EP 1 Retracing their Steps - A Review I Women and Resistance 🌍

In this episode of Women and Resistance, hosts Adesoji Iginla and Aya Fubara Eneli discuss the roles of 11 influential women in history, juxtaposing their historical positions with contemporary times. They explore themes of imperialism, capitalism, and the importance of storytelling, highlighting figures such as Julia de Burgos, Assata Shakur, Abbey Lincoln, Micere Mugo, and Shirley Chisholm. The conversation explores the impact of these women on society, their resistance strategies, and the lessons they offer for addressing today's challenges.

Takeaways:
*Adesoji Iginla emphasises the importance of recalibrating and reviewing historical figures to understand their relevance today.
*Aya Fubara Eneli highlights the connection between past and present struggles faced by women.
*The discussion includes the roles of women like Julia de Burgos, Assata Shakur, and Shirley Chisholm in shaping history.
*Aya Fubara Eneli discusses the economic challenges faced by immigrants and the impact of U.
*The conversation explores the significance of storytelling in preserving history and empowering individuals.
*Adesoji Iginla and Aya Fubara Eneli discuss the intersection of art and resistance.
*The episode examines the role of capitalism and its impact on marginalised communities.
*Aya Fubara Eneli shares insights on the importance of women telling their own stories.
*The hosts discuss the legacy of women who used their resources for liberation and social change.
*The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to engage with and learn from these historical figures.

Chapter 

00:00 Introduction and Overview
01:00 Eleven Historical Women and Their Impact
01:20 New York Imperialism and Capitalism - De Borgus, Chisholm and Shakur
03:03 Puerto Ricans are US citizens too
08:35 Survive on $7.25 an hour
11:09 Minting millionaires and billionaires
12:34 Create opportunities for yourself and for others
13:02 Mary Ellen Pleasant and Biddy Mason’s Use of Capitalism
19:08 Capitalism without justice redistributes suffering
22:39 Capitalism is not a destination
23:17 People telling their stories
24:29 Until the Lion starts to tell the story of the hunt
25:15 Hearing the Stories of My Mothers
26:15 How they made the world a better place
27:35 Strengthens Us For Our Liberation fight
28:40 It engendered a sense of pride in many people.
29:59 Having issues with imposter syndrome
32:18 The Role of Art in Deliberation
34:33 Art was an expression of her life, an expression of her strength
38:38 The principal role of a leader is to create an environment.
39:47 The leaders are failing their people.
43:35 Their children are not educated in Africa.
45:18 Meet with the voiceless
49:17 Leave legacies that inspire
52:54 Assaulting women has become a tool of imperialism 
57:05 We redefined humanity

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:02.796)
Yes, welcome, welcome to another episode of Women and Resistance. I am your host Ade Soji Iginla and with me as usual is the brilliant and

informative. I have a better in LESquare. How I use this.

Aya Fubara Eneli (00:24.826)
doing great. Good evening. How are you?

Adesoji Iginla (00:27.712)
Yeah, good evening. Good evening. So yes, we've done. This is probably the third time we're doing this sort of review, because it's a way to sort of recalibrate and go over what we might have missed, also tied into the relevant times that we're currently experiencing. And by that, I'm referring to the women we've reviewed so far on women and resistance.

And so tonight, I'll just give you a feeling of what we'll intend to do. We're going to look at the roles of this 11 women looking back in history and then sort of juxtaposing their positions they held at that time with contemporary times. So.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:19.632)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20.986)
yes. Let's start with the epicenter of imperialism at the moment, which is New York, where we have three of the past people we've reviewed on here having some sort of connection to said place. By that, Julia de Bogus, Asata Shakur, and Shirley Chisholm. Take it anywhere you want to go to.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:27.608)
Ooh. Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:48.292)
Yes.

Well, as the new mayor-elect of New York City, Zorhan Mamdani, said yesterday in his...

remarks after he won the election. New York City is a city of immigrants built by immigrants and he says it now led by an immigrant. Interestingly enough, November 5th, I believe of 1968 was the year that Shirley Chisholm was elected as the first African American woman.

Adesoji Iginla (02:17.07)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (02:28.396)
Yeah. 68.

Adesoji Iginla (02:34.168)
became.

Adesoji Iginla (02:38.958)
correct.

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:39.248)
to Congress from New York City. And of course we know that she was born here in the United States, but her parents are from the area that we will call the Caribbean. And we know that Julia De Burgos was born in Puerto Rico.

Adesoji Iginla (02:53.102)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:03.214)
Some people may not realize Puerto Ricans are US citizens. We're seeing that play out now with the controversy about Bad Bunny being chosen as the entertainment for the NFL, what is it, Super Bowl? And people saying, you know, should be an American and it's like, duh.

Adesoji Iginla (03:19.362)
Yeah, super. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (03:26.606)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:26.784)
It's Puerto Rico is essentially one of your colonies, one of America's colonies, and they are American citizens, and she migrated here. And you will see that with both of those stories, their families came here.

as a result of economic difficulties or Julia came here as a result of economic difficulties in their own homeland. Many of those difficulties can be traced to some of the policies, the imperialist policies of the United States of America. So on the one hand, you're like, hey, we don't want any immigrants. Although, of course, if you're not,

indigenous to America, you are an immigrant yourself. So we know who they're referring to, but at the same time, you are actually destabilizing livelihoods of people across the world. And at the same time touting the United States of America,

as the land of milk and honey, great opportunity, you can come and live the American dream. And then you wonder why people may show up on these shores. And then of course, in the case of, that's Tasha Kerr, she had lived in the South, but also spent significant amount of time in New York City and went to school in New York. And that was the...

the scene for a lot of her woes, so to speak. And so as we study these women, I really appreciate the fact that you want this conversation to also allow us not to just freeze them in a place and time, but to look at how the issues that they were addressing back then are still with us today.

Adesoji Iginla (05:21.144)
time.

Adesoji Iginla (05:30.883)
that.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:31.312)
and how their wisdom and the ways that they resisted back then could inform us on how we can resist today.

Adesoji Iginla (05:42.693)
Okay. Okay, so he mentioned something, a part of his driving campaign was the affordability of living in New York. And which probably pivots into the next angle that we probably would like to look at this is it's the epicenter of capitalism.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:43.351)
What's your take on it?

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:09.462)
It is?

Adesoji Iginla (06:11.134)
Yes, it is. And so I would like to say with the roles of those three brilliant women, it further highlights the problem that although we're talking about years ago where they passed through existed in subspace, in the case of Julia Bogos, she actually embodies the kind of problem

the mayor of New York is seeking to address. She died a popper.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:45.786)
She did, buried in an unmarked grave. Fortunately, at least she could get to a hospital that it would appear rendered some medical aid to her, although that did not save her life. We definitely see with Shirley Chisholm that she spent seven years of her childhood away from her parents because her parents could not make a living.

Adesoji Iginla (06:48.481)
on my grave.

Adesoji Iginla (07:05.196)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:13.24)
decent enough to take care of themselves and their children and to set up their families in the way that they wanted to and so they sent their children back to live with Shirley Chisholm's grandmother for seven years. So any of you who've had children or even if you haven't had children just the notion of at that very young age being sent away from your parents.

Adesoji Iginla (07:22.69)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (07:27.532)
Not feelings.

Adesoji Iginla (07:32.238)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:39.714)
to live, yes, with a family member nonetheless, but still not your parents. She did appreciate all that she learned and what that experience lent to her life. But they did that so that they were able to really focus on working and saving so that they could give their children the American dream, which was to get them educated and to buy a home.

Adesoji Iginla (07:59.15)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:08.341)
And the question is today, you even still do that today? Yes, is that possible in New York City and increasingly across the United States of America, especially when you think of the fact that the minimum wage in this country has not been raised since 2009? And yet, of course, we know inflation has been rising.

Adesoji Iginla (08:08.59)
And so, which brings us round.

Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (08:17.528)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:35.855)
People are supposed to be able to survive on $7.25 an hour, which in many major cities in the United States, if you work 40 hours a week and that's what you're making after taxes, there is absolutely no way that you are not going to be unhoused or at least very vulnerable.

Adesoji Iginla (08:58.798)
Okay, so, I mean, the idea of being vulnerable even though you are putting in the hours and still can make ends meet was one of the reasons why Charlie Chisholm in not being able to afford going to that school, when she got into Congress, what was it she did?

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:17.134)
Yes.

Yes. So one of the major programs, policies that she passed was to create a program called SEEK. And when I worked at the College of Staten Island in New York, I actually lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York. I lived in Manhattan and Harlem for a while when I was volunteering with John Henry Clark. And I lived...

I lived with his girlfriend who later became his wife sleeping on the floor in her living room and then slept on the couch of a friend of mine before yes, exactly before eating one meal a day before I started working at the College of Staten Island and got a place in Bedford-Stuyvesant

Adesoji Iginla (10:03.052)
Wow, slum it.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:15.521)
and it was a brownstone, which would have been a one-family dwelling, but they had split it up where there were probably at least eight families that lived there, and we shared bathrooms. So I had an efficiency, but I shared a bathroom with other people and was still paid more at that time. This was back in the...

Adesoji Iginla (10:27.0)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:42.847)
late 90s than I would have in say Michigan where I eventually moved to yes. So these issues are problematic and in fact I met my husband while I was in New York and when we made that decision to get married we immediately knew that there was no way that we were going to live in New York and

Adesoji Iginla (10:47.872)
if he had lived outside of New York.

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:09.428)
and raise a family because that would have just been cost prohibitive, at least in terms of.

the comforts that we would want to be able to provide for our children. And so these are systemic issues and we act as though they're issues that cannot be addressed, but it's really having the willpower to address them because they're to the extent that we keep minting millionaires and billionaires and some now racing to be the first trillionaire, there are certainly enough resources for people to live a decent life if we have the willpower

to set policies to make that happen. So with Shirley Chisholm, the SEEK program, which was throughout the CUNY system, the City, University, New York system,

was designed to assist students from low income families, economically disadvantaged families to be able to one, get the remedial assistance they may need for their college credits, but also get the financial assistance, things like childcare, of course, tuition.

And once that was in place in the CUNY system, other systems within the state of New York began to emulate that system as well to create opportunities for people. And really it is about...

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:34.741)
resisting in a way that you create opportunities for yourself and for others. And that's what we see every single one of these women did. And even though she didn't, as far as I can recall, per se live in New York, we know that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Adesoji Iginla (12:39.159)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:55.701)
did a lot of work with the United Nations and the IMF that is headquartered in New York. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (12:57.164)
work with the UN. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (13:02.548)
in DC. Yeah. So again, I'm still going with the theme of capitalism. What would you say, someone like Mary Ellen Pleasant, who obviously with means on the other side of the United States, the wet side, which in California also had a voting proposition, which is the

P50 in order to safeguard democracy as it were. What would you say she would have made of the fact that now you've elected a socialist in a capitalist space and she is a capitalist, although she used, politic socialist, yes. So she did use some of our means in order to help fund

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:50.125)
Well, he called himself a democratic socialist. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (14:01.986)
the Underground Railroad. And juxtapose that against the position that most of these millionaires or billionaires held against the democratic socialist in New York, what would you think her point of resistance would have been in today's times?

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:04.589)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:18.423)
I think both her and Biddy Mason would have had something to say to that. You see that from how they lived. Biddy Mason made a lot of money and she pretty much gave away most of her money. She helped build schools, helped fund churches. She helped fund an orphanage. She provided credit at stores where people who were less fortunate could go there and just say, hey, it's on her credit and be

Adesoji Iginla (14:23.404)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:48.407)
to purchase basic items. She provided free food. She helped provide lodging for people who were ostensibly fleeing slavery and trying to figure out how to rebuild their lives. And of course, Mary Ellen Pleasant did the same thing. And I think what Mary Ellen Pleasant would say today is that she used capitalism strategically.

Adesoji Iginla (15:14.574)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:14.957)
that she saw wealth as a lever for liberation, that it's a tool that can be used and directed towards.

Adesoji Iginla (15:20.834)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:26.937)
freeing other people. think both Mary Ellen Pleasant and Biddy Mason certainly lived their lives that way. That the idea was not to just accumulate wealth and, you know, what else is fancy out there that I can buy? Who can get the fanciest yacht? Who can get to space fastest or whatever?

but really how do I use my money to free my people, to make a difference, to fight for justice in the court system. And so they had a very different sense of, yes, we live in a capitalist society and I am engaging in activities that allow me to acquire capital, but that capital is not just to gorge myself. And I guess even though she's not,

directly of African descent, although every human being can trace themselves back to the first person on earth, which would be a Black woman. Mackenzie Scott seems to be doing the same thing. It appears that she cannot give her money away fast enough. And what's so crazy about it is

Adesoji Iginla (16:34.03)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:42.315)
as many millions as she's giving out through Amazon and the investments. mean, it just keeps pouring in. So 33 million to Spellman, 80 million to Howard just in the last month or so. Really impressive. Even my school district here in central Texas unsolicited.

Adesoji Iginla (16:49.589)
and back in, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:06.103)
I believe she gave 18 million or something of that nature to our school district. And so I think she has some of the DNA of Mary Ellen Pleasant and Biddy Mason in terms of using capital strategically and not just, I mean, how many beds can you sleep in at the same time? How many cars can you ride in at the same time? So when people say, you know, I've got a 20 car garage, well, congratulations.

Adesoji Iginla (17:10.222)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:36.017)
And when you die, you can't take any of it with you. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (17:43.54)
Okay, so.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:46.36)
And of course, and of course, Beattie Mason still had wealth when she died, although she didn't get a headstone for almost 100 years later. And we know that Mary Ellen Pleasant through capitalism and the legal system lost most of her wealth.

So it's a good thing that she used as much of it as she chose to. She used it for good because whatever she would have hoarded or accumulated just for herself, the

system, the capitalist system found a way to strip her of that and she died a pauper as well. So you can't take it with you, you might as well use it to do good in the world.

Adesoji Iginla (18:34.286)
Okay, so on the question of women being able to tell their own stories. Yeah, go on. Yeah, sure.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:39.823)
Can I, yeah, can I say one more thing about capitalism because there's some of our mothers who want to talk about that. Shirley Chisholm, you know, just even in trying to fund her presidential run, that was a struggle, yes. You know, who's going to donate and finding herself abandoned by white women whom she had worked with.

Adesoji Iginla (18:57.772)
campaign.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:08.303)
And then of course black people not necessarily having those kind of deep pockets, but even then so many times Playing it too safe Where it's like well, we don't think you have a chance to win So we're gonna just throw our locks in with people that we already know when they win are going to continue to Screw us over per se Shirley Chisholm. think on capitalism would say

that capitalism without justice redistributes suffering. so capitalism itself, if it's possible, has to be restructured. And we almost have to like break down the definition of these terms because imagine, well, let's look at Burkina Faso. If you imagine,

the wealth of a nation belonging to its people and whatever is realized from that wealth being distributed to take care of the needs of the people is that capitalism, is that socialism, what would we call that? But we know we have capital, we know that there is going to be trading done on some level.

Adesoji Iginla (20:10.882)
to do.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:27.267)
But I think Shirley Chisholm will definitely say that there has to be a redistribution of capital. Otherwise, we just engender a lot of suffering. I think Sylvia Winter would say that capitalism defines human beings as an economic unit. And that makes it very problematic. Because when you reduce people to just modes of production,

Adesoji Iginla (20:32.574)
Mm. Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:58.465)
So you're counting them as just like, many sheep do I have? How many, like, okay, so I raise chicken. How many chicken do I have? How many eggs would they lay on an average each month? How much food do, how much do I spend on feeding the chicken?

and any other labor to take care of them. And can I recoup my investment from selling their eggs or selling the chicken if I so choose? Does it make sense? So Sylvia Wynter will say is that once you start to define human beings as an economic unit, that you're automatically in very dangerous territory. And that true liberation will require redefining humanity.

Adesoji Iginla (21:34.168)
a slippery slope here.

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:43.96)
So she was very much about how do we define things? And then I think that my sister, Asada Shakur, know, one of our newest ancestors, I can see her fist raised right now. And she would say that you cannot free your people using the master's tools, although master's chains. And that capitalism as we know it was built on our backs.

Adesoji Iginla (21:53.294)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (22:03.758)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:11.641)
blood has fertilized the soil. So when we talk about New York being the epicenter of commerce, if you will, look at the role the city of New York played in the slave trade, what we call a slave trade, but in slavery, all of the economic houses, the insurance houses, the banks, all of that, these are entities that were built.

Adesoji Iginla (22:38.894)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:39.979)
on our bodies, so to speak. So ultimately, capitalism, I think for most of these women, we can talk about how Ellen Johnson Sirleaf may have seen it, but I think ultimately it has to be that capitalism is not a destination and that capital must always be accountable to the people.

Adesoji Iginla (23:05.944)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:06.243)
So once you start treating corporations as people, which is what the US Supreme Court determined, things kind of get upside down. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (23:17.47)
Good. Yeah. Okay. So I was going to suggest, I mean, you, you pivoted into a, you said wait into it properly. and the question of people telling their stories, which is what we do here, you know, highlight the stories that have been told by this, some sometimes by them and some of them.

Why is it important that they tell their story as opposed to the stories being told of them? I'll give you an example. Mary Ellen Pleasant pushed back against the idea of being called a mummy. Asata Shokur picked up a Yoruba name. Abe Lincoln did the same thing.

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:56.686)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:00.516)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:06.616)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (24:12.876)
What's her name? Miserig Gita Emogo would often start any of our lectures by giving people the correct way of pronouncing her name. Why is that important to all of these women?

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:29.303)
Well, like I think you have said at some point, maybe live, maybe in one of our conversations that until the lion starts to tell the story of the hunt, we will always hear the story from the perspective of the hunter.

I think that any self-respecting individual would want to tell their own story. You would want to characterize yourself. You would want to determine what you're called and what your legacy is. I think Ms. Sarimugo would say that there is medicine in our stories.

Adesoji Iginla (25:15.534)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:15.988)
Certainly for me in studying each of these women.

over the course of the last few years, first of all, you know, starting the research for the book and then now with this series that we're doing, I can see how it's changing me on the inside. Just hearing the stories of my mothers, understanding that there is absolutely nothing that I am facing today that they have not faced and overcome.

Adesoji Iginla (25:31.15)
What's cast? Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (25:37.39)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (25:46.53)
That different.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:50.732)
It changes how you see your life how you face opportunities and how you face challenges Earlier yeah last week. I think I interviewed Someone that many of our listeners may know dr. Carr and he said he I guess he was trying to shade me. He said do you remember when

Adesoji Iginla (25:57.943)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:15.605)
You were mauling over whether you should even do the rethinking freedom radio show and I was absolutely Concerned about taking that on I felt like there was too much on my plate and I couldn't do it without failing at it without failing at some of the other responsibilities that I'd already taken on but I was reminded

about some of these women and what they went through and how they made the world a better place and I said, a radio show, it's not even asking, I'm not being exiled. not, know, it's like compared to what, you know, I didn't have to break out of jail.

What I as far as I know, I mean, I used to have an FBI file. I don't think I have one anymore, but who knows? Like what is my big issue? And so I'm grateful that they told their stories. I'm grateful for people who've gone and unearthed some of their stories like Mbuya Nahanda story because it gives me the inspiration.

Adesoji Iginla (27:27.287)
Not that.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:35.854)
to keep fighting. And so I think that one of the reasons it's important for us to tell our stories is for that legacy, for us to understand our genealogy and to understand how we overcome, right? So I see their storytelling as medicine for us.

medicine to soothe whatever our traumas have been, but also medicine that strengthens us for our liberation fight. Sylvia Winter, think, will say that storytelling determines what the world believes the human to be.

So if you don't tell your own story, then someone else gets to determine who you are. So for instance, Mary Ellen Pleasant being called Mammy and she's like, no, there's a whole lot more to me than the box that you want to put me in. Right. I think Julia de Burgos will say that her story was her reclamation. And in telling her story, in writing those poems,

Adesoji Iginla (28:13.58)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:40.799)
look at the way that has engendered a sense of pride, a sense of purpose in so many people. Abbe Lincoln, I believe, would say, voice is liberation. What's the point of having a voice if you don't use it, right?

Adesoji Iginla (28:57.038)
Sure. Sure. Sure.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:57.999)
Shirley Chisholm will say if we're not written in, we are written out. So part of what they argue now is did Africans contribute anything to civilization?

Adesoji Iginla (29:02.889)
Then out.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:12.079)
And to the extent that we don't tell our stories, which some of us have the fortune of going to Chem-Et this year, some of you have gone to in other times, but wherever it is that you're finding our stories, when you see those stories, you're like, you know how you go into a bathroom or somewhere and you see where someone has carved their name or their initials, so-and-so was here.

So telling our stories is our way of saying we were here and this is what we did, right? And it makes it harder for people to dehumanize us, to discount us. It gives us a better sense of who we are and what we are capable of. Asata Shakur will say, if we don't tell our stories, then your oppressor certainly will.

Adesoji Iginla (29:43.086)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (29:59.246)
Yeah, and she is.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:59.32)
And then you start having issues of imposter syndrome. You know, I have this conversation with my children and I'm like, first of all, that was a term coined by white women that black women have now carried on our heads. But the idea that anybody can tell you that you do not fit in or that you do not deserve to be in a space, you have to buy into that.

And the only way you buy into that is if you don't know who you are and if you don't know your genealogy and how do you know who you are? know, the Bible would say you will know them by their fruit. You know, like you see a tree, can look at the mango tree and look at the mango leaf and I can identify it as a mango leaf.

because I know what that is supposed to look like. So if that mango, if that leaf is disconnected from the tree and has no sense, I'm a mango leaf, then you might start acting like some other kind of leaf, right? There's a story long time ago, just some of you may have heard this of a traveler who stayed with a farmer and noticed a very different looking kind of bird pecking on the ground with a chicken.

I'm not going to tell it in the full-blown version, but bottom line, turns out that an eagle's egg had somehow gotten mixed in with the chicken eggs. And so the hand sat on it and it hatched the same way the chicken eggs hatched.

Adesoji Iginla (31:28.205)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:34.396)
And this iglet was living like a chicken because that's all it saw. Had no idea that it was an eagle. And it wasn't until this stranger came in was like, that is not a chicken. And the farmer's like, hey, act like a chicken. Why am I bothering?

but it took that eagle and took it up to top of a mountain at sunrise, pointed it towards the sun and then let it go. And this eagle figured out, wow, I have wings that would actually allow me to fly. I don't have to, you know, just do the little flights like that, like the chicken do. And so their stories helped to remind us of who we are. And I think help us to fly.

Adesoji Iginla (32:18.766)
Mmm.

Speaking of flying, what is the role of art in deliberation? You know, could bring Abby Lincoln, Miserere Mugo, Sylvia Winter, Julia de Bogos, and even Assata Choucault to an extent, because she did said, even, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:33.507)
Happy Lincoln!

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:42.595)
I think we can bring all of them, even the hand there, because even as we practice our spirituality, it's an art form as well, because we never separated. This whole idea of art for art's sake is a foreign concept to how indigenous people lived, right? You carve out a comb and you put symbols on it, not because you want it hanging in a museum for people to ooh and

Adesoji Iginla (32:50.027)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:08.825)
but because it's an expression of who you are, even though there is a very practical function of that comb. This is just what we did, you know, our homes and making designs on our homes and things of that nature. So I think art was always a part of who we are, a part of who I think all human beings are.

Adesoji Iginla (33:16.59)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (33:33.198)
correctly.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:33.263)
And the extent to which we compartmentalize ourselves or we now decide, I'm not artistic, we actually stunt aspects of ourselves. So Abby Lincoln would definitely say in terms of art that she saw her art as a tool of revolution. Whether it was her singing, whether it was her composing, whether it was her writing poetry.

Her art was life. And after her breakup with...

Adesoji Iginla (34:06.923)
and Max Roach.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:07.97)
with my my throat and she retreated she really embraced her art she started painting and things of that nature but art is also healing right so now you find in in certain medical facilities where they will have music therapy they will have art therapy julia de burgos would definitely say

Adesoji Iginla (34:21.806)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:33.838)
that her art was an expression of her life, expression of her strength. Was her way, yes, her poetry. It was her way of questioning life and engaging with everything that life threw at her. You know, she had multiple relationships and she was fighting for the rights of people, but she was also fighting her own internal demons and alcoholism and so on and so forth.

Adesoji Iginla (34:39.118)
poetry.

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:02.872)
and not fitting in the way society would have wanted her to, because she could have stayed back home and married the right man who they had identified for her and lived that soft life, which is something I hear a lot now, people wanting to live the soft life. And I think Julia de Burgos would say to hell with the soft life. My art is my form of living out loud. Right?

Adesoji Iginla (35:29.774)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:31.852)
Ms. Mugo would probably say art is how people remember who they are.

Adesoji Iginla (35:38.04)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:42.327)
Art is how people remember who they are. Think about it. Our music, our movement, our carvings. Even the art of cooking. All of these things are an expression of who we are, right? That creativity is not just about decoration, but it is about strategy. It's about memory. And it's definitely about survival.

Adesoji Iginla (36:00.024)
Yeah, true.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:11.76)
And we could go on with so many of them because so many of these women were, actually all of these women were multifaceted, we know. And of course lived across times, but it's how they express themselves, even in how they dressed.

Right? They all had very different ways that they presented themselves. Without trying to break my budget in recreating how they look, these women all had a very, had a sense of style of who they were and how they showed up in the world. That in and of itself is artistic as well.

Adesoji Iginla (36:57.518)
So we pivot to politics, which is something that impacts all of those women, whether it be in

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:06.768)
Well, I don't think we're supposed to talk about politics. It's impolite to do that.

Adesoji Iginla (37:11.502)
Whether it be in their personal lives or their interaction with a society in which they exist in. start with, mean, example would be Asata Shokor. Most people would escape into the United States as a place of sanctuary. She actually escaped out of United States into a place that the United States

is looking to constantly undermine. So that's one example.

I say all of that in lights off.

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:47.696)
Hatshepsut says she wants to say something on this, but go ahead, go ahead, finish your thought.

Adesoji Iginla (37:53.644)
So I say all of that in light of the fact that the clamor have often been for women to be in the role of authorities over the immediate environment and what have you. How would you say the case in a place like Tanzania at the moment inspires some sort of embrace of that idea?

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:23.344)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (38:28.162)
Take your time.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:31.276)
Yeah, I'm trying to see who's trying to come through.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:38.064)
What I'm hearing from the Pharaoh Hatshepsut is that a starving and displaced people cannot defend themselves and that the principal role of a leader is to create an environment in which the people of the land can thrive.

Not just some but all And what she worked very hard to do and she did not wait to be given permission to become a ruler of the land Not going to repeat her whole story so you guys can go back and and watch the story on hatch episode, although I will Pull her a book if I can find it, but I brought it out maybe not

Adesoji Iginla (39:19.022)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:38.162)
yeah, here it is. One of the books on her anyway.

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:47.173)
Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh, written by Joyce Tildesley. Let me see what I got going on here. Okay, so.

I think that what she would say is, looking at what's happening in Tanzania, looking at what's happening in Sudan, looking at what's happening anywhere in the world where there's insecurity and instability and hunger and poverty, which is a significant part of the world, is that the leaders are failing their people. And that if you can't lead, then get out of the way and let somebody else lead.

Don't just hold on to power for the sake of I have power and so we see during her quote-unquote rain It was one of the most peaceful times

for ancient chemists. They were able to expand in terms of the trade that they did to the benefit of their people. And it did not, it was not harmful to the people that they were trading with. Everybody benefited from it. She was able to do a lot, create a lot more infrastructure.

Adesoji Iginla (40:53.152)
People.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:08.204)
Within Kemet to the benefit of the people even as she was building a lot of monuments as well to herself But that was her way of telling her story now and thank God she told that story Because so much of what she did leave behind has been destroyed, but there is a lot left Because she was very strategic about telling her story I think

Adesoji Iginla (41:16.918)
story. Yep, correct.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:34.457)
Erlen Johnson Sirleaf looking at the Tanzania. Again, I can add Sudan into it. can add Cameroon into that equation right now. Shoot, we could add Nigeria.

would say that stability comes when women are empowered to lead reconstruction and peace processes, but that women in those positions need to come in, not just as I'm going to be more manly than a man.

but really bringing the essence of who they are to their role as leader. But that there is a certain quality and a certain understanding that we have innately, we could argue. That doesn't mean that men cannot nurture those parts of themselves as well, but that when women come into roles and choose to leave out certain aspects of who they are,

and embrace just a sense of this is how a leader should look, which is the patriarchal model, then what we see are the same issues that we tend to get under male leaders. I think Michelle Mugo would probably lend her voice to this and she might look at it from the perspective of.

You've got to be willing to tell the truth and to name that problem. And so when we look at who is propping up these governments and who is benefiting, are our leaders willing to be honest and to say, yeah, there's a problem here? To name that problem, understanding that it is truth, that healing comes through truth telling.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:35.589)
So there was someone on the internet today that I saw who was making this observation, and I think this is going to be true for many, many African leaders, and I'm going to relate it to even leaders here in America as well, is that the majority of African leaders, their children are not educated in Africa.

So you're president of a nation, but you don't believe in the educational system of your nation for your own child. So your children, even at the elementary level, are in a foreign country being educated. So you see many of them, their wives live out of the country and then they're governing. And it's like, that's crazy, right?

Adesoji Iginla (44:02.05)
That's an open secret.

Here's another, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (44:19.309)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:28.13)
What we see in the United States is you are governing over a system that has a public education system, but your children go to private school. And yet these public education systems, you and the other legislators, you get to make the policies that impact those schools. So if those schools are not good enough for your offspring,

Adesoji Iginla (44:52.374)
I should have a good enough point.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:52.66)
Why not improve the schools so that they're good enough for everybody's children, not just that I can take mine out and put them in a select place. So Umbuya Nahanda would definitely say that if she were the president of Tanzania, that she would be trying to meet with the young people.

Adesoji Iginla (45:12.494)
isn't it?

Adesoji Iginla (45:18.432)
Hmm

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:18.732)
meet with the disenfranchised, meet with the voiceless, not imprison those who disagree with her, to find out, to listen to them about their concerns and how they feel they're being harmed and what is it serving them, and to ask them to join hands to create a nation where everybody can thrive. And that way to elicit their support.

Adesoji Iginla (45:42.83)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:47.983)
but it has to be that you are listening and you are responsive. And Mbuyanahanda was listening to the cries of her people under the whip and the chains of these oppressors and decided the time is now for us to rise up and fight back. And I suppose that when they interrogated her and tortured her before they finally killed her,

that there were secrets that they were hoping she would expose and all of that, but she did not because she was a leader first and foremost who was concerned about her people. And I think Mbuya Nehanda will furthermore say that true peace cannot come from those who profit from bloodshed.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:43.927)
And so...

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:48.342)
In Sudan, these leaders who are watching the blood of their own people flow through the streets. So much so that these satellites that apparently are spying on all of us, all the way from Yale University can tell that there has been so much loss of life, so much bloodshed.

Adesoji Iginla (47:13.761)
Bloodshot, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:17.506)
those people cannot be leaders anymore. And so even for here in the United States, think about how much blood we have shed domestically, but also internationally. Should those people, not those leaders under which it happened, not be, not be removed from office. But then here's the issue. If you have a system, a structure,

that is so corrupt that whoever comes in automatically has to abide by that system or they get kicked out, you know, look at Jimmy Carter, then are we the populace also not responsible? Do we also not have blood on our hands to the extent that we keep that system, those systems in place?

Adesoji Iginla (48:08.33)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:15.756)
So these are questions that we all have to grapple with and say, what can we do differently? And here's what I've come to really appreciate as I've been studying all these women. You know, we could characterize them as extraordinary women, but the truth of the matter, and for those of them that we have real pictures, because there's some of them where it's like, whose picture did you use? But these were ordinary human beings.

Who just?

were willing to do a little bit more, who were willing to risk a little bit more, who were willing to do what? Like the extra. And so now we call them extraordinary. And that means that any one of us, male, female, whoever is listening or watching this, we too have the potential.

Adesoji Iginla (49:04.832)
Night.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:17.124)
to leave legacies that inspire just by doing a little bit more than what we may be doing right now, whatever your role might be. So we see these women all using different tools as they fought for liberation. Biddy Mason, yes, she made her money from, yes, being a midwife.

Adesoji Iginla (49:32.654)
I'm BD Mason, midwife.

Adesoji Iginla (49:39.01)
Then a mid-wave, yeah?

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:42.575)
Mary Ellen Pleasant cooked and cleaned and served before she started investing in real estate and mines and laundries and things of that nature, right? Mbuya Nahanda, it was her spiritual gifts in healing and taking care of her community. Ellen Johnson Serlip was great with money and accounting.

And that's what initially took her to work for the IMF and so on and so forth. And those skills, we can argue, helped her to dig Liberia out of the very deep hole that they had been in as a result of decades of civil war and mismanagement, right?

Shirley Chisholm, she used her voice, her passion, her tenacity, her problem solving skills. She started off as a teacher and she took that sense of what we need to be doing for our young people everywhere that she went, all the way to almost the White House, we could argue, right? We look at Julia DeBurgos and it's like, I've got my pen and I've got my paper. And so we have pawns from her.

from when she was literally dying, still telling a story. And that was, it was probably that the book of poems or her book of poems that allowed her sister to actually be able to identify which one was her, right? And so.

Adesoji Iginla (51:06.861)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:24.31)
Every one of these women that we have looked at, Abby Lincoln, Abby Lincoln started as a child of, you know, one of many. Father eventually left and mother is trying to make ends meet and.

She barely finished high school and it's like, hey, let's go see what we can do. But she was willing to learn and willing to explore. And when people like Theola Nilsen Monk said, hey, you're a composer, she was like, OK. And then she went to work. So unless you try, you never really know what you are capable of doing. And so.

Adesoji Iginla (51:58.542)
Really?

Adesoji Iginla (52:05.057)
Of course.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:07.214)
That's the other thing I get from these women is we can all be extraordinary. We just need to be willing to put a little extra on our ordinary. Wait a second, the Mexican president was groped by a man today? I had not heard that.

Adesoji Iginla (52:12.334)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (52:17.748)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (52:24.632)
Good.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:26.372)
Wow, I would have to come back and take a look at that. That is unfortunate that women not protected by the states. And we saw that with Asada Shakur and the way her body was abused by the system. The evidence shows that her hands were up when she was shot.

Adesoji Iginla (52:27.394)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (52:35.008)
even in not protected by their states, even at the highest office of the land.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:54.984)
and although she regained use of her arm that was always a you know, a problem for her.

Definitely for all of these women, understanding the importance of the autonomy of our bodies. And when you come to Nbuyanahanda, how even till today, we're still fighting for her body. We're still fighting to find out where her remains are and we want them returned to us so that we can properly

you know, bury her in. So our bodies, women's bodies have been so abused over centuries. know, wherever there's war and strife, men might be killed. And I'm not saying men don't get, and if anyone is listening, this might let me say trigger warning here, that men are not sexually assaulted or molested, but.

Assaulting women has almost become not almost assaulting woman has become a tool of imperialism of oppression Whether it's in Ukraine you hear about the Russian soldiers and what they're doing to to the women of Ukraine or whether you're talking about Sudan or whether you're talking about About what Boko Haram did the first major act of Boko Haram in Nigeria was to attack

a school for girls and to cart off hundreds of young girls and to force them into sexual relationships with them. And some of those girls, young women ended up having children for their captors. My sister actually is a trauma specialist and she worked very closely with many of the Chibok girls as they are known who

Adesoji Iginla (54:33.901)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:55.072)
able to escape or or were rescued and the the level of trauma of what they experienced above and beyond just my body was hit or I was made to work extra hard or whatever it's it's that sexual abuse too and so I think with all these women too that they would talk about women having autonomy over our own

Adesoji Iginla (54:58.829)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:24.556)
as well.

Adesoji Iginla (55:30.798)
As we come to a close, I'm minded to ask all those women from Mary Ellen Pleasant to Hypset Suit and Abbe Lincoln in between, Miseru Mugo and Xavier Winter, you know.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:46.586)
Sylvia Winter.

Adesoji Iginla (55:53.334)
What would be their take on the times we currently live in? I say that to go back to the beginning where people with means were effectively telling people without means that how dare you ask, and you know what? We're actually going to rig the system in such a way that to make itself evident to you that yes, we're in charge.

How will these women have collectively resisted in their own little way?

Aya Fubara Eneli (56:30.992)
Well, the fact that we're talking about them today, I think demonstrates that they did it in more than in a little way.

Aya Fubara Eneli (56:49.316)
You know, I just keep hearing Sylvia Wynter talking about the importance of redefining our terms, redefining how we see things.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:05.762)
redefining what it means to be human and that if we redefined humanity, it would automatically cause us to rise up and act in a different way. If we redefine what it means to be human, those of us who are not affected by, I know this is a largely American audience, who are not affected by the snap.

cuts directly would still in solidarity be out saying, guess what, we're shutting the entire country down then.

if you are going to cut off the light, the means of livelihood for so many of us, or even one of us, we are going to be in solidarity. So coming back to Zora Hanuman, and that means something you said yesterday is if you come for one of us, you have to go through all of us. And so for these women, looking at where we are right now, I think Hatshepsut would say,

Adesoji Iginla (57:50.904)
vulnerable in society.

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:13.712)
Put your hands to the plow and build. That's what she did. She was very strategic politically. She surrounded herself with great advisors and she looked for ways to help her community thrive, her nation thrive. She built. I think BD Mason will say, open up your hands and be more generous. We share. So who?

If we say there are 40 million people on who get SNAP benefits and there are 350 million people in the United States, we're talking about what? One out of every nine people is being affected right now. That does not include another.

Adesoji Iginla (58:56.792)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (59:03.168)
set of millions who are forlorn for forlorn right now they're for forlorn they're they're not getting paid so who are you sharing with right now

Adesoji Iginla (59:07.182)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (59:15.724)
If you own property and you have people who are renting from you, are you having those conversations with them to find out what their situation is? Not from the perspective of people taking advantage of you, but from the perspective of sharing like BD Mason did. Mary Ellen Pleasant will say, how are you funding our liberation?

So we just had elections. Did you support any of the candidates financially? Because it takes resources to run. In what way are you supporting the current leaders who may be fighting for justice so that they know that they are not out here alone even as they're being attacked? I think Ms. Sherry would say,

We teach and we remember the importance of knowing our stories and teaching those stories and creating welcoming environments. And so one of the things that people repeatedly talked about, said about Ms. Sherry Mungo is how welcoming she was, how she always created a sense of home for people.

And perhaps it's because she lived in foreign countries herself, having been exiled from her home and understanding how much it meant to have the generosity and the warmth of other people. And so she extended that to other people. Abby Lincoln would probably say,

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:36.27)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:00.536)
We sing ourselves free, right? Like.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:07.426)
We don't we don't stop living We don't stop expressing You know, I imagine that if what is happening now had happened when hip hop was first born the kind of Music that would be dropping now similar to you know sam cook and and mark and marvin gay

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:25.537)
yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:32.271)
You know, those songs that have endured or even going back to Billie Holiday, someone we covered a long time ago, and then Nina Simone covering that song as well, Strange Fruit. We would see our artists responding in a very different way today. We will see our athletes, our entertainers responding in a very different way. Abby Lincoln definitely used her voice for the time, right?

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:39.982)
Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:59.0)
Correct.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:00.279)
Julia the poor girls will say you better testify You know speak up, you know, I get calls from Loved ones who are like I have be quiet. I like don't be so, you know, you don't have to be the one talking and I'm like Well, then who talks? Because if everyone is cowering if everyone and I'm not saying that I'm not concerned

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:17.197)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:25.218)
I mean, nobody wants to invite drama into their lives. At least I don't. But if you don't fight back, you're essentially surrendering. Of course, Shirley Chisholm will say we run, right? In this time, this time, do you need to run for school boards? So here in Texas, it's very disappointing to a large degree.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:40.11)
coming through.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:02:52.25)
turnout and also the propositions that were all to benefit wealthy people that our folks just voted for. All the propositions passed. None of them should have been a constitutional amendment. And now people are on my page saying I didn't know or people needed to be better educated. was like, the education was out there. You just didn't seek it out. But some of the good news that came forth though is that in many communities,

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:09.422)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:21.188)
they were able to vote off their school boards, some of these mothers for liberty and some of these white nationalists. And they were able to put more.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:30.392)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:35.409)
Progressive if you want to like that term but people who care more about the humanity of all people right? So Shirley Chisholm will say run and the question is If not you who then who? Like what makes any of the people who are running for office listen, um just heard about a 21 year old who just won mayor Somewhere in the south. He's a senior

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:42.51)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:03.202)
at Clark Atlanta University and he ran for office. Like Shirley would say we should run. Of course, Nahanda would say, you get knocked down, rise again. And that's exactly what she is doing. Sirleaf, so many times she could have truly left Liberia for good and lived a very comfortable life.

in the Western world. And I do appreciate her courage in going back to try and rebuild a war-torn country. And of course, Asata will say, whatever else you do, live. The very act of living is resistance itself.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:55.416)
This is not needed itself, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:58.192)
And the fact that that woman with all the millions of dollars and the resources that the United States of America Mustered to capture her to kill her the fact that she lived till she was almost 80 years old and she lived free and died a free woman what an

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:08.311)
or most.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:25.228)
of resistance. So sometimes your greatest act is just that you lived. And actually for many of us who would consider ourselves descendants of those who were enslaved, whether it's here in the US, in South America, of course, they were enslaved people who eventually ran to Canada.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:26.186)
Thank

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:49.989)
There were people who survived, obviously, the kidnapping on the continent itself and all of the wars that took place to harvest people, to bring them over here. I would say that all of us today are...

We are proof of their resistance because the fact that we are alive today means that they lived.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:21.486)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:23.908)
They found a way to live through it all. They lived. And we have that responsibility to live as well and to help others live too. And like Asata Shakur did, hey, if you can, even in chains procreate. That was yet another form of resistance. And her daughter today is thriving, I believe will be.

putting together celebration of her mother's life in New York next year. And as soon as I hear anything, I'll be sure to share it. But yes, lots of lessons from all of these women.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:06.38)
Yes, thank you very much for that wonderful walkthrough of the...

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:12.794)
Someone asked, someone asked what about our sister Billie Holiday? So what we've been doing is doing about.

anywhere from 11 to 13 women at a time. And then we come back and we just talk about that group of women. So Billy was the very first one we did. Yes, and we talked about her. But hey, if you have any questions or any particular comments you want to make about Billy, I'm here for it all the time because Eleanor Fagan, which was her birth name.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:28.525)
First group,

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:44.045)
is an amazing woman and she lives on in her music. Her influence is still, you know, still abounds. In fact, I was just watching Jill Scott's video for her song Golden and you see her on the bicycle with that flower in her hair and I'm like, Billie Holiday, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:05.42)
I'm to hit.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:10.752)
Okay, that said, it's customary now, we will be looking at the lives and times of Beatrix Nascimento next week. So the name is Beatrix Nascimento of Brazil, the largest country in South America, and the one with the largest population of black people outside of Nigeria, you guessed it.

So, yes, as we say good night.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:08:45.978)
Looking forward to sharing that. All of these women are just amazing. Every week we're trying to figure out, which one do we do this weekend? It's like, okay, we're not dying tomorrow. So hopefully we're going to have time to get to all of them. there are so many amazing, amazing stories, amazing women that we just don't hear about in the way that we should.

I think I've said this here before that we die, it is said that we die twice. One is when we physically, you know, our spirit physically leaves our body, right? And the second is when people stop mentioning our names. And so you being here, us being here together and calling the names of these women.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:27.49)
this is our buddy.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:09:42.349)
Amazing. I forgot to do this. So Because all the times we were talking about these women so often I had the books and I never showed you guys So let me do this really quickly. This is writing and speaking from the heart of my mind selected essays and speeches. Bye

Ms. Sarah Gaytham, you. There she is. And again, if we hold up any books that have their pictures, you just see how varied we are in just the way we express ourselves. This is Julia de Borgo's song of the simple truth. And it's a compilation of some of her poems. And you see that she could pass for quote unquote white.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:21.294)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:26.126)
Yeah, it's a good possible way.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:28.976)
This book is called Soundtrack to a Movement African American Islam, Jazz and Black Internationalism and there's quite a bit in it about our sister Abby Lincoln. There is a full biography of Abby Lincoln that is slated to come out next year. This is a book that Mishere Mugo co-wrote with Ngugiwa Tiongo.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:50.156)
next year.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:59.0)
And this is the trial of De Dancomati. I have an older version of it that I could not put my hands on somewhere. Shirley Chisholm, Unboth and Unbossed. I really love to read these women in their own voices. And so this is Shirley Chisholm in her own words, her speeches and writings.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:00.792)
Thank you, Matthew.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:09.014)
on Bot and Bossed.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:27.536)
I didn't go into any detail this time just tying the stories of all of these women and the men in their lives But I gotta say brothers. Come on now y'all step up step up. Okay

We love you and we appreciate when you love us back. This is Asata Shakur's autobiography. Check out that picture. I mean, are you guys paying attention to like how different our sisters show up? I mean, just just amazing, right? Look at her badass. OK, this is another little book called The Tale of the Panther and the Dove. This actually also includes the story of one of our indigenous sisters as well as Asata.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:53.143)
Yeah, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:07.33)
I said.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:12:11.01)
And then this is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. This child will be great. She has another book as well that I did not pull from the shelf.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:14.658)
This job will be great.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:12:22.404)
but there's a picture of her as a younger woman with this t-shirt like right after she had been arrested and she's got her hand up and it's so reminiscent of Winnie Mandela as well. just see, yes, yes. Now, if you're gonna talk about black women and how we have shown up in the world, particularly African-American woman, you absolutely have to get a copy of Paula Giddens, When and Where I Enter.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:33.256)
Mandela when she came out here.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:12:49.828)
This is the one I got in college like 30 some years ago, but I have another copy somewhere that has a red cover. But this one, you name the woman of stature and she's in here somehow. So, When and Where I Enter by Paula Giddens.

the making of Mammy Pleasant, which she would have just hated, a black entrepreneur in 19th century San Francisco. And this is the picture that they say most looks like her, because there's another picture that's on some other books that they're saying is actually a Hawaiian queen. And then this book has stories of quite a few of the women that.

we've covered and that we will cover, it is African-American women of the Old West. So the ones we've covered so far from this book are Beattie Mason and Mary Ellen Pleasant. But the sister that you see on the cover, that's Mary Fields. And we're going to get into that. you were not going to mess with her, were you? So we are so amazing. We come tall, short, boxum, athletic.

whatever, light skin, dark skin, wooly hair, whatever. So whatever you look like, however God made you, whatever your voice is, we all have a gift. We all have a tool that we should be using towards our liberation.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:19.662)
bring you gifts.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:28.686)
And yes, not to forget Sylvia Winter.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14:34.101)
yes, I didn't pull, my bad, I didn't pull any of my Sylvia winter. Yes, please go ahead.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:37.356)
We must learn to sit down together and talk about a little culture, decolonizing essays. yeah, that said, again, just to remind everyone, we'll be looking at Beatrix Nascimento of Brazil next week. And so until next week, sister.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14:42.372)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:01.932)
Until next week like share Leave comments because the comments help to drive the algorithms like seriously the goal is for this Channel to hit 2 000 subscribers you all can make it happen by the end of december We share a whole lot of other crazy stuff If I may say so myself

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:05.462)
share subscribe download

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:18.466)
by the end of December?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:27.63)
This is great stuff because I know I gain a lot just reading these books and reading about these women and yeah, and then I in my head I have like dinner parties with them not dinner parties dinner parties in life like through through ways but like I can actually like hey I'm dealing with this issue. How would how would so-and-so handle it? Like give me your insights. So I know that this is beneficial. So please like please share. Please leave a comment. Please subscribe

And tell as many people as possible to come in and join and download the podcast as well. And thank you, Adesoggi, for always being the visionary that you are.

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:02.91)
and a

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:08.078)
And as the women will say, living is the act of resistance. live, live and live. Until next week, it's good night and God bless.