The Heart of My Work
Becoming the Ancestors
The Elder’s Ethos in Scholarship and Story
My current and forthcoming work rests on the rising ethos of the elders—contemporary scholars whose responsibility is to guide, teach, and transmit wisdom across generations, knowing that we too will become the ancestors. This intergenerational teaching is the heartbeat of my scholarship and creative practice, for the question before us remains urgent: How far have we come in the struggle for justice, equity, and peace?
Strong in the Broken Places stands as part of this investigation, bringing together voices across the African Diaspora to affirm the power of poetry as healing, protest, and communal witness. It is an example of how we must continue to shape spaces where the voices of African descendants are not peripheral but central to the discourse.
My role as a scholar has been to insist on decolonized research methodologies—approaches that ensure the culture, history, and mores of African descendants are routed and rooted within academia, K–12 classrooms, and beyond. This work reclaims orality as essential, brings forward historical truths, and encourages children to journal and write as pathways to self-discovery. Through these practices, young people not only learn history, they locate themselves within it.
My books reflect this commitment to accessibility and advocacy. Navigating Black Privilege Across the Globe engages the complexities of privilege and consciousness across diasporic spaces. Yet because its publisher’s price point limits access, I created Whispers of Black Privilege: Verses from the Womb of the Motherland—a poetic companion designed to bring the book’s core messages into the hands of a wider public. In Rise and Shine: You Are the Best Thing That Ever Happened to You, I remind word warriors and social justice advocates that they must nurture themselves—mind, body, and soul—if they are to sustain the long struggle. And through the Radiant Living Lecture Series, I extend that message into community gatherings, offering practical, spiritual, and cultural strategies for holistic wellbeing.
This work has taken me from local classrooms and cultural centers to national conversations, and across the African Diaspora into international communities. In each space, poetry and storytelling remain my essential tools—gateways to memory, healing, and collective vision.
Taking all of this into account, I now move with clarity into offering my experiences and knowledge as a consultant to schools, community groups, and cultural organizations. The work of elders is not only to reflect but to build bridges across generations, to prepare the young to inherit a legacy of resistance and radiance, and to ensure that the ancestors’ voices echo in the classrooms, boardrooms, and sacred circles of tomorrow.
Each project I launch—whether Wise Women Gather, Navigating Diasporic Spaces, the Rise and Shine Book Club, or community events such as author talks, lectures, and workshops—is rooted in my purpose of uplifting voices, nurturing wellbeing, and honoring the ancestral wisdom of the African Diaspora.Through these initiatives, I seek to create spaces of learning, healing, and connection where communities can thrive locally and engage globally in the ongoing story of our people.
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