Write On

Black History Month got off to a snowy start this month and it felt like an endcap to an unprecedented year.

How would I have reacted if Now-Me had told Last-Year-Me what the next 365 days would bring?

Everything you know is going to change, she would begin. You’ll need to pack up your desk, quickly stack your belongings into a milk crate and head home as abruptly as if you’d been fired. You’ll have to cancel your trip to visit a nephew scheduled just a few days away.

Flying—not advised. Stores—closing. Businesses—shutting down.

Also, you’ll see suffering all around you—essential workers without protections in harm’s way; friends, family and neighbors losing income. People of color will be bearing the hardest brunt (no surprise here), and a tide of deaths will swell to tsunami proportions. Stories of sadness will wash up daily like debris.

There will be another tide as well—that of protests across the country, around the world, millions of people of every race taking to the streets in support of Black Lives Matter. The marches will be overwhelmingly peaceful, but some in the media will fixate on looting.

And happening alongside these louder uprisings will be a quieter movement: voter registration. Black and brown people will register to vote in record-breaking numbers and voter turnout will be the highest in U.S. history. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be elected by the largest ever popular vote margin, making Harris the first woman and the first African American and South Asian American to assume this office.

The 2021 inauguration will be un-presidented.

Good one, Now-Me, being easily impressed with my own puns, would respond.

With the election will come a phalanx of conspiracy theories (again, no surprise) resulting in thousands storming the U.S. Capitol in a violent attempted coup.

Wait, WHAT?

And there will be personal change, too, Last-Year-Me would explain. You’ll leave the job you had for years to become Director of Writing at Mighty Writers.

(Really? That’s awesome.)

It’s all incredulous, when you think about it, when you stop taking it for granted that this new life is now everyday life.

Books, Special Guests and Community

I recently talked about this most unusual year with political scientist Dr. Nadia Brown, a professor of Political Science and African American Studies at Purdue University, on YouTube live. (You can find our conversation here.)

We explored the role of Black activists in the voter registration groundswell, and of course the attempted coup, among other topics. We talked about the value of sisterhood, and not surprisingly we both found deep meaning in the role of Kamala Harris and in the work of Stacey Abrams, among so many others.

Our talk of aspirations was reminiscent of thoughts expressed in A Promised Land, Barack Obama’s new memoir, a book I found refreshing for its candor, inspiring for its gorgeous writing and edifying for the way in which he untied knotty policy issues. Like his seemingly improbable election twelve years ago, his memoir gives me hope.

As for hope, I find a lot of it in Mighty Writers these days. We are now distributing food and other much-needed supplies, like diapers and masks and literacy supplies, to six different Mighty communities impacted by the pandemic. And this month, 20 new Mighty workshops will begin virtually, all at no cost, for kids in Philadelphia, Camden and Southern Chester County.

Like so many, we at Mighty Writers never saw the pandemic coming or a need to open food distribution centers. But here we are. Who could have imagined?

What would Last-Year-You disbelieve about your Now-You story?