4115 Sacramento

was the home of my childhood. (fluid)

A bright, unapologetic red door greeted you like no other home on the block.

Behind that bright red door at 4115 was where my mom raised me, where I was
loved, learned hard lessons, and witnessed the strength of Black womanhood.

On the outside was an unflinching world – gunshots and sirens to the backdrop of
sunrises and sunsets, poverty pervaded, dilapidated buildings permeated, and
closed businesses and schools abounded.

The people were resilient but the conditions were vicious.

[scene change pause]
It was a few days after my 20th birthday. I was home from college for the holiday break.

The sky was pitch black as I made my way onto the front porch with Christmas gifts in both hands.

Before I could make it through that old faithful red door, I was met with a gun and a guy’s voice telling me to give him everything I had.

[affect change pause]
At that moment, there was little fear.

In fact, I was calm.

Something felt familiar about him.

I talked him out of the robbery and he left.

It was not that moment that disturbed me, but instead the outcomes that resulted from it.

[scene change pause]
Months later, I returned home to St. Louis to testify to the attempted robbery.

The same guy had robbed my next-door neighbor and several folks from the street over.

I vividly remember it being violently cold outside as we all sat inside the courtroom, watching this young man await his fate.

It turns out....he was 20, just like me.

His skin....looked just like my brown skin.

He was raised by a single Black mother, like me.

He lived ONE street over.

His address was 4115, like mine. (try four-one-one-five)

4115 San Francisco...(a few letters difference)

It was in that courtroom as I heard his story (PAUSE) that I realized I was calm on that cold December night because he WAS me and I was him.

4115, the same place that gave ME life was the same place that DESTROYED his.

The FIRE of the criminal justice system, the FIRE of the education system, the FIRE of the vicious cycle of poverty extinguished his light.

The other 4115...4115 San Francisco...was the home of a 20-year-old, like me, YES, but one who was addicted to heroin.

[scene change pause]
After about year eight of his incarceration, I started to receive letters in the mail about his potential release. EACH of those letters felt like a punch in my gut. Eight years had gone by. All that he had lost shone brightly to me because I thought of all I gained in that time.

He didn’t get out. (disappointed)

The next letter I received said his sentence got extended due to “poor behavior”, as the system called it. (synicism)

Even after EIGHT years, his time behind bars was NOT over. (apalled)
My HEART sank. I still carry that feeling with me. (recall mentally)

In those same eight years, (count off)
I’d gone from college to grad school. BANG!!!
A master’s degree to a successful social entrepreneur. BANG!!!
Before I was 30, I was elected to the St. Louis City School Board. BANG!!
Then I was leading a second organization.
Then I founded my third... BANK!!!! WHOOP!!!
Then I launched a nationally recognized investment fund...BOSS!!!!!
I was being hailed as a “leader” and a “success story.” (open up/lift) BOITCHES

I realized though, I wasn’t special, maybe I was just lucky to escape the same fate as my neighbor at the other 4115.

How were we sooooo similar but our paths became soooo different?

It was these divergent outcomes that lit a fire in me to fight for a future where the color of our skin or the neighborhood we live in could no longer dictate our life outcomes.

There’s a 4115 part of all of our stories in some way or another. (look across audience)

What I mean is there are painful truths and moments that come with our lived experiences as women, as Black people, as immigrants, as queer and trans folks, as poor folks, as disabled folks, but we are taught:

• to ignore that feeling,

• to suppress that emotion,

• to move on,

• and be okay with not being okay.

NO!! “We’ve Got to CATCH the fire!”

[scene change pause]
There’s a poem by Sonia Chanchez that explains the fire I’m talking about.

It says:

The fire of living...not dying
The fire of Blackness...not gangster shadows.
Where is our beautiful fire that gave light to the world?
The fire that burned through the holes of slaveships and made us breathe;
Where is your fire, the torch of life?

What would be possible if we embraced the fire inside each of us and let it spread to others? What would be possible if we recognized that our pain is our power?

We are accustomed to thinking of fire only in terms of loss and destruction. But at the same time, fire can be extraordinarily nurturing and life giving.

Fire heals nature.

It helps forests regenerate. It helps certain trees proliferate.

Fire can be for us what it has been for nature.

The very thing we try to suppress – our pain, our moments of hurt, our fire – is the very tool that can transform and heal our communities.

We, together, can continue to allow injustice to destroy us and our communities, OR we can choose to embrace the fire inside each of us, as a tool of power towards a future where we are well and whole.

There’s a formula: (pain point + action) X community = SOCIAL CHANGE

It’s the fire from the pain that inspires the action IN us and IN our communities!

The open casket funeral of Emmett Till was a pain so raw, so dark, so enraging that it sparked the civil rights movement we all know of.

Emmett Till, a black boy in the south was murdered in 1955 by a white mob for whistling to a white woman.

He was beaten to death so badly, his face unrecognizable.

His mom, in all her pain, her rage, chose an open casket funeral for her son.

50,000 people attended his funeral.

The fire lit and it grew.

Some argue Rosa Parks wouldn’t have refused to get out her seat if it wasn’t for the fire Emmett Till’s open casket funeral sparked.

Would there have been a March on Washington attended by 250,000 people without the spark of Emmett Till’s open casket funeral?

Emmett Till’s mom refused for the fire of racism to silence her son even in death.

While the fire of injustice killed Emmett Till, it was the fire of thousands, maybe even millions that gave life to the civil rights movement.

This movement led to unprecedented social change.

1956 – Montgomery federal court ruled that any law requiring racially segregated seating on buses violated the 14th Amendment.

1957 – Desegregation at Little Rock.

1964 – The landmark Civil Rights Act.

1965 – The Voting Rights Act of and Watts Uprising

A forest of transformational change sparked in our country over 10 years.

• (Emmett Till’s murder + mother hosts an open casket funeral for the world to see) * 50,000 attendees = Civil Rights Movement Launched

• (Rosa Parks is tired + refuses to give up her seat) *40,000 people who boycotted the bus system = Segregated Seating on Montgomery Buses Outlawed

It is the healing flames of the forests and its trees, the powerful fire of the civil rights movement that have taught me to catch the fire, to own the fire to achieve social change.

These lessons gave birth to my dream organization, WEPOWER.

WEPOWER’s mission is to activate community power.

In other words, activate the fire inside of Black and Latinx women, to redesign our world to be just and equitable for us all.

At WEPOWER, we unapologetically encourage everyday people to embrace their pain, their direct experiences of injustice as a force to drive change.

We catch the fire.

We own the fire.

We are healed by the flames.

We recognize that as Black and Latinx women, our moments of darkness also have the power to create an unprecendted movement.

And, we are doing just that.

WEPOWER engages thousands of community members every year - changemakers and entrepreneurs - to transform our neighborhoods, St. Louis, and ultimately the entire country.

One Saturday, at a leadership training, we engaged in a data walk.

Data disaggregated by race, class, zip code, and gender plastered on every wall in the room, visualizing the injustice of our education system.

The community of women first reacted to the data with post-its next to the statistics that most resonated with them.

I walked around the room to read their responses. They were hurt, angry, fired up.

Then, we sat in a circle to debrief, exchanging stories of how our leaders personally experienced this data daily as mothers and educators.

That moment was a spark for our community and for our children, and the spark grew and grew and grew.

Eventually, those women who had been taught to hide their pain and rage for so long instead were united by it. Together, we went on to spark 45,000 voters to achieve a historic policy change that now guarantees millions in annual funding for early childhood education.

• We train community leaders to embrace their fire and use it to advocate for change.

• We train entrepreneurs to turn their problems into passions and businesses that can create wealth for themselves and their communities.

Like the trees of the forest, like the pain of Emmett’s mother that caught on across our country, WEPOWER is building a fiery movement.

Sister Chanchez goes on to says:

• CATCH YOUR FIRE

• HOLD YOUR FIRE

• LEARN YOUR FIRE

• BE THE FIRE

• And LIVE, LIVE, LIVE.

So, what’s that moment deep inside you, that you try to forget but can’t?

That is YOUR POWER and the world is waiting for you to act on it with courage and commitment.

We must, ...in fact it’s our duty, to build and wield enough power to transform our world, and it all starts with a fire, a spark inside each of us.