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Our Mission was engendered to promote and perpetuate the art of Black Storytelling...and thus... 

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Response to the Trayvon Martin Tragedy
and
the Culture of Violence in Our Community

“Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”  ~ Psalm 90:12

“If one of us is chained, none of us is free.” ~ African American

“A public gathering of the community makes it impossible for a bully to dominate.”  ~ Ghana (Akan)

 

Peace and blessings!

We, The National Association of Black Storytellers, must STAND OUR GROUND.

Just as Rosa Parks stood her ground against Jim Crow laws in the south, we stand our ground against the new Jim Crow laws throughout the United States.

We Stand Our Ground for non-violence and tolerance versus violence and intolerance.

We Stand Our Ground for dignity and respect for all human beings versus bullying and intimidation.

We Stand Our Ground for peace, love and understanding versus war, hatred and ignorance.

We Stand Our Ground for truth and freedom versus falsehood and oppression.

We encourage our NABS family and friends to engage in ongoing discussions with our youth and with young adults to reaffirm and instill in them positive reinforcement of self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence, and self-determination.

We encourage our NABS family and friends to LISTEN TO OUR YOUTH AND OUR YOUNG ADULTS.

We must motivate them to speak out, speak up, and tell their stories. It is crucial that our youth and our young adults express their feelings, their fears, their concerns, and their ideas. The NABS family and friends should help them identify the violence and other problems affecting their communities and develop solutions, answers and concrete ideas for conflict resolutions.

We encourage our NABS family and friends to develop workshops or forums in their communities and churches to discuss the concepts of bigotry, discrimination, prejudice, profiling, and racism, and stand your ground laws.

We encourage our family and friends in their communities and churches to review Supreme Court decisions such as:

  • The Dred Scott Case
  • Plessey versus Ferguson
  • Brown vs. Board of Education
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964
  • Recent Supreme Court decisions concerning Affirmative Action, and
  • The Voting Rights Act
  • Etc.

We encourage our NABS family and friends to review and tell the stories about the following:

  • Nat Turner
  • Harriet Jacobs
  • Ida B. Wells and her Red Record
  • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
  • Scottsboro Boys
  • Emmett Till
  • Medgar Evers
  • “The Four Girls in Birmingham on a Sunday Morning”
  • “Mississippi Burning”
  • “The Little Rock Nine”
  • Rodney King
  • James Byrd, Jr.
  • Oscar Grant III
  • Amadou Diallo
  • Trayvon Martin
  • And many, many, many others

We encourage our NABS family and friends to recall and share their personal stories and oral history of racial discrimination.

We encourage our NABS family and friends to create new verses to our old song “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let is shine…”to include “On the shoulders of the ancestors we are marching on…” “With the youth on our shoulders we are marching on…”  We as a people are going through the five stages of grief along with Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin.  Our hearts are broken but we are not dispirited and WE SHALL NOT BE DEFEATED.

Asante sana! Asante sana!

Spreading the Word and Ringing my Bells!

Mama Linda Goss, Co-Founder of the National Association of Black Storytellers, Inc.


 


“Knowledge is like a garden it must be cultivated before it can be harvested.”  ~ East Africa

“Storytelling, medicine for the spirit and healing for the soul.” ~ Mama Linda

“Trayvon Martin could have been me thirty-five years ago.”  ~ President Barack Obama

 

RESOURCE MATERIAL FOR COMMUNITY DISCUSSIONS