Right now is each the day put aside to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy and the second presidential inauguration of Donald Trump. You’ll be able to reduce the strain with a knife.
There’s a lot happening proper now, from the inauguration to Nelly performing on the inauguration to the slashing of DEI at main firms to Massive Tech cozying as much as Washington to the TikTok ban to the LA wildfires to the value of eggs — the listing may go on.
Nonetheless, as many agonize concerning the unsure future and even learn how to start to strategy as we speak’s dichotomy, author, and MacArthur Genius Jacqueline Woodson is seeking to the previous.
“Nothing we’re dwelling in is new,” mentioned the 61-year-old celebrated writer who has been chronicling the tales of our elders alongside 9 different writers by The Baldwin-Emerson Elders Mission.
Chatting with theGrio days earlier than the inauguration, Woodson mentioned, “It’s vital to maintain historical past in my again pocket in order that I learn about survival.”
“This can be a time the place we’ve got to assume deep about technique of survival,” she continued. “Whether or not it’s emotional, psychological survival, or bodily survival, or financial survival, creative survival. All of the ways in which we’ve got to have interaction within the instruments that we have already got.”
Via The Elders Mission, Woodson has documented almost 300 totally different private histories from folks of coloration all through the nation and in addition almost 300 totally different examples of survival.
“You could have this concept that your elders are going to at all times be right here,” Woodson, who misplaced her mom earlier than she had an opportunity to get her historical past, famous. “Like, there’s some a part of your mind that’s like, ‘You realize what? I’ll discuss to you tomorrow. I’ll ask you about that tomorrow.’”
To stop shedding any extra essential tales from generations who’ve lived by moments in historical past like The Nice Migration, Woodson launched The Elders Mission and has been gathering oral histories. One in every of Woodson’s lasting takeaways from her work has been how “None of [the day’s current events are] new.”
Like many individuals, Woodson has seen parallels between the late Octavia Butler’s writings and present occasions, notably that of the Los Angeles wildfires at the start of 2025, which equally happens in her well-known novel “Parable of the Sower.” Whereas Woodson attributes a few of this “forecasting” to Butler probably being a “seer,” she mentioned, “I additionally know that she had a way of historical past that she was pulling from.”
In line with Woodson, the previous could be each instructive and comforting. For one, the author mentioned the previous is stuffed with hope.
“I believe one factor that occurs whenever you write and whenever you learn is the truth that since you’re studying it, somebody has lived to inform the story,” she famous. “And that, in and of itself, is hopeful to me.”
The previous isn’t simply filled with terrifying patterns; it is usually full of the way people or entire communities have discovered methods to outlive and produce about progress. We simply want somebody to document it. That’s the place Woodson says the present-day creator is available in. Whether or not you’re a author, journalist, visible artist, poet, thespian, musician, prepare dinner, or past, Woodson mentioned, “We’d like all of them.”
“We’d like their inventive work,” she continued. “We’d like the one that sings properly, the one that farms, the one that sews, the one that is aware of learn how to learn maps.”
She added, “I believe our function is to step up in doing what we [do].”
Woodson encourages folks to look to their community for the folks they already know who might have a selected talent set and are available collectively to doc and interact with the present occasions.
“We now have such a wealthy tapestry of oldsters in each our interior circles and our world,” the writer reminded.
As TikTok and social media face continued uncertainty, Woodson famous another lesson from the previous which will assist us navigate the long run: assembly up face-to-face.
“Sadly, you understand, I’ve to say, we’ve got to do not forget that social media shouldn’t be going to be the reply for us,” she mentioned regardless of noting youthful generations do appear to have a manner of “negotiating” social media higher than others.
She added, “I do assume it’s so vital that we collect [in real life], and have conversations in actual life.”
She implored folks “to do not forget that that is how we’ve accomplished it” for a motive.
