week while i waited for a session at the black genealogy conference its a match. I didnt react. I had to be sure that jones understood what i was asking and i understood exactly what she was saying. I repeated the question read back the response somewhere along the lines, she said, edward and vincent share a male relative. We might never know where the connection happened because the results covered 502,000 years. I hung up and took a minute and then cried. There was so much to absorb. The story i stumbled into by luck or divine intervention wasnt just a story, it connected to my own. That means i spent 10 days on the road in angola with a woman i didnt know i was related to. By the end of that lifechanging adventure we had bonded like family. That means when wanda landed in angola feeling alone, longing for family and asking for a hug, her prayer was answered. I had hugged her in the airport that means my cousin was spot on when she texted me and said, she looks a little bit like you. I didnt know whom to call first, my editors would push back the location of the story to wait for the results, my cousin who took the dna test, my sister who joined me in that family search for my newfound relatives. I called wanda, hello cousin, i said. [applause] [silence] amen, indeed, there were so many revelations for those of us who were blessed chosen by the divine or go to angola. My colleague Deborah Barfield barry was the lead reporter for our journey. We learned so many things about ourselves as she has revealed. I also was on the journey to learn some things about myself. The ancestors apparently called me there is as well. My journey started a little bit before we even got the message that we were going to go. As the person who is editor of the black History Month special edition that you will see in the room, and one of my tasks as making sure i research a topic before we get ready to write about it. Restarted researching 1619 and came across wanda tucker story and came across so much other information. One name stood out for me and you will see her name on the poster down in front. Her name is angela. Shes the first enslaved african woman who had a name in the story in jamestown. In 1625 she was the only africanamerican woman mentioned by name in the colonies 1625 monster. In the accounting of everybody in the county. She is attached to captain william pierces household and is noted for growing figs and and raising hogs. I thought maybe i would dressed in costume and walk angela stepped there. Angela had other things in mind for me. She would not let me stop at making her a character and putting her on as if she was a dress. She made me go to angola with everybody else. She made me really walker path. As deborah and wanda were walking together as cousins and having experiences that we all as a team were sharing with them, angela was also leaving me to discover who she was what her part was in being among the first african to arrive in jamestown. The passage that i want to read for you was the hardest one for me to write in the story. It took me two years to research 1619 generally and her story in particular and it took me probably a couple weeks to get through what the really small passage of the entire story. I had walked where she was and i understood her agony and wretchedness and there was times i had to step away from the story to get through it. The story i wrote begins with the interpreter in jamestown talking about playing angela and interpreting angela as a character for those who come to visit. We talked about how she gets into character for it and how she had a really study who angela was. At one point she said she discovered she could not write herself she couldnt write the story until she realized that angela was not in jamestown angela was in angola and then she could read the story. This is the part of the passage where im exploring and getting to know who angela is and how she came to be in the United States. The young woman called angelo was a citizen of one of the largest and most influential kingdoms in central africa. Since the mid1400s the portuguese had established straight with the end although kings and queens whose title angola gave the country its name. Missionaries were in an dongle as well recording the history of the people even as they converted them to roman catholicism. Slavery had been a concept and condition all over africa for millennia, enslaved people were currency. Slavery already enlisted social order of kielbasa is for sophisticated capital of its day rivaling rome in influence. By 1617 the portuguese reached for highly skilled slave to good mind their metals and grow food in the new world clashed headon with the end although whose rulers push back against the portuguese as they moved further into angola and started taking people and resources without their sanction. The portuguese enlisted a tribal adversary feared for its violence and witchcraft the indigo it to wage war enslaved everyone they could then wipe out the rest. The emmagood on the atlantic co rounding up thousands of men, women, and children. Angela was one of them. Young women like angela were valuable to slave traders they could be worked as hard as the men but also made to bear a child after child. Ensuring even more slaves. The portuguese new the women who came from the densely populated towns and villages around kielbasa head further skills. They grew the families vegetable gardens and raised pigs, cattle, and south, they cook the meals care for the children and wash their clothes in the rivers. The portuguese knew these women bartered, bargained and sold their goods at the crowded local markets. Speaking in at least two languages can bondaband native portuguese. They knew it too. As a prisoner angela was much more than 70 miles to the ab on the kwanzaa river. One of the oldest portuguese ports in angola s primary function is to channel enslaved africans to ravana. Because of only atraditions we dont have a lot of sources to tell numbers of enslaved people who moved there but it was in the thousands as a historian who teaches there. About 50,000 slaves were exported from angola between 1617 and exceed 21. In full view of the citizens there angela and other prisoners were marched up the narrow winding path of the slave garden which overlooks the river. Prisoners were bathed, baptized and branded before being displayed for sale. Once sold the africans would march to the forts before waiting weeks to be forced to go to tunnel and in canoes that would take them down the kwanzaa river to the courtyards of the merchants who now own them. After waiting for days and weeks in rwanda angela wouldve joined the other captives being broke out to the slave ships anchored in the harbor. Even if angela was christian before her capture, she wouldve gone to another baptism, the sprinkling of water on her head, the administering of salt under her tongue for wisdom, the receipt of a blessing and a christian name to replace her cando name. This ritual of enslavement had been happened over and over just steps from the church. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, that was michelle smith, and investigations editor at usa today. Lets give her another round of applause. [applause] i am back. Caroline brewer. Im the author of this new Childrens Book called Darius Daniels game on the first rat we did from the book, i love books, is a part of the story we will do another wrap for you this inspired by the first page of the book. Its also a wrap where we will ask you to participate. Its called the hoops song in the chapter is that morning. The reason its called the oops song its a book about an 11yearold boy who woke up one morning and gets sucked into a videogame. And it takes him on this scary and rather magnificent adventure but hes told that he cant get out again until he hurt somebody. The oops song is all about those moments in our lives we we wake up and we have our plans all set and we think we know what we are going to do and then all the sudden what happens . Oops. Doesnt happen the way we expected it to. There are a lot of oops moments in the story. It opens with a really big one. We want to invite you to participate in telling the story with us by singing along to the oops song. I also need to mention that this book is oneofakind. It is also independently published but has more than 10 forms of poetry. Poetry, rhythm, rhyme, rap, some gospel inspired songs in here. Theres a ballot here. All of it helps tell the story of dariuss journey. Its not something i set out to do but i have this wonderful editor early along the way named Eileen Robinson who is a former executive editor for scholastic and she challenged me to make it a series of sonnets. By that time it had already been written, it was 75,000 words and i said, youre crazy, i cant do that. It kept her challenge in my mind and went back into the story and started to rework it. I spent i dont know how many months rewriting and rewriting and rewriting until it did become a series of poems. This book is dedicated to my mother. Theres a character in this book based on an extraordinary aspect of our life and its also dedicated to children i call hungry readers. Ive had the wonderful blessing of being able to travel to schools throughout the country and even across the world in ghana west africa and visit children, some of whom have had some difficulty learning to read but what i have found with all those children is they were all hungry. They were all hungry to learn and i never left a classroom, youth center, library, where those children did not excel during the time we were together. So what i have seen is that our children are brilliant. They are amazing. They want to learn there is no such thing as a child who doesnt want to learn. There is no such thing in my life, in my experience, as a child who doesnt want to be a great reader or writer. Imagine that. Imagine a child who says, no i dont want to learn to read. I dont want to be a better reader. I do want to be a better writer. Ive never seen such a child. This book is written to help make the case to children absolutely our desires of a better reading experience. They just need us to bring it to them in the right way. They just need us to see them as capable. And hungry. Heres for all the hungry readers in the world. Oops. Oops. [singing] [singing] oops hoops oops oops oops [singing] oops oops oops [rapping] oops oops oops [rapping] [rapping] [applause] lets give my friends karen wilson and el mcrae round of applause. We have one more poem from the book and of course a [applause] there is another poem in this book during these journey he goes to a place, some of you are familiar with called harlem. Lets see if we can find it really fast. Maybe hes not gonna go to harlem. He may not go to harlem. Hang with me. Here we go. D is going to harlem and heres what he finds. In seconds he was looking at harlem walking people, talking people, squawking people, swaying people, sashaying people, lazy laying people. Marching people, harpy people, sharpening people, looking at harlem people. Short tall plump skinny people. Long hair and short hair, straight and wavy, flying without a care here. Braids and locks, afros and twists, red brown blonde, blackandwhite, take a look at this hair. He was looking at harlem people genes, strikes, flowers, asian and african prince, flowing people, golden people, glowing people, mixing in with scents like peppermints and colored greens, the smell of traffic jams. Mixing with the smell of bean pies and fish fries and roasted almonds and mangoes. Mixing in with the side of king and african wraps, shoes with fancy straps. He was looking at harlem people when d got to the Apollo Theater he encountered creamcolored walls connected to creamcolored halls, he saw a stage for of dark brown wood, photos that went back to his grannys childhood. The famous people who performed here. Upon each photo he laid his eyes came a shocking but sweet surprise. The photos burst alive with the sounds of music. [singing] Billie Holiday saying god bless the child. His own with the soothing heavenly tented mom, nina simone saying no and she was sowing the seeds of protest when she said she was so upset in her song about mississippi doing wrong. Doing wrong. After doctor king was killed, after people were despair and outrage filled after leaders in tennessee alabama and the deep south constantly stop themselves with so much hatred they left the king of love and too many others dead. Aretha Franklin Queen of soul saying in the gospel abbossy and bold as she got people told in think. She was preaching at the world sisters and brothers. Needed to think about what they were trying to do to one another. Michael jackson spinning and pop and was given advice more than twice to just beat it. To know what was happening was that truth or dare, if you want to remain undefeated better wise up and beat it out of there. James brown was belting loud and funky sounds. [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] this is why we call this ab round of applause. [inaudible] [music] [inaudible] [cheering] all right. Thank you again. [applause] cspan, thank you so much for being here with us. I dont imagine there has been a book party like this on cspan before. She says no. [laughter] we are happy to inaugurate it. We also are thrilled to bring our final author to you, his name is evil bert miller. His name is synonymous with poetry. Not just in the dc region but all over the world. After ethelbert miller is a legend, he is a literary activist. He is a man who founded the dc council on arts and humanities. Which lets give him a round of applause. [applause] supports events like this and supports artists and writers all throughout the area to bring their extraordinary works to the community. Hes written a number of books that are in collected works and hes also the author of a memoir, two memoirs, one of them called fathering words. What i have found more than anything is that this man who his peers were some of the greatest literary giants in the world, peers like gwendolyn brooks, abthis man is a gentleman and a scholar. We are so honored he is spending part of his morning with us, please welcome ethelbert miller. [applause] i feel like macy with all that james brown. Thank you for that. I want to talk about someone elses work before my own. A person who i admire, a person who i think has done something i think we all are probably happy to see his achievement. Thats lonnie bunch. This is a fools errand creating the National Museum of African American history and culture in the age of bush, obama and trump, this book if youre a teacher should be required reading especially during black History Month. If youre a parent that should be a book that should be in your house. If you are a person who wants to be a business person, how do i put a building together a business, this is a very good book to read. Lonnie bunch is a very humble individual. When you read this book its filled with a lot of humor, humility but at the core of it is overcoming the obstacles and one of the first obstacle is believing you can do it. When you look at the museum and look at this room here, we are the living legacy. When you go into the museum you have to realize you are part of that. Its not something in a showcase. Its not a drum, its your heart, its still beating. You have to realize you have a responsibility and ive known many people who have built things. I know many musicians who play but can explain how they play. Charlie parker said, i can hear the new music. I just cant play it yet. A lot of musicians they hear it, they can play it but sometimes they cant tell you how you can play it. I remember many years ago he was speaking to students at the museum had not existed yet. He said im going to write that abrun the entire smithsonian. That was back then. [laughter] you could say, wow, you would think he would stop at that. I dont know if lonnie bunch is gonna show up on one of the ballots. [laughter] but i might vote for him. I just say that in terms of honoring a person that i feel his name should be known to everyone and hes such a humble guy and he will tell you when they were dedicating the museum he didnt want to be out in front, he wanted to be behind. But this is a person i admire. Which leads me into this poem. Black men are precious, black men, black friends having strokes, black men younger than me, good men with bad hearts, men who did not follow their spouses in the factories or the post office, black men who went off to college and pull themselves up by degrees. Men who did not sink into the sphere but lifted their family into new homes. Black men who survived the bullets, streets, and the police. Black men who saw the horizon and the stars they marched as garvey held out his hand not to ethiopia but to our hearts. Black hearts, now failing for unknown reasons, why . Why do we die so young . Why are we not like our grandfathers sitting on the porch rocking away the years . Why are we not the black man returning from the wars and lifting our girlfriends up into wives again . Why do we did this early death . After all the exercise and pills come after the changing diet, why is it such a cruel hunger that appears and takes our years. Black men, my friends resting in their open coffins waiting for someone to sing, precious lord, take their hand black hands closing with so much love still left to give. [applause] i dedicate that poem to kobe bryant and his family. His 20 years since i wrote ab so the new addition of fathering words is coming out thanks to black classic athis is the book that the library selected for dc read program. Its a book that i guess like lonnie bunch i didnt know i could write. When i first started writing poetry my phones were very short. The idea of writing a memoir who something i think i never thought about. I wrote fathering words in one draft, no revisions. But in terms of writing about my life and my family, i realized being the baby of the family, remember you said about oops, when i told my mom i was going to be a writer she said oops. [laughter] when i was growing up because i was the baby in the family everybody said shhhso he wouldnt learn whats going on. There were so many things about my family i didnt know because i was the baby of the family. What my brother knew, what my sister knew, i didnt know. So when i decided i wanted to write fathering words and wanted to write it because in every family if the order of death changes, everything is upside down. You hear that saying, no parent should bury their child. When my brother died in his 40s when my brother died and i looked at my father and that grief i knew i could not turn around and write a poem. It was too much of my fathers face. There was too much happening in my family to write a poem. I had to father more words. Thats where that title comes out. I mention this, i grew up with the 1950 movies like tv shows fathers know best. I tell people, that was not my experience. In my household my father was a supreme court, the supreme court. You know what that means . Some cases never got to him. [laughter] mike he didnt do his homework . Theres nothing that get past that didnt get to him. So in my house my father was sort of like god. I mention this in terms of the great port kellan rogers. Kellan rogers has a poem how i got over in which she had a little puppy when she was young and the puppy ran out of the street and got hit by a car and the puppy died. She held onto that puppy waiting for her father to come home because she said my father was the fixit man and she knew when he came home she abhe would fix the puppy. Theres a tremendous amount of power to put in another person, especially your father that he could fix everything. I say that in terms of this book fathering words because i was the baby of the family and didnt know much ahead write in my memoir in two voices so i created my sisters voice throughout the memoir. So when you pick this up if you see the first letter purifies thats my sisters voice. Marie two exits. This is my sisters voice. I always wanted to have children and when i couldnt i couldnt find anyone to talk about it. When i had my surgery i slowly came to realize that i was the only person in that bed room and hospital. I was lying there looking at nothing and knowing that nothing would ever come out of me. I was holding onto being hold by a flumes of dread. I tried to talk to my husband about what i was going to but he looked at me as if i had contracted the disease. His male mind just wanted to see himself in a small body. He wanted a little boy. Was that not the unspoken agreement at the altar when we took our vows . I was to be a mother by any means necessary. Giving birth is the beginning of life and beauty. Sometimes i walk to the hospital where i worked and need to leave the emergency ward so i take the elevator up to the floor where the babies are. Behind glass or in arms the newborn sleep their eyes too knit for this world. I like the smell of motherhood, watching the first drops of breastmilk falling into sheets and the space between us. Im different from other women. I believe this for many years when my mother called on the phone and whispered something about my brother wanted to join him. Who made the rules i couldnt have children . I cried many nights listening to my tears fall down the backs of my heart. One of the things that when youre writing a memoir many times you have to ask yourself what are you going to reveal . One of the things i had asked my sister, was it okay to read about the fact she couldnt have children. She said okay. But then the whole thing also about dont mention my age. [laughter] i remember so clearly my sister at that time, shes deceased now i can talk about her even more. She was going out with a much younger guy. She had given the younger guy my book to read. She said this book is getting me in trouble you should just be truthful because it was in the book that he knew how much older she was. I will end with this. This is me listening to my father we are in watching tv and he says, i could be like your mother and be like everyone else and my father says to me during a commercial it doesnt matter how old i am were so far in the cuff of my pants in the corner of my coat pocket or and i turned a corner on a cold winter afternoon entered my collar up against the wind. Someone said, the hawk is blowing. In a note from my fathers life rushing at me in the composition thats coming any thelonious could imagine, ruby my dear, two bodies in the dirt, one talking and the other listening to a strange sound coming from where pain and hurt is mixed with oppression and booze. If you cry for everyone and not just yourself, this is where you discovered the passage, the holocaust, the plantation, the concentration camp, the bombing of. This is how Alan Ginsberg described an entire generation that spoken unspoken us. The moments between the simplicity of playing catch with a ball and glove. The moment your father touched the nakedness of his back to place the weight of his own sex and identity reach your own in the mirror you are afraid to look into in the face of your own father and this is also the face of history. Thank you. Thank you all and Many Blessings to all of you. Thank you so much, lets give ethelbert miller another round of applause. [applause] for sharing those extraordinary works. We are truly blessed in the city and community to have so many amazing authors and i hope that all of you in the cspan audience will take the time to look up these authors and follow them on facebook and twitter and instagram and linked in and see what else they are up to. To close out our program we have the amazing Branch Manager of the city city branch of signal financial federal credit union. Jeanette is going to give you final words but i also walked to think book tv for being here with us. Please give them another round of applause. We are so grateful that you found the time and found this of value to want to share it with audiences all across the world. We cant thank you enough for being here and getting up so Early Morning and joining us for the celebration of literary work. Thank you carolyn. My goodness. Isnt it amazing . Thank you so much for coming this early to be with us here. Its amazing. Recently i read book reading to stimulate our mind, brain and helps alzheimers. I was like, wow, thank you so much for doing this. Like caroline said, cspan, this is your second time, thank you so much for coming out thank you so much. I will be your Contact Person if you need any financial needs or future events, i will make sure you have my Business Card before you leave today. Thank you again. Make sure you have your breakfast and coffee for you as well. Thank you so much. I have one final thank you and that is our book follows thank hope. Com. Please give them a round of applause. We were able to make books available to our audience the general public was invited to be a part of this. Please make sure you visit the table where abhas books from all our authors today and take some wonderful books home with you. Thank you again to everyone. Thank you to all our amazing authors and writers. Our singers. Our poets. Have a beautiful day. Goodbye. [inaudible background conversations] booktv continues now on cspan2, television for serious readers. 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