Right now, we're developing the HarlemLive model, the HarlemLive philosophy, the HarlemLive practice and steps, so that other people can implement them in their own community or in their classrooms, the way they see possible. Richard is organizing a professional development opportunity, so that he can go into the school system and get teachers and kids together and help them produce in their own context. As an organization, I don't think we aspire to have a bigger centralized unit, but we have a bigger vision of other people being empowered the way our students have been empowered. And to have other people build on what we have come to learn and know, and be able to use that in their own context. That's what's really important.
Students have great freedom to present stories exposing their own realities.
Several months ago, I was awakened by a loud pounding at my door at around 2 a.m. I didn't hear it again, turned over and started to go back to sleep, but then I heard a conversation in the other room. My first guess was that one of my sisters had stopped by on her way home, but when I heard heavy footsteps coming down my hallway, I realized that something was happening. The author, Obatunji McKnight, goes on to describe the terror of a police search in the dead of night, the unanswered questions and the trail of fear left in the wake of the event. McKnight needed to tell this story.