Author | Storyteller
It practically kills me to admit this, but as a young writer, I was once in the presence of greatness — an award-winning, nationally recognized author. I spent the whole day with her. Yet, I knew close to nothing about her. Crazy, right? What made it worse was that Gwendolyn Brooks not only had the same cinnamon-hued […]
WASHINGTON, DC, FEBRUARY 1994 As I approached the small auditorium inside the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, I saw my father standing in the doorway cheerfully greeting each of the attendees who had come to hear him speak. When Dad saw me he gave me a big hug and kiss, and flashed his winning smile. […]
My paternal great-grandfather’s name was Doctor. Doctor Livingston. He was born in the year 1879 so I never knew him, but I do know he wasn’t a doctor. On the contrary, my GGF was the son of parents who were enslaved in Orangeburg, South Carolina. I’ve been researching my family history for years and, for […]
For over a century, the legacy of Madam C.J. Walker has overshadowed the life of Annie Malone. Walker’s well-documented success has allowed her to stake claim to what Malone did first — establishing a haircare empire and being the first Black American woman to achieve millionaire status. While it’s true the lives of these women are inextricably […]
Biographies and memoirs can be extremely difficult to write. It takes a huge amount of storytelling and personalization. Memoirs require you to be vulnerable. If you’re writing a family story, as I have, you need to be willing to expose some of the not-so-flattering stuff. You also have to be willing to dig deep and […]
From Legal Segregation to Self-Segregation, America Still Has A Long Way To Go. When I think about growing up in the 1970s, I think of colors — the many different colors that worked together in harmony — my purple bedroom carpet, the pink wallpaper in our powder room, and our harvest-yellow kitchen appliances. It seems crazy now, but somehow, […]
My maternal grandparents, Vivian and Hood Byers, were both born in 1900 in North Carolina When I was pregnant with my first child, my husband and I decided to videotape interviews with family members. This was back in the day, so video cameras were big and bulky, difficult to set up. Not to mention expensive. […]