WEBVTT

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I wrote recently-- I have a
book coming out in the spring,

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which Random House is
calling a nonfiction novel.

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I will not be responsible for
what Random House calls things.

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I'm only responsible
for what I call things.

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But anyway, it's about
my father's family.

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I wrote a lot about my father,
who was an extraordinary man.

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And one of the things
that he used to do--

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do you know a lot of
people will tell us

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stories about-- older
people will tell us stories

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that we don't listen to.

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Sometimes we remember
to listen too late.

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Do you know what I mean?

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Well, I remembered
to listen in time.

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And he told me
about the ancestor

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who was, in his words,
the first Black woman

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legally hung in the
state of Virginia.

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And I was very proud of that,
because her name was Lucille.

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I have several poems about that.

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I'd like to read
a couple of them.

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One is a poem about a lot of my
friends who took African names,

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and they used to always
ask me why I didn't take--

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change my name.

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And though, I assure
you, I don't think

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Lucille is such a hot name.

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I mean, it's not my favorite,
but I still keep it proudly.

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Lucille in French, I
believe, means light.

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"Light on my mother's
tongue breaks

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through her soft
extravagant hip into life.

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Lucille, she calls
the light, which

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was the name of the grandmother
who waited by the crossroads

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in Virginia and shot the
white man off his horse,

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killing the killer of sons.

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Light breaks from her
life to her lives.

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Mine already is
an African name."

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[APPLAUSE]

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