Sister Souljah + Krak Teet for Kids

I shared in my journal entry a couple days ago how I’ve been walking/running (most days) to shake up the way I’m honoring my ancestors. Just for the month of June. And I’m listening to GirlTrek’s Black History Bootcamp podcast during my walks/runs. In that entry, I talked about Tupac and his mama Afeni. Today I wanna talk about Sister Souljah.

She ain’t an ancestor yet! She’s still with us. Lemme make that clear. Here’s why she still needs to be acknowledged rat ni (right now):

First of all, too many of our front line souljahs don’t get their due credit, ain’t quoted and talked about, til they’re dead and gone (and have been for sometimes decades already). Women especially. And especially especially black women. So I wanna praise her while she still here.

Second of all, it was yet another “coincidence.” The day I so happened to listen to the GirlTrek episode about Afeni, I learned later that day that it was Tupac’s birthday. Well, today, I listened to Morgan and Vanessa of GirlTrek talk about Sister Souljah. Here’s what I learned about her:

• She grew up in the Bronx then moved to New Jersey around 10. She realized, as early as 12 years old, that the school system wasn’t teaching the kids right. So she spoke out about it. She challenged the powers that be. She pointed out to the school where and how it was failing the students. That’s amazing that she had the mind to do that at such a young age. It’s also sad that she had to do it though.
• While a student at Rutgers University, she wrote for the school newspaper and used her writing to make some world changes. Like…actual world changes including South Africa.
• Also, while a college student, she started running camps that she fundraised the funds for and got her friends to become the youth counselors at ’em. The camps were directed at teaching young black people in the community (18-24 years old) about the African part of their African-American identity. She wanted to teach ’em what school should’ve but didn’t teach ’em. What their parents prolly didn’t have the time or knowledge to teach ’em.

“Coincidentally,” I teach a workshop today for kids in Savannah. It’s the first one in a workshop series that I organized to teach kids what their school should’ve but didn’t teach ’em. I’m giving ’em a Krak Teet book, reading a few of the stories with ’em, and talking about their own life experiences compared to the elders in the book.

I LOVE teaching young people. But it’s been a while since I taught kids besides my own. So I was a lil nervous about it. Hearing about Sister Souljah doing the exact same thing gave me some fire. I’m way more excited than I am nervous now. And I gotta thank GirlTrek for that. And Sister Souljah for that.

Thanking Sister Souljah, too, for:

• speaking up so clearly and confidently about what ain’t going right in the neighborhood and the world (and standing by her statements after even President Clinton called her racist and compared her to a kkk leader)
• doing her part to “save the children” as Afeni and Camoflauge said we all must do
• been been saying things that many of us are just grasping
• writing that bomb ass novel, The Coldest Winter Ever. I read it in 2002 while in YDC. It changed my life. Even bigger, it changed the literary game.

So today, I further honor my ancestors by honoring those who are changing the game rat ni.

P.S.: Read my journal entry about Tupac and Afeni if you ain’t did so yet and send me a prayer for a good workshop today.