Steward of My Culture | Working with WBL
Truth be told, too many African-Americans have been conditioned to be told what to do and are therefore rarely stewards of their own culture. WBL has empowered today’s young people with the guidance to educate tomorrow’s young people about their birthright, which gives them all a platform of pride and purpose and validates them to push themselves individually and push our culture forward collectively.
Article written by: Kymone Freeman
When the mighty Mazi Mutafa first asked me to join the board of WBL, I was both humbled and honored, but unsure as to what exactly that meant or would entail. Since Mazi was an old friend, I immediately said yes and since I didn’t have a car at the time, he immediately offered me a ride home after our meeting. Upon arriving home, as I was exiting the vehicle and thanking him again for both the ride and honor since I was still unsure fully of what was expected of me, I told him before my first foot hit the ground “just let me know what you need me to do and I got you.” Mazi’s instant reply hit me like bricks and caused me to stumble before my second foot hit the ground. He said to me, “Kymone, I wanted you on the board because I thought you were one of those people that didn’t have to wait to be told what to do.”
That was over twenty years ago and completely changed my life and my thinking. Truth be told, too many African-Americans have been conditioned to be told what to do and are therefore rarely stewards of their own culture. WBL has empowered today’s young people with the guidance to educate tomorrow’s young people about their birthright, which gives them all a platform of pride and purpose and validates them to push themselves individually and push our culture forward collectively. Under WBL’s big umbrella, science, technology, engineering, art, and math have collided to create a vortex of innovation that shelters many of our young people from the so-called normal social ills that would ordinarily put them at risk.
Once I learned that the role of a board member was to raise money or create programming that furthers the organization’s mission statement, my small contribution has been to include chess programs under that big STEAM tent. A grossly missing component of most of our young people’s education, under the stewardship of WBL, a small chess program blossomed into the city-wide Bumrush the Boards Hip Hop Chess Tournament that introduced hundreds of young people of color and particularly more young women than usual to the valuable life lessons of chess. This was exemplified by a song by the iconic hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan entitled, “Da Mystery of Chessboxin.” Other hip-hop songs with chess references motivated participants and were readily played during tournaments as a stark deviation from the silence of the US Chess Federation or other sanctioned tournaments.
As a founding board member and the initial chess instructor of Bumrush the Boards, my experience at WBL continued to impact my life personally and professionally. It contributed to my validation as a writer as they signed on as the fiscal sponsor of my first play, Prison Poetry, award-winning production that sold-out the historic Lincoln Theatre. Without this socially relevant non-profit and the discount their participation provided, one of the biggest successes of my life wouldn’t have been possible. When I produced the Luvfest, a major festival and community awareness event, WBL was a major sponsor and produced a Hip-Hop workshop that provided a rare hands-on experience for many of the young people in attendance.
Furthermore, WBL has become an institutional haven for teaching artists. As it has been said, “When one teaches, two learn.” The pendulum of teaching and learning swings freely between the staff of WBL and the young people they touch. Providing a necessary remedy to offset the miseducation far too many of us have been afforded. Such as the popular notion, “Those that teach, do. Those that can’t, teach.” This is a derogatory phrase often slung at educators. Ironically, its origins lie in the realm of artistry. In reality, it is merely a line from George Bernard Shaw’s 1905 stage play Man and Superman that stubbornly persists. This popular notion can easily be debunked with a quick examination of the facts of luminary figures who have become teachers. The great Gil Scott-Heron, Albert Einstein, Nikki Giovanni, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, J.K. Rowling, etc., have all worked as teachers. Therefore, WBL expands on the more accurate quote from Aristotle “Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”
After fulfilling my term serving on the board of WBL, I realized just how much I learned during my first teaching experience. I began to write more. Numerous articles I have written were published. More plays and public stage readings of my work were produced. I began to teach more. I began to speak at public events. I was sponsored to attend several international delegations around the world. I began to move with more pride and purpose. In short, I finally found my voice. The validation of my individual ideas and the recognition of the value of our collective efforts eventually culminated in the founding of We Act Radio. A brick-and-mortar, 10-year-old institution of indie media that has award-winning broadcasts, an outdoor performance venue, and a literacy program that has distributed thousands of free books all because Words Beats & Life first made me aware not to wait to be told what to do.
Congrats to WBL on becoming a 20-year-old institution of inspiration that has provided so many opportunities for so many others to transform individual lives as well as communities through hip-hop culture in all its forms because education is not the filling of a pot but the lighting of a fire.
