To the BaddDDD Bards

In 2018, the March on Washington Film Festival paid tribute to the great Sonia Sanchez on its Opening Night.

Seminal figure of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, now in her 80s, Sonia Sanchez continues to raise her indomitable voice for art, power, racial justice, women’s liberation and peace. Her second book, We A BaddDDD People, brought the revolution of the political and the personal into popular culture. She has played a pivotal role as a poet, playwright, teacher, activist, early Spoken Word artist and thought leader in African American culture for over a half century.

So it was no small thing to be asked to pay tribute to her, right in front of her face. But two women rose to the task with power, grace and queenly splendor.

First to step up to the mic was Dr. Yaba Blay, at the time the Dan Blue Endowed Chair, Political Science at North Carolina Central University and author of (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race.

Yaba reached back to her early associations with Sister Sonia as mentor, teacher, inspiration and role model. She wrapped her moving remembrances in the mantle of her scholarship, passion for and critical thinking on Black women and girls’ identity, body and beauty politics.

Yaba’s reverence for this woman who has used her very life and the machete of her words to cleave a path for us all through the jungle of struggle was palpable. She managed, effortlessly, to be both deeply intimate and profoundly public. Men and women were moved to tears. Murmurs of amen and ashe’ resonated around the room as she finished and returned to her seat.

Next up was the 1st National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, Amanda Gorman. Gloriously nappy-headed, diminutive and dressed to the nines, fighting well above her weight class in wordsmith stature, she performed an original poem that put everyone on notice that sister Sonia’s sacred legacy of verse has been securely passed on.

I am reminded of this night because this week, Amanda Gorman performed another original work on a network television morning show, as a curative balm in this time of pandemic.

One of the societal revelations of Covid-19 is its particularly devastating impact on black and brown people. Another is the high percentage of women (one in three) holding jobs that have been designated as essential. Most of them are nonwhite women.

Whether sheltering at home, hospitalized, quarantined, or on the many different front lines of essential services, in the face of this pandemic we must (wo)man the ramparts with the weapons of culture and art. I find it especially heartening to note my sisters at the tip of the spear.

We are, as a people and a nation, outfitted in the personal protective equipment of words that can shield us from this lethal infection if we but let it.

As Toni Morrison wrote, “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

Let the badass bards lead the way.

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