The word curiosity is not often used in a positive way. Maybe because questioning or searching for something doesn’t always bring positive vibes.

Lois Mailou Jones took classes throughout her lifetime. She spent her life learning new things and growing as an artist. She probably spent a lot of time asking questions and seeking new information.

The results. Her work.

This month the word is Curiosity. It means a strong desire to know or learn something. This is the thing that keeps us fresh, fun and alive. This month I will explore all of these things.

A guiding principle in Truth’s life was courage.

She made choices throughout her life that reflected her
courage in life as she did not defer to danger or pain. She did not shrink back
but approached it with full force.

She is an example for me of what courageous looks like.

Sometimes being courageous comes when you are at the point where you just can’t take the circumstances anymore. Several times in her life, Sojourner Truth found herself in a place where she made a choice that others would not make.

Sometimes courage is being scared but doing the right thing.

If courageous was a person, Sojourner Truth would be it. She was born enslaved but spent her life fighting for freedom and truth. She faced hard situations but met them with a type of courage that doesn’t happen often.

She freed herself and young child. She went to court to fight for her son’s freedom. After slavery was over, she fought for equal rights for former slaves and women. She was not deterred by the danger or the pain.

The word is courageous. It means not deterred by danger or pain, brave

Sometimes we have to look pass the hard things and walk towards it.

February was a busy month!

I did three Road Scholar presentations this month. Elmhurst Publoc Library. Galesburg Public Library. Rock Springs Nature Center.

I attended the Humanties Breakfast where I met National Endowment for the Humanties Chair Shelly Lowe.

I attended the Bill Johnson Black Film Festival with cast and crew of the short film, The Invitation.

I am tired now.

It was a good Black History Month.

You find out what you love when you are put to the test. If you love it, it stays. If you don’t love it, you allow it to go.

Phyllis Wheatley Peters wrote from the intersection of childhood, womanhood, slave, former slave, married woman, Christian and human being.

Phyllis loved writing. She wrote her entire life. But as a young girl she found herself in the room with some of the most powerful men in the country who thought she was incapable of writing so well.

She showed them who she was and that she was very capable.

I have a passion for telling the stories of African Americans. 

We have lived lives that need to be recited and passed on to encourage those coming along. Some of the stories I love because my people overcame evil, while others I do not because they did not.

 As the passion grows for the storytelling, the love will grow for the stories.

We will all love African American history.