“Never let anyone lower your goals. Others’ expectations of you are determined by their limitations of life.”
– Kwame Alexander, The Crossover
As Kwame Alexander stepped onto stage on February 5th, he began speaking to the crowd in a familiar tone as he reflected on current events. He noted the unique experience of being a teenager in the face of political and social change in the world.
He remembered being a middle school student in Brooklyn, New York, standing on the Brooklyn Bridge with his dad and many people in his community with tears in his eyes. This, he was certain, would be the day that he died. It was a protest, a march against police brutality following the killing of Arthur Miller, a man who had lived in Alexander’s neighborhood, by police officers. This was Alexander’s first clear memory of social justice.
Even in the midst of unconcerned and calm friends, Alexander felt the crippling fear of stepping onto the bridge: “Today’s the day we’re all going to die.” He knew.
Yet, Alexander crossed the bridge. He came face to face with officers intercepting the marchers’ protests. A single chant rose above the crowd.
“We’re fired up! We can’t take no more! We’re fired up! We can’t take no more!”
Another voice rang out.
“We’re fired up! We can’t take no more!”
The words and their electric message spread throughout the crown until Alexander, too, joined in the symphony of sound. In that moment, all of his fears dissipated from his mind.
A voice has power. It has the strength to rally a community of protesters to fight for justice. It has the ability to inspire a single heart to push beyond what it once believed its limit. In that single moment on the bridge, Kwame Alexander understood the strength of one’s voice. “[It] got me thinking that perhaps it’s important to find your voice,” he said, “and lift it and raise it for the things that matter for you.”
Alexander recalled one of the first times he wrote a poem. After his family had packed up their things and moved to Chesapeake, Virginia to escape the death threats his father received because he was an activist, Alexander still remembered that revelation about the power of words. So, when Mother’s Day rolled around and he still had not gotten his mom a gift, Alexander wrote:
“Dear Mommy,” he said, “I hate Mother’s Day.
Because, in my heart, every day is Mother’s Day
and I love you, dear Mommy.”
But the poem sparked something in Alexander. “I was like—wow! It actually worked!” He recalled, as he watched his mom start crying because she loved it so much.
Poetry became important to Alexander. It was a way for him to communicate with others in a deeper and more meaningful way, and it was a passion he returned to again and again.
As a freshman in high school, desperate to be “cool” and win the attention of a girl, Alexander pursued multiple sports. He joined the basketball team because he was tall and his friends said that it would make him cool, though he was benched after throwing the ball over the basket and straight into the scoreboard, breaking it, in his first game. Without basketball, he tried football. That, though, did not last long either, after he was tackled by a boy named Monster, just on the brink of scoring a touchdown. His mom told him to find something else.
He went out for the tennis team, and was selected for the twelfth position of twelve players. He was the worst on the team. But he practiced hard, until, in his senior year, he made it to the state championships, a win within his reach. He was cool, he had the attention of the girl he liked. And he lost.
But Alexander had discovered a confidence within himself, and so he asked his crush to senior year prom. On a table in front of the entire junior/senior class at lunch, Alexander drew upon the power of his voice as he announced a poem asking her to go with him.
While she did not immediately say yes, she decided to go with him to prom.
As an adult, writing flourished into an active career for Alexander. Though it was not without its tribulations.
Alexander rewrote his renowned young adult novel, The Crossover, over and over again as he tried to get it published; yet, despite revision after revision, he was told “no” time and time again. The book, publishers believed, would never connect to girls (who, according to the publishers, did not like sports) or boys (who they claimed would not read poetry).
He remembered the feeling of looking at his unpublished draft, hearing his own doubt in his mind; but, he would not give up. Alexander decided that he would publish his book, and he began the process of self publishing.
Voices have power, but the most important voice of all, is your own. The moment Alexander said “yes” to himself, he determined that what he said mattered enough to share it with others. The Crossover was published and has become a spectacular story that connects with so many people.
In the midst of trials and tribulations, it can be hard to be heard through the cacophony of noise that constantly fills the mind. Each and every voice, though, matters. What you choose to say can make a difference, even if it only inspires one other. But the most important voice to listen to can be your own. Possibilities are endless when you choose to say “yes” to yourself.
