We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!
Maria Davis-Pierre is the Founder and CEO of Autism in Black Inc. This organization aims to bring awareness to Autism and reduce the stigma associated with the diagnosis in the Black community. As a licensed therapist, Maria primarily works with parents to provide support through education and advocacy training. Her passion for working in the field stems from her personal journey when her daughter received the diagnosis at a very early age.
Maria graduated from Florida State University with a Bachelors of Science in Sociology and went on to obtain a Masters of Science in Mental Health Counseling from Nova Southeastern University. As a licensed mental health therapist, Maria primarily works with Black parents to provide support through education and advocacy training. Her passion for working in the field stems from her personal journey when her daughter received the diagnosis at a very early age.
In addition to therapy, Maria dons many other titles including coach, speaker, advocate, and author. Her first published work, a Self-Care Affirmation Journal, is currently available for purchase on Amazon. Maria’s unique approach to coaching and counseling exemplifies her drive and motivation toward greater acceptance and overcoming the barriers and personal struggles associated with raising a Black autistic child.
Advocacy, Education, Support
Autism in Black aims to provide support to Black parents who have a autistic child, through educational and advocacy services. Autism in Black is dedicated to bringing awareness to Autism and reducing the stigma in the black community.
For more than 60 years, saxophonist and composer Gary Bartz has been a central figure in jazz history. But for some reason, he hasn’t received his due. With that said, the late jazz critic Stanley Crouch, who often leaned into tradition, described Bartz as “one of the very best who has ever picked up the instrument.”
Name a jazz legend from the last century and there’s a good chance Mr. Bartz has a story about them, dating all the way back to Bird himself, Charlie Parker. In this episode, we’ll also hear stories of his many collaborations with those in the pantheon — Sonny Stitt; Max Roach; Art Blakey; Miles Davis; Charles Mingus — but we also learn why his artistry remains so present today, even perceived as an elder statesman in the hip hop music tradition.
Bartz’s stamp on the music continues to be absorbed by future generations via projects like Jazz Is Dead with Ali Shaheed Mohammad (Tribe Called Quest) and producer Adrian Younge. And now that he’s in his 80s (but looks at least 20 years younger), he’s rightfully getting his due.
As we’ll hear in this episode, which includes a heartfelt conversation with our host Christian McBride, his music has never sounded so present.
Musicians:
Gary Bartz, alto and soprano saxophone, vocals; Paul Bollenback, guitar; James King, bass; Greg Bandy, drums
Set List:
Moose The Mooche (Charlie Parker)
Uranus (Walter Davis Jr.)
The Stank (Gary Bartz)
I Can’t Help It (Stevie Wonder)
I’ve Known Rivers (Gary Bartz)
The Song of Loving-Kindness (Gary Bartz)
Credits:
Writer and Producer: Sarah Geledi. Producer: Alex Ariff; Host: Christian McBride; Concert engineer: Rob Macomber; Project Manager: Suraya Mohamed; Vice President of Visuals and Strategy at NPR Music: Keith Jenkins; Executive Producers: Anya Grundmann and Gabrielle Armand.
Special thanks to Tinku Bhattacharyya and Skyline Studios in Oakland
We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!
Louise Jenkins Meriwether, a novelist, essayist, journalist and social activist, was the only daughter of Marion Lloyd Jenkins and his wife, Julia. Meriwether was born May 8, 1923 in Haverstraw, New York to parents who were from South Carolina where her father worked as a painter and a bricklayer and her mother worked as a domestic.
After the stock market crash of October 24, 1929, Louise’s family migrated from Haverstraw to New York City. They moved to Brooklyn first, and later to Harlem. The third of five children, Louise grew up in the decade of the Great Depression, a time that would deeply affect her young life and ultimately influence her as a writer.
Despite her family’s financial plight, Louise Jenkins attended Public School 81 in Harlem and graduated from Central Commercial High School in downtown Manhattan. In the 1950’s, she received a B.A. degree in English from New York University before meeting and marrying Angelo Meriwether, a Los Angeles teacher. Although this marriage and a later marriage to Earle Howe ended in divorce, Louise continues to use the Meriwether name. In 1965, Louise earned an M.A. degree in journalism from the University of California at Los Angeles.
Meriwether was hired by Universal Studios in the 1950’s to became the first black story analyst in Hollywood’s history. Beginning in the early 1960’s, Meriwether also wrote and published articles in the Los Angeles Sentinel on African Americans such as opera singer Grace Bumbry, Attorney Audrey Boswell, and Los Angeles jurist, Judge Vaino Spencer. In 1967, Meriwether joined the Watts Writers’ Workshop (a group created in response to the Watts Riot of 1965) and worked as a staff member of that project.
Her first book, Daddy Was a Number Runner, a fictional account of the economic devastation of Harlem in the Great Depression, appeared in 1970 as the first novel to emerge from the Watts Writers’ Workshop. It received favorable reviews from authors James Baldwin and Paule Marshall. Daddy Was a Number Runner, is a fictional account of the historical and sociological devastation of the economic Depression on Harlem residents.
Meriwether followed with the publication of three historical biographies for children on civil war hero Robert Smalls (1971), pioneer heart surgeon, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (1972) and civil rights activist Rosa Parks (1973). In addition to numerous short stories, Meriwether published novels, Fragments of the Ark (1994) and Shadow Dancing (2000). Louise Meriwether has taught creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Houston. She is a member of the Harlem Writers Guild.
We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!
Allyson Felix launches a child care initiative for athlete moms
Allyson Felix is the most decorated U.S. track and field athlete in history. She has 11 Olympic medals, more than Carl Lewis (and Jamaica’s Usain Bolt).
And she’s running some of the last races of her professional career over the coming weeks, dedicating her last season to women athletes like her — especially mothers. Felix has spent recent years advocating for maternal health for Black women. She’s worked to ensure mothers have childcare support when competing.
“I felt like I had to win all the medals, do all the things, before I could even think about starting a family, and that’s something that I don’t want my daughter to feel,” she told NPR’s Morning Edition.
This week, she’s kicking off an initiative with her sponsor Athleta and the nonprofit group &Mother to provide free child care to athletes, coaches and staff at the U.S. Track and Field championships. Felix’s Team USA teammate and two-time world champion, Alysia Montaño, co-founded &Mother.
Felix, Athleta — through its Power of She Fund — and the Women’s Sports Foundation have also opened a third round of child care grants, providing female athletes $10,000 for child care expenses needed so they may train and compete. WSF and Athleta have so far awarded more than $200,000 in those grants.
The runner said the burden of child care costs is “the biggest barrier” to women continuing to compete at a high level.
Felix began her advocacy journey after becoming a mother in 2018. When she was 32 weeks pregnant, she was diagnosed with severe pre-eclampsia, a potentially life-threatening condition. She had to have an emergency C-section and her daughter spent the first month of her life in a neonatal intensive care unit.
“In track and field, the culture around pregnancy was silence. Athletes would either hide pregnancies to secure new contracts, or their contracts were in place were put on hold almost like they had an injury,” she said.
Felix spoke out against Nike when the company, her sponsor at the time, refused to pay her while she was on maternity leave. That protest led to changes in the maternity policy for athletes not only at Nike but at other athletic apparel companies, as well.
“I felt like I was being used in multiple marketing campaigns to tell women and girls that they could do anything when internally I was having such a hardship,” Felix explained.
“What I was asking for was when a woman has a baby to have time to recover to be able to get back to that top form. And essentially, they told me that I could have time but they weren’t ready to give all female athletes the time and they weren’t willing to tie anything to pregnancy in the contract. And so, for me, that was a real issue and a sticking point.”
The Nike representatives she dealt with at the time were men. “I just think how would that situation have been different if there were women at the table,” Felix said.
Another way that the athlete has supported women is through her sneaker brand, Saysh. The company has a unique return policy. Women whose shoe size goes up during pregnancy — a common change that can be permanent — can get a fresh pair of sneakers in their new size for free.
“It’s just a way really to … say we can show up and support women, and they don’t have to choose between motherhood and anything else,” Felix said.
At the end of this season, she plans to retire. Her last pro races are set to be the U.S. championships this week, June 23-26, and if she qualifies, she will then compete at the world championships in July. Both take place in Eugene, Oregon.
But she’ll still keep running, for herself, and for her daughter too.
“I might only have a few more years where I could beat her, but I got to stay ready,” Felix said.
“I am totally going to continue to train and to enjoy running. It brings me such pleasure and joy.”
Before becoming a musician, Dua Saleh was more likely to be known for their activist work (protesting against the school-to-prison pipeline) or their spoken-word poetry (which has garnered hundreds of thousands of views via the hugely popular performance poetry platform Button Poetry). But after only beginning to record their seductive, mercurial music about two years ago, the 25-year-old Sudan-born nonbinary artist has already been called a “genius” by Moses Sumney and received critical acclaim for their 2019 debut Nūr EP.
But the best praise that Saleh has received so far hasn’t been public. Speaking from their apartment in Minnesota, they break their chill demeanor to geek out about the time when three of their all-time music heroes — Yasiin Bey, SZA, and Tierra Whack — complimented Saleh in person during the Twin Cities hip-hop festival Soundset last year. “I think all of that happened in one day,” they say incredulously over FaceTime, as if they still couldn’t believe it.
The influence of these three musicians can certainly be heard in Saleh’s genre-agnosticism and their fluid vocals, which move between deliciously tactile rapping and spellbinding singing. But their writing style is unlike that of any other artist. Throughout Nūr, they established a talent for depicting both the splendors and pitfalls of queer love by using mischievous wordplay and imagery. But now, on their upcoming ROSETTA EP (out in June via Against Giants), Saleh continues to merge the serious and playful by pushing their work into more fantastical, mystical territory.
Saleh was born in Sudan, but their family had to flee the country due to the Second Sudanese Civil War. After briefly living in an Eritrean refugee camp, their family eventually moved to various cities in the U.S. There, they began burrowing into the Qu’ran, reading Black American YA literature, and writing poetry, which sometimes concerned some of their teachers. “My family was experiencing homelessness,” they explain. “I was dealing with other things that I don’t necessarily want to name. Some teachers could sense that I was in a dark place.” Still, they succeeded in publishing their written poetry, and later, as an adult, started doing slam poetry.
Though they first came out as nonbinary as a college sophomore, Saleh emphatically says, “I always been on gay shit.” One early memory of their burgeoning queerness is when they became the Vice President of their high school Gay-Straight Alliance — which their mom wasn’t too thrilled about. “I think she found LGBT pamphlets from my GSA so she put me in Dugsi, which is an Islamic school [in Minnesota],” they say, explaining that it contributed to their Muslim identity even though they’re not “religious in the institutional sense.” Their queerness and cultural background meet on ROSETTA. The track “smut” marks Saleh’s first released song that’s partially in Arabic (their first language), but with a twist, as they switch between different gendered nouns and create their own “gender-neutral” words.
Even when discussing complex, heady concepts, Saleh’s silliness and deft humor shines through — in their music and throughout our conversation. They explain that part of ROSETTA’s intention is satire, so they created an alter-ego called Lucifer LaBelle (named after the fallen angel and the gospel singer Patti LaBelle) to inhabit. The character became a way to reclaim the “You’re going to hell”-type sentiments often lobbed at queer people by religious zealots, and it’s most explicit on the project’s ripping rock-inflected track “hellbound,” released last Friday. The accompanying music video features clips from the anime series “Crybaby Devilman,” using its elements of dark fantasy to further emphasize how powerful Saleh’s demonic persona is.
In the weeks leading up to ROSETTA, Saleh chatted with them. about their “explicitly queer” new project, their love of anime, and connecting to Sudanese listeners through Arabic.
When did you decide to start doing music?
I started doing some poetry sophomore year of college, because I was broke and trying to get money. I was living alone, and then I went through an intense depressive episode because of things that were happening in my life: family, relationships, and college. I don’t know what happened, but something [in my body] compelled me to start singing and start writing songs. I have no explanation for what it was; I just was depressed and needed [to let] something out. Then, I started trying to perform the songs at open mics just to see how people would respond, and they responded very well, so I started making songs on my phone. I think one person saw me perform a song at a poetry slam and booked me for an event. I was like, “Hm, maybe I can make some money off of this,” which is terrible to think about it in that way. [laughs]
How did you get started in the slam poetry scene in Minnesota?
I started by going to this one called Button Poetry. They had a monthly slam poetry event. It’s at a bar somewhere in deep St. Paul, and people from all over the US try to come in to perform, I think because they want the notoriety attached to it. I wasn’t thinking about that. I was like “Hm, $300?” I never won any, but that’s just because I kept accidentally and intentionally breaking the rules.
What rules were you breaking?
When I started singing some people didn’t think of that as authentic poetry. Sometimes I would do two short poems instead of one. I would just do whatever I felt, which was not beneficial at all to my bank account. I probably need to relax enough off that, even with music because I just do whatever I want to.
How does that “rule breaking” mentality carry over to music?
There’s a certain level to which I’m thinking about the songs’ intention and thinking about their implications and impact. But sometimes, I don’t know. Even with “umbrellar,” it was kind of just a joke song. Then I thought maybe people would like it because the melodies and obviously Psymun and Andrew Broder‘s production is really amazing. But the narrative is a sci-fi song about my ex and saying she’s a witch? Even the ad libs are very comical. Every time I hear the songs, I laugh a little bit inside.
I’m assuming because of the title, the EP is inspired bySister Rosetta Tharpe, right?
I was thinking about Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight’s relationship that ended up not really manifesting. They were in a relationship, which is speculated by a lot of the people in their lives. But [the family of] Marie Knight [died in] an accident, and they could no longer be together because she was spiraling through depression and grief. All the songs were recorded before I thought about Sister Rosetta Tharpe and her impact… or even about it being sonically infused with rock and roll. But thinking about it afterwards, I was like, “How can I imagine queer love in a way that’s radical and that has profound complexity?”
Why are you drawn to anime and what does it provide for you in your life?
It provides a sense of escapism that live-action content doesn’t provide. I can find myself in certain characters, in both their strengths and flaws. In sci-fi manga [and anime], humans can morph into beings outside of the common scope of reality. The main characters often tap into a tremendous amount of untapped energy. There’s a transmutational process that goes beyond any human capabilities. It’s intriguing for a trans person like myself, especially being nonbinary.
Can you tell me about your choice to sing in Arabic on “smut” and what you’re saying on the song?
At the time when I was making that song, I was working with the Minnesota Sudanese community, who were doing a lot of organizing around the protests and riots in Sudan. I was thinking a lot about what was happening there. A lot of imagery stemmed from that [including] one word in particular: Kandaka, which means “queen” in ancient Nubian. It’s something that was used because women in Sudan are the vanguards of most of the political movements, especially this previous one. I was thinking about the implications of Kandaka, then Kundaka came out of it. Instead of Kandaka meaning queen, Kundaka would be like me imagining nonbinary or gender nonspecific royalty. I knew that it didn’t mean anything, but I guess I queered it.
I said a lot more. It’s kind of hard to translate in English. “It came from one place. It came from a dry place. It came from ground that fell.” It’s more imagery. I was thinking about Sudan, and how, in English, [the name] translates to meaning “land of the Blacks.” There’s a lot of speculation about where specifically the first few people [came from]. I was thinking about the erasure of Sudan. I was also thinking about pyramids and the enslavement of Sudanese people for the creation of Egyptian pyramids. Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt, but Egypt is credited for a lot of [symbols of] Blackness and romanticized in that sense. I’m not really using it as a dichotomy, but I was thinking about that at the time I was writing it.
It’s not the first song I’ve written in Arabic, but I wanted to break into the Sudani market. It’s super nice to see people in the audience who understand what you’re saying and who are from where you’re from. I got a taste of that [playing] at this benefit concert by Everyday People that had a fully Sudani lineup. I got to perform to a crowd full of Sudani people, and it lifted my spirits in a way that I didn’t think was possible. I was like, “Maybe I should release some music in Arabic so my Sudani listeners can feel the same thing.”
Interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
At 6:45 p.m., on a warm spring evening, Andrea Dalzell pushes into the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York City. COVID-19 cases are surging. Dalzell, a registered nurse, drops off snacks to share in the staff lounge, puts on protective gear, and huddles up with her coworkers around a white dry erase board. For the next 12-plus hours, Dalzell, who typically has six to eight patients, and up to 13 when the floor is short-staffed, administers medication, tends to wounds, gives baths and suctions the airways of those on vents. She holds patients’ hands when they need comforting, FaceTimes with their family members and responds to codes. The stakes are high and the work is emotionally taxing, but Dalzell is exactly where she wants to be — at the bedside caring for patients.
At 33, Dalzell is the only registered nurse she knows of in New York City who uses a wheelchair, and she is forging a path for people with disabilities in healthcare. “Andrea is a pioneer,” says Karen McCulloh, a nurse with multiple disabilities who co-founded the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities in 2003. “Nursing with a disability is still not completely accepted.”
Despite repeatedly having her abilities questioned through school and being repeatedly denied acute care nursing jobs, Dalzell answered Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plea for assistance as COVID-19 cases overwhelmed New York City hospitals. “I just wanted to help,” she says. Dalzell’s knowledge of ventilators, gained from having friends who use them, proved valuable, and her co-workers and superiors took notice.
In recognition of her achievements, the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation selected Dalzell as one of the inaugural recipients of its Visionary Prize and awarded her $1 million to use at her discretion. Dalzell is still figuring out how she will use the money, but has already started a foundation to help bridge the gap between education and employment for people with physical disabilities.
We have no doubt that whatever Dalzell does will continue to build on the progress she has made, and we’re excited to see what her future holds. Her tenacity, compassion and vision are exemplary and shape her vocal leadership in a key, often-overlooked field. On the heels of a relentless and trying year, where the importance of public health and the essential nature of health care workers were constantly reinforced, it’s hard to imagine a more ideal person to honor as the 2020 NEW MOBILITY Person of the Year.
Dalzell was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, an inflammation of the spinal cord that causes pain, muscle weakness and paralysis, when she was 5 years old. Even at a young age she was a force to be reckoned with. Dalzell laughs recalling a recent conversation with her childhood rehab doctor. “She said, ‘Andrea, you are grown, you are beautiful. I always knew you were going to be someone in the world, because even at 5 you were feisty, you were smart, you knew what you needed and you ran the show,’” says Dalzell. “That is very interesting for me to hear because I run the show now.”
Dalzell attributes her tenacity to her parents, first-generation immigrants from Guyana, who encouraged hard work and perseverance. “I told Andrea, don’t let anyone ever tell you there is something you can’t do,” says her mother, Sharon Dalzell. “Just look at them straight in the face and say, ‘Watch me.’ As long as you do it in the right way, you’ll reap the benefits in the years to come.”
As a child, Dalzell alternated using a walker, crutches and wheelchair, but by age 12, she used a wheelchair full-time. “The hardest part about it was the bullying,” she says. “In junior high, I was being pulled out of classes for resource room, PT and OT — and that labels you. We don’t educate kids about disability, so they don’t know, and they say things.”
During her freshman year of high school, Dalzell got a MetroCard, which allowed her to take the city buses to and from school on her own, instead of the traditional yellow school bus. “As a teenager clamoring to feel normal and accepted, this was huge,” she says. “It allowed me to be social and have a dating life. It gave me the opportunity to go to student council and be a part of the senior committee. I was part of the gospel chorus that went on trips across the nation.”
Though Dalzell felt capable, a school counselor referred to her as someone with “three strikes”— meaning that since she is black, disabled and a female, she wouldn’t go far in life. “I just remember thinking that I didn’t want that to happen,” she says.
Road to Nursing
Dalzell has had 33 major surgeries and used to jokingly blame the doctors for all of her pain. “I’d tell my orthopedic surgeon that I was going to be a lawyer and come back and sue him,” she says. While recovering from sepsis in the hospital, this same doctor signed her out so she could attend junior high school graduation. He even attended the ceremony to make sure she was OK. “In my memory book, he wrote, ‘Please, anything but a lawyer!’ So, I figured if you can’t beat them, join them. I decided I was going to be a doctor so I could figure out how I could cure pain, because no one should go through the pain that I have been through.”
While studying biology and neuroscience at the City University of New York’s College of Staten Island and auditing medical school classes, Dalzell realized that doctors treat the disease, not the person. “I was much more interested in working hands-on and caring for people, just like my nurses did throughout my life,” she says. “They took my mom’s place when she couldn’t be there, and they knew how to make me smile even when I felt like I was at rock bottom.” Dalzell, who had never seen a nurse in a wheelchair, applied to CUNY College of Staten Island’s nursing program in 2016 and got accepted.
During orientation, a professor pulled Dalzell aside, assuming she could not do bedside care from her chair, and dismissed her for the day. “I told them that the ADA says that you can’t kick me out of a program that I’ve already been accepted to, and that I would stay,” she says. Afterwards, Dalzell went to the school’s Office for Students with Disabilities and the Office for Diversity and Inclusion to see what legal action she could take.
Throughout the meetings that followed, Dalzell promised to communicate whatever accommodations she might require. She made it clear: “I need you to trust that as a nurse I am going to put patient safety and my safety first.”
Between professors doubting her capabilities and the constant pressure to prove herself, nursing school was more challenging than Dalzell expected. “There was this weight of never being allowed to be a student. What if I couldn’t reach something? How would I be able to play that out in front of the teachers? How would I be able to keep my wheelchair clean, hold this, wipe this, turn a patient, and carry a basin full of water? All of these things are running through my mind.”
To help quell these fears, Dalzell started boxing. Gaining strength and stamina made the above tasks easier and allowed her to perform chest compressions to pass the CPR test. In February 2018, Dalzell passed her boards and became a registered nurse. She finished her bachelor of science in nursing later that year with high marks.
Dalzell will never forget the look she received from a wound care nurse she was shadowing in the BSN program. “It was this utter look of ‘what am I supposed to do with her,’” she says. The nurse tried to push Dalzell’s wheelchair and when Dalzell offered to grab supplies for a patient’s room she replied, “Are you sure you can go get it?”
“I kept thinking to myself I need to move more, be more flexible,” says Dalzell. “I didn’t want someone to think that I couldn’t do it. Not realizing that it was her actions that were wrong, I placed it on myself.”
Finding a Job
After graduation, Dalzell applied for acute care nursing jobs in hopes of building a strong foundation. “Why not have me there when someone is newly injured or dealing with having a stroke or diabetes?” she asks. “They get to see me living my life and taking care of them.” Dalzell had 76 interviews for nursing positions in hospitals and was rejected for all of them.
“The first 10 or so interviews I never brought up my disability, but then I realized something had to give because I was having great interviews,” she says. Dalzell began discussing her disability and how she handles certain situations, like ambulating patients and performing CPR, but that didn’t help.
“There is this very old-fashioned Florence Nightingale view that nurses are pristine in appearance, healthy and well. Though most people with disabilities are healthy, we are constantly being challenged about our abilities,” says McCulloh, who was working in neurosurgery intensive care nursing in the late 1980s when she began experiencing symptoms of multiple sclerosis. “And though there is a gradual movement towards more diversity and inclusion initiatives in healthcare, we are not there yet.”
While trying to secure a position in a hospital, Dalzell worked as the health director at Rising Treetops at Oakhurst, a camp for kids and adults with physical and intellectual disabilities. “I went there as a camper when I was young, and it was great to be back,” she says. “There was this unspoken understanding between me and the campers. Not only do I understand what they are going through medically, but I understand it as a peer.”
Dalzell then moved on to case management, which she hated. “It’s heart wrenching telling people that certain things aren’t covered by insurance or that they don’t qualify for certain services,” she says. “I also don’t like being behind a desk.”
Dalzell was working as a school nurse when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, and schools closed throughout the country.
Answering the Plea For Nurses
Quarantining at home in Brooklyn with her parents and two siblings, Dalzell updated her resume and applied for jobs. “I had staffing agencies tell me, ‘We can’t place you. We don’t think anyone’s going to want you,’” she says. “I had two interviews for dialysis positions. The first person claimed he forgot he made the appointment when he saw me, and when the second found out I use a wheelchair, I heard him tell his assistant, ‘In a wheelchair? For an interview? No way. Nurses can’t be in chairs.’”
As the number of COVID-19 cases grew, the door opened for Dalzell. Answering Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plea for nursing help, she filled out an online survey for placement and saw Montefiore Medical Center’s human resources number listed. She called and left a message, assuming she wouldn’t hear back. But 15 minutes later, the phone rang, and she was hired.
Dalzell picked up her credentials and went through a half-day of training without a hitch. But, before the day ended, the director of nursing pulled her off the floor, questioning her abilities. “I asked her if she had spoken to HR, because they hired me,” says Dalzell. “She told me she didn’t mean to be offensive, and I went back to work. After that, they all sang my praises.”
Saskia Hosein, an RN at Montefiore, remembers the first time she saw Dalzell. “We have computers on wheels, and Andrea was pushing her wheelchair as well as the computer,” says Hosein. “I asked her if she needed help, thinking that is the right thing to do.” Though Dalzell declined her help, they immediately connected. “As nondisabled people, we have this image in our mind that people with disabilities can do less, but with Andrea it was the complete opposite,” explains Hosein. “That first night I met her she had an 11-patient load, which is a lot. She was calm, focused and was just getting it done.”
Dalzell kept a reacher in the storage unit for when she needed access to something up high, and before every shift made sure her computer workstation was stocked with needles, tubing and IV drips. On top of the emotional stress of caring for patients during a pandemic, Dalzell felt pressure to prove herself. “I didn’t want to make any mistakes,” Dalzell told Dr. Dan Weberg on The Handoff, a podcast about nursing. “Everyone triple checks their patients’ medications, I am checking mine 20 times. I am in my patient’s room every 20 to 30 minutes, because I don’t want them falling. There was this overwhelming feeling that something could go wrong and I had to prevent it.”
Dalzell drew on her family for emotional support. Both her parents also worked the frontlines, her mom providing meals to hospital employees, and her dad sanitizing patients’ rooms. “She would call me some nights, ‘Mom, we lost seven patients.’ It was really, really bad,” says Sharon Dalzell. “I prepared a bag with Lysol spray and wipes and left it at the front door for when she came home in the morning.”
Andrea also found strength in the camaraderie of her fellow staff. “What we forget is that nursing is teamwork,” says Dalzell. “I was able to be there when someone was overwhelmed and say, ‘Hey, do you need help?’ or ‘Hey, can you give that medication and I’ll take care of that wound.’ And I wasn’t afraid to ask for help when I needed it.”
“Andrea is a great nurse,” says Hosein. “I think her disability and what she’s gone through only makes her a better one. It’s personal and she’s invested.”
Despite being denied acute care jobs, Dalzell had shown she could do the work — and through a pandemic. In June, as COVID-19 cases declined, Dalzell’s contract ended. It was difficult for her to say goodbye. “Anything that I ever asked for came true, and I didn’t want it to go away,” she says.
Dalzell tried to stay on in a full-time position, but was not hired, and had interviews at other hospitals. “I had to stop,” she says. “It took a mental hit on me to go through that rejection again. What else do I have to do to prove myself?”
Represent
Andrea Dalzell knows it’s important for people to see someone like her — a black, disabled woman — out in the world and represented in the media. This is why she starred in the ad campaign for Apple Watch, participated in the Raw Beauty Project and became Ms. Wheelchair New York 2015.
“Being Ms. Wheelchair New York opened me up to the disability world,” says Dalzell. “Having that platform and using my voice to advocate for others and not just for myself was huge. My voice transcended beyond my own needs.” That same year, a photo of her was featured online in O, The Oprah Magazine as part of a story about the Raw Beauty Project.
Doing the Apple Watch spot in 2018 was a big deal for Dalzell and she lights up when she talks about it. It shows her using the watch to track her work-outs – pushing, hand cycling and boxing. “It’s important to see people like you out in the world and represented in these big spaces,” she says.
Visionary Prize Winner
On a rainy September morning in Brooklyn, T.J. Holmes, a correspondent for Good Morning America, knocked on Dalzell’s front door to inform her she had won the Craig H. Neilsen Visionary Prize. Broadcasting live across the country, Holmes invited her to the front yard where a canopy of blue and gold balloons covered a screen playing a video showcasing her achievements. With her mom, sister and brother by her side, Holmes pulled down a banner to reveal $1,000. He kept expanding the number by revealing more zeros.
“Then T.J. says, ‘What could you do with $10,000?’ and I’m like a lot,” says Dalzell. “Then [he showed] $100,000 and I’m automatically thinking I won’t have school loans. And then he says $1,000,000 and I think my brain blanked. I thought there is no way you are giving me anything because I didn’t do anything to deserve this.”
The Visionary Prize was established to honor the memory and legacy of Craig H. Neilsen, an entrepreneur with an SCI who strove to improve life for others living with spinal cord injuries. Dalzell is one of three recipients of the inaugural award. “Andrea is a role model and an advocate,” says the foundation’s executive director Kym Eisner. “She is willing to share her story and fight for equality, in both the workplace and the community at large.”
“In the long run, I don’t want the prize to just benefit me, I want it to benefit others,” says Dalzell. She is working towards a master’s degree in nursing and already started a foundation, The Seated Position, to help people with physical disabilities obtain professional employment. “I am beyond grateful because I wouldn’t be this far without every single person who has come into my life, whether it’s been good or bad, because everyone gave me an experience that has shaped who I am right now.”
The Seated Nurse on Instagram
Known on Instagram as @theseatednurse, Andrea Dalzell posts raw, empowering and relatable stories. “Even though I put out motivational things, I am doing it as a reminder to myself,” says Dalzell, who has over 24,000 followers. “I am glad that other people are able to pull from it, but it really just started from me saying ‘You know what, I need to see myself as better. I am trying to accept myself every day.”
Pausing between two hospital beds, Dalzell reflected on how she has slept in rooms like this one since she was 5 years old. “At one point I lived within the four walls of a hospital room for months on end fighting for my life. I know the depression that sets in when lying in these uncomfortable beds. I know the frustration of not being as independent as you want to be. To be the needy patient because you want to see someone and not feel alone. What it’s like to be scared, praying for a miracle and what it’s like to want to give up,” her Instagram caption reads. “This time around I’m the caregiver! Here with a heart touched by all those who once cared for me.”
Dalzell told her Instagram followers that she was nervous when she finally secured a nursing position in a hospital. All of the questions about how she would be able to be a bedside nurse “burned in my head when I realized I couldn’t reach the IV lines on the top shelf in the supply room my first day. They seared when I had asked for help to reach a feed stuck on a IV pole or to release a brake on a newer bed,” she wrote. Then she added, “Here’s the thing: Wheelchair users are innovators. We constantly have to think about ways to get things done.”
“All those questions are silent now,” she wrote.
“Here’s to all the students turned away from nursing schools because of your perceived disability.
To all the nursing students told to drop classes because your disability was too much for them.
To all the nurses that made it through school and couldn’t get placement, told to find another career, told that you could never work in acute care, told to go against your dreams.
Here is to the naysayers, the nonbelievers, the misconceptions, the discrimination, the biases.
In memory of & tribute to my father, Sayyid Abdul-Mumit
There was no callout for Black fathers to bring their children to the annual Dance Africa street festival in Brooklyn. But there they were, in all of their tender Black masculinity. They had Black children hoisted up on their shoulders, holding their hands and stroking their soft puffs of hair. In tribute to my own father, I photographed some of the fathers with their children as a reminder that Black fathers matter.
My Black father mattered. I didn’t have the physical blood of my father, but the soul tie — the spiritual blood of father and son — was irrefutable. My father adopted me and gave me his name. He raised me and protected me and was present in my life to lead by example — lead me into manhood, lead me into fatherhood.
Left: The supportive presence Right: The fun dad Hamza Abdul-Mumit
I understand the importance of being a man as the flipside to being a father. In talking to the fathers at the Dance Africa festival, themes of my father kept coming through: the themes of stability and being present in our children’s lives were consistent; understanding that having our children is an honor and that honor grows and cements as our children grow.
The supportive presence of a dad is irreplaceable. The oft-repeated trope about the absence of Black fathers was debunked at the festival on that day. The trope has certainly been debunked in my life.
Left: The guide in a busy, crowded world Right: The provider Hamza Abdul-Mumit
For 40 years, my life was blessed by the presence of my dad. Shortly after his passing, in 2021, I took to social media in tribute and in memory to share pieces of the man who raised me. It was incredibly personal and extremely necessary for my mourning, as well as my healing.
While paying tribute to my wonderful father, Black men of my age group, shared with me that they either did not have a good relationship with their father or did not know him at all. Their words reminded me of the blessing of fatherhood.
Their words also made me appreciate my father even more.
Left: The comforter Right: The watchful eye Hamza Abdul-Mumit
In the year since Dad’s passing, I have striven even harder to be a better father. I know this is not possible without being a better man. Part of me being a better man is knowing that real masculinity is not toxic. It’s not hyper-aggressive. I know this because my father lived it for me to experience. I know because I witnessed it at the Dance Africa festival. I witnessed strong Black men who were enjoying time with their children while protecting them and being affectionate with them. Those men made me stand still and feel the presence of my own father while praying that media show more images of them and Black fathers like them — images of Black masculinity rooted in love for our babies, our children, our families.
This series of photographs show the beauty of the consistent presence of Black men and their children. I wish I had more images of my Dad and I, but each of these photographs pays tribute to the Black father who felt I was worthy of his time and presence and shared himself with me, his son.
Left: The coach and motivational force Right: The first man to love her down Hamza Abdul-Mumit
Left: The first man to make her smile Right: The lion’s pride Hamza Abdul-Mumit
Left: The protector Right: The inspiration Hamza Abdul-Mumit
Husband, father, Muslim, Pan-African, author, teacher, photographer, avid traveler, tech enthusiast and friend. Hamza Abdul-Mumit is a Brooklyn native passionate about culture, the arts and his community. His aim is to document culture for the purpose of understanding. Follow his work on Instagram @ipressnpush or his website www.hamzaam.com.
Grace Widyatmadja edited the photos for this piece.
BOSTON — Boston has just become the first major city to offer a formal apology for its role in trans-Atlantic slavery.
Coming nearly four centuries after slavery began here, a city council resolution that passed unanimously Wednesday condemns the unique “dastardliness” of slavery, and its legacy of “systemic white supremacy and racism” that’s reflected in ongoing racial inequities in housing, education, income and more. The city council offered its “deepest and most sincere apology,” and acknowledged “responsibility in […] the death, misery and deprivation” that slavery caused.
The resolution, which is non-binding, pledges “efforts to repair past and present harm done to Black Americans,” to remove “prominent anti-Black symbols” in the city, and to increase public education on how the slave trade “impacted Boston’s past and present systems of oppression.”
The move is mostly symbolic, as it includes no funding for specific policies or programs and stops short of another proposal that would create a commission to study reparations. That measure was given a hearing by the Boston City Council in March, but has yet to come up for a vote.
But Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who proposed the apology resolution, calls it “an opening salvo.” She said the city must first acknowledge how “great personal and institutional wealth in Boston was built on the backs of enslaved Africans who reaped none of the economic benefits from their labor,” before the city can “begin discussions about what it means to truly undo the harm.”
L’Merchie Frazier, director of education and interpretation for the Museum of African-American History, Boston/Nantucket, also sees the apology as just a first step.
“An apology cannot bring back lives, and cannot account for the enslaved people […] giving their blood sweat and tears for the survival of others,” she said. “But an apology signals a more direct trajectory toward reparative and restorative justice.”
City Councilor Frank Baker, who is one of Boston’s more conservative councilors, conceded he was “a little uneasy” about the measure because he feels personally “so far removed” from the sins of slavery.
“The apologize part is difficult for me,” he said. “But I think if my words can help your community heal and our community in Boston heal, then I’m absolutely ready to do this.”
Supporters are hailing the resolution as especially significant for a city still dogged by a reputation for racism. In a statement, Mayor Michelle Wu said that Boston “must acknowledge and address the dark pieces of [its] history that too often go untold,” and that the city has “a responsibility to condemn Boston’s role in the atrocities of slavery, and the lasting inequities still seen still today.”
The Rev. Kevin Peterson, founder of The New Democracy Coalition and who was instrumental in crafting and advancing the resolution, agrees that the public acknowledgment of Boston’s past is critical. Because Boston is recognized as a hub of the abolitionist movement in the 19th century, and because it’s seen as the “cradle of liberty,” he says, “so many people […] think slavery could not have existed here.”
But Boston was actually a busy port for slave trade with the West Indies and West Africa, beginning with the voyage of the ship Desire in 1637-1638, which brought Native American captives to be sold in the Caribbean in exchange for enslaved Africans and raw materials. At least 175 transatlantic trips started in Boston, according to the SlaveVoyages online database.
About a quarter of all white Bostonians who had estate inventory taken between 1700 and 1775 owned enslaved people, according to Western Washington University history professor Jared Ross Hardesty, who is quoted in the resolution. At the peak of slavery in Boston in the mid-18th century, Hardesty estimates more than 1,600 Africans were enslaved in Boston.
And although Massachusetts abolished slavery in 1783, Boston remained complicit in the practice for decades, buying slave-produced commodities and selling goods and produce to be used or consumed by slaves elsewhere. In addition, the federal Fugitive Slave Acts provided that former slaves living in states where slavery was outlawed could be captured and returned to slavery.
While hundreds of local and state governments, universities and other institutions have offered proclamations,plaques and memorials to recognize or commemorate past racial violence and injustice, (ranging from slavery to segregation or, for example, a specific act of lynching,) less than 20local or state governments have offered an official, blanket apology for slavery, according to the African American Redress Network, which tracks such moves.(That number, they say, is expected to grow slightly as they complete their data collection.)
“What Boston has done is very significant,” says Justin Hansford, who is co-founder of the AARN, law professor at Howard University School of Law and executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. “Many municipalities and states have put up markers to memorialize historical atrocities, but [there are] very few instances of formally apologizing for slavery, in part, because […] there this idea that you’re putting yourself on the hook for restitution.
“It’s a big problem,” Hansford says. “When you’ve been harmed by someone you want an apology. You’re trying to rebuild a relationship, so there has to be a genuine expression of remorse.”
Indeed, even if reparations are the end goal, an official apology must be the first step in the process, according to a model roadmap developed by the National African-American Reparations Commission.
Peterson, who helped push Boston’s formal apology, says he hopes it will not only “open the door” for a serious conversation about reparations, but also that the explicit admission of responsibility will compel it. He’s also hoping to see prompt action on the part of the resolution that pledges to remove “prominent anti-Black symbols in Boston.
“Faneuil Hall is the main target,” Peterson says, referring to the historic, landmark building turned major tourist attraction, that is named for Peter Faneuil, an 18th century merchant, slaveowner and trader whose fortune derived from his complicity in the system of slavery.
While Faneuil Hall is celebrated as the “Cradle of Liberty” where Samuel Adams and other founding fathers met and planned the Boston Tea Party and other acts leading up to the America Revolution, Peterson calls Faneuil a “white supremacist” and has been pressing for a name change for years, even embarking on a hunger fast to make his point. He says Boston’s formal apology for slavery now “emboldens” efforts to change the name of “the most egregious expression of white supremacy among our symbols in the city of Boston.”
This Juneteenth, I’m finding it hard to celebrate.
It’s hard to reflect on freedom in this deafening swell of discord, this crescendo of threats to our most basic human and civil rights. It’s hard to stand upright in this storm of unending violence, to find footing on ground riven by such deep and jagged divisions. It’s hard, in such darkness, to believe in the dawn of a better day.
But as we observe this holiday, I have to remember that freedom has always been hard fought and hard won. All we can ever do is believe in tomorrow and work to make it better, despite all evidence and against all odds.
At the turn of the 20th century, the sociologist, historian and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois imagined a world that defied the realities of Jim Crow America. In his poem “Credo,” he states his belief that all people deserve “the space to stretch their arms and their souls; the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will.” Sixty years later, the composer Margaret Bonds took inspiration from his words to write a piece of music full of pure passion and soaring beauty, even as violence raged and fires burned across America, as the civil rights movement fought on for the promise of those same freedoms, still unattained.
This Juneteenth, I turn to Du Bois’ words and Bonds’ music — to all the lessons of our history. I offer you a collection of music that insists on the promise of freedom, however long in coming. Music that counters the shrieking dissonance of conflict with the radiant warmth of its harmonies, that offers us comfort in our sorrow and sustenance in our struggle. Songs that ground us with the steadiness of their rhythms and embrace us in the lines of their melodies. Music that brings us hope and faith and even joy, urging us to stand and fight another day, reminding us that what we are celebrating on this holiday is our freedom to believe, even in the hardest of times.
In 1964, Margaret Bonds wrote this intimate yet infinitely powerful piece of music, inspired by the words of W.E.B. Du Bois’ “Credo.” The feel of these notes under my fingers reminds me to reflect on the struggles and triumphs that came before us and also urges me to look ahead at the brightness of what can come next. I’ve put out a call to young people across the United States, asking them to share what they believe in, to create a “Credo” for our present, a design for our future. Listen to their words — confident and deep in conviction — and maybe you, too, will rest easier tonight, knowing that tomorrow is in their hands.
Inspired by the wave of protests against police violence in 2020, this song echoes the protest music of the 1960s in intention and intensity. What grabs me is its juxtaposition of hot fire and cool resolve — the steady, persistent pulse interrupted by moments of percussive explosion. Samora puts it this way: “The first half represents the spirit of uprising and revolt, which requires imagining, courage, strength, organizing, scaffolding and fire. The second half represents our fight against all odds. Overall, I hope the song reflects this beautiful quote by the abolitionist Mariame Kaba: ‘Hope is a discipline.’ “
The freedom to reimagine your reality, to dream a new life, inspires this first movement of Carlos’ string quartet Warmth from Other Suns, a musical portrait of the Great Migration. It was a defining American journey, the migration of more than six million Black Americans, following a ray of light called hope out of the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West. They left behind everything and everyone they knew, taking only what they could carry. But what they brought with them — their dreams, their courage, their faith in a brighter tomorrow — transformed American life and culture in every possible way.
Leontyne Price sings this gospel-infused Civil Rights Movement anthem with the choir of Rust College, a historically Black institution in Mississippi just a few hours down the road from where she grew up. Her journey from segregated Laurel, Miss., to the greatest opera stages of the world was fueled by the freedom of music and art to demolish artificial borders and barriers of all kinds. One of my most treasured possessions is a photo taken with Ms. Price when I was a little girl in the San Francisco Opera Children’s Chorus. Her generous embrace wrapped us kids in the warmth of what a life in music could be, and I caught a radiant glimpse of my own future.
This recording by the Philadelphia Orchestra is evidence of our freedom to reclaim and retell our stories. The recent recovery and revival of Florence Price’s once-forgotten music is a triumphant correction of history. Price’s music itself speaks volumes about our freedom to simply be ourselves, true to our authentic voice and vision. In her time and place, a Black woman seeking entry into the community of symphonic composers was knocking at a formidable door. When Price managed to crack that door open (though not a wide as she would have liked), she brought her ancestors with her, in the melodies and rhythms that infuse her symphonic compositions — echoes of Black spirituals and dances like the Juba, brought to this country by enslaved Africans and held as an essential outlet for self-expression and celebration even within the bondage of servitude. Later this summer, I’ll play Price’s “Piano Concerto” with this same legendary orchestra. That piece, too, uses a Juba dance in its closing movement, and the composer’s indomitable spirit will lift us all up in a few moments of transcendent joy.
I’m haunted by this exuberant tribute to the full-throttle freedom of youth — the rush of the wind on your face as you lean out of the car window, the magic of your favorite song, the innocence of a childhood crush. As a parent, as a horrified witness to the unspeakable dangers to our children today, all I want is to preserve for them the freedom to experience the lazy luxury of “those days when our dreams were there for chasin’, but time was better wasted,” as this song goes. They deserve the freedom to live and laugh and grow without fear into the possibility of all their unknown tomorrows.
At Billy Strayhorn’s funeral, his long-time collaborator and brother in music, Duke Ellington, eulogized the four freedoms by which Strayhorn lived his remarkable life: “freedom from hate, unconditionally; freedom from all self-pity (even throughout all the pain and bad news); freedom from fear of possibly doing something that might help another more than it would help himself; and freedom from the kind of pride that could make a man feel he was better than his brother or neighbor.” This summer, I’m playing a new piano concerto based on Strayhorn’s songs and I am holding his four freedoms close to my heart as I immerse myself in his music, bringing his legacy to life with some of our greatest American orchestras.
Finally, on this Juneteenth holiday, let’s celebrate our ability and our responsibility to “dream a world where all will know sweet freedom’s way,” as this song reminds us with its text by that most tenacious and audacious of American dreamers, the poet Langston Hughes.
What’s the story behind these photos?
Photographer Eli Reed began his career in 1970. Initially, he was known for his work in El Salvador, Guatemala and other Central American countries.
The renowned photographer spent over 20 years documenting the African American experience; much of it as the first full time Black photographer within the Magnum Photo Agency. His book Black in America covered the 1970s until the end of the 1990s and includes the Crown Heights riots and the Million Man March.
Reed, a 1982 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, also photographed the effects of poverty on American children for the film Poorest in the Land of Plenty.
We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!
Michael S. Regan was sworn in as the 16th Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency on March 11, 2021, becoming the first Black man and second person of color to lead the U.S. EPA.
Administrator Regan is a native of Goldsboro, North Carolina, where he developed a passion for the environment while hunting and fishing with his father and grandfather, and exploring the vast lands, waters, and inner Coastal Plain of North Carolina.
As the son of two public servants – his mother, a nurse for nearly 30 years, and his father, a retired Colonel with the North Carolina National Guard, Vietnam veteran, and former agricultural extension agent – Michael Regan went on to follow in his parents’ footsteps and pursue a life of public service.
Prior to his nomination as EPA Administrator, Michael Regan served as the Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
As Secretary, he spearheaded the development and implementation of North Carolina’s seminal plan to address climate change and transition the state to a clean energy economy. Under his leadership, he secured the largest coal ash clean-up in United States history. He led complex negotiations regarding the clean-up of the Cape Fear River, which had been contaminated for years by the toxic chemicals per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS). In addition, he established North Carolina’s first-of-its-kind Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory board to better align social inequities, environmental protection, and community empowerment.
Previously, Administrator Regan served as Associate Vice President of U.S. Climate and Energy, and as Southeast Regional Director of the Environmental Defense Fund where he convened energy companies, business leaders, environmental and industry groups, and elected officials across the country to achieve pragmatic solutions to the climate crisis.
He began his career with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, eventually becoming a national program manager responsible for designing strategic solutions with industry and corporate stakeholders to reduce air pollution, improve energy efficiency and address climate change.
Throughout his career, he has been guided by a belief in forming consensus, fostering an open dialogue rooted in respect for science and the law, and an understanding that environmental protection and economic prosperity go hand in hand.
Administrator Regan is a graduate of the North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, making him the first EPA Administrator to have graduated from a Historically Black College and University. He earned a master’s degree in Public Administration from The George Washington University.
He and his wife Melvina are proud parents to their son, Matthew.
