I AM WOMAN: A Timeline

I think it’s a necessary part of the continuing story I’m trying to show and tell about our roots and our trajectories. Our struggles and our joys. The way we make do and make better no matter our starting points. We, Black Women, are magnificent in all our statuses, throughout any affliction or oppression, we not only continue to rise, we shine, we illuminate our surroundings and provide routes of escape for others to follow.

Harvest Update – Book Release – Desert of Solitude

“This book is a must read. Desert of Solitude really helped me understand some things in life that I struggled with. It’s very refreshing to see someone overcome so many obstacles I’ve struggled with. Thank you, sincerely.”

Segregation – The Neighbor That Won’t Leave

Affluent and Black, and Still Trapped by Segregation – New York Times front page on Sunday, August 21, 2016. Read it here: http://nyti.ms/2bvF9m5

A lesson on class and leadership from First Lady Michelle Obama

“Family motto: “When they go low; we go high.”

Quote: Two powers in the world…

“There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women.” ― Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Quote: All mortals are equal…

Les mortels sont égaux; ce n’est pas la naissance, C’est la seule vertu qui fait la différence. All mortals are equal; it is not their birth, But virtue itself that makes the difference. Voltaire, Eriphile, act II, scene I (1732); these lines were also used in Mahomet, act I, scene IV (1741)

Quote: Man is free…

L’homme est libre au moment qu’il veut l’être. Man is free at the instant he wants to be. Voltaire, Brutus, act II, scene I (1730)

Voulez-vous avoir de bonnes lois; brûlez les vôtres, et faites-en de nouvelles.

If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.

~ Voltaire, Laws (1765)

Doodle 4 Google 2016

National Winner: Google in My Afrocentric Life

Akilah Johnson, Eastern Senior High School, Washington, D.C.

My Afrocentric Google is drawn as a box braid, with my personal characteristics surrounding it. I based this picture off my lifestyle and what has made me into what I am today.

View the Contest Gallery: https://www.google.com/doodle4google/gallery.html

Now in it’s 8th year, the Doodle 4 Google Competition challenges young artists to create their own Doodle. This year’s competition called for submissions around the theme: “What Makes Me… Me.” Kids worked in their medium of choice, delivering uniquely personal and one-of-a-kind submissions.

Of 100,000 participants coming from all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and Washington D.C., five national finalists were chosen to spend the day at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California for the award ceremony. At 10 am PST [on March 21, 2016], this year’s national winner Akilah Johnson from Washington, D.C. saw her artwork go live on Google’s U.S. homepage for millions to see.

Thank you to all the finalists for sharing your creativity with us. And a hearty congratulations to our national winner, Akilah Johnson.

I do not mean to be sentimental about suffering – enough is certainly as good as a feast – but people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are. That man who is forced each day to snatch his manhood, his identity, out of the fire of human cruelty that rages to destroy it knows, if he survives his effort, and even if he does not survive it, something about himself and human life that no school on earth – and, indeed, no church – can teach. He achieves his own authority, and that is unshakable. This is because in order to save his life, he is forced to look beneath appearances, to take nothing for granted, to hear the meaning behind the words. If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring; whatever it brings must be borne.

~ James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

#americarising

We can do better.

self-determination