From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in 2017 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.

That's where a woman named Dorothy was participating in what's called an American Insight Tour.

A tour led by specially trained docents for museum visitors like Dorothy, who are blind or visually impaired.

Docents help visitors use other senses to experience the museum's collection.

As one of the docent trainers told NPR, quote.

Sight isn't the only pathway to understand art.

End quote.

That thought is what is behind an expansion of a local project.

You might have heard over the years conversations on In This Moment, a chapbook series sharing the life stories and the experience and the work of contemporary black leaders from the Rochester region.

The publishing team says a main goal of their books is to restore and repair historic narratives that could have been lost to time.

Now, thanks to a partnership with local librarians and the launch of your podcast network, In This Moment is available in audiobook form.

The goal is to make it accessible to everyone.

So now the books can be consumed using multiple senses.

This hour we'll talk about the latest with the project.

We're going to hear from two of the luminaries featured in the series.

I'd like to welcome our guests now.

Amanda Chestnut is co-founder curator, publisher of In This Moment, the chapbook series.

Welcome back.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

And define once again, define for for the audience.

They've probably seen a chapbook, but define what a chapbook a chapbook would be short for a chapter book.

So it is a usually small size book that's not very long, usually a little bit more sturdy than something like a magazine, but made at a low enough cost that it can be distributed easily and widely.

Welcome back.

It's great to have Amanda, great to have Chris Lindstrom, co-founder, The Lunch of our podcast Network.

Hello.

Thanks for being here, Chris.

Thanks for having me back across the table.

Let's say hello to Anita Cameron, who is a black disability justice activist.

Hello, Anita.

Thanks for being here.

It's great to be here.

And welcome to Almeida White House, who's a master storyteller, master teaching artist, award winning educator, producer, director, writer, poet, community activist.

She's rolled your eyes.

You got it.

Got me.

Any more titles?

Yeah, there's a lot more, but we don't have enough time.

Thank you for having me.

It's great.

Oh, Almeida is wonderful to have you back here.

And hello to Jim Byrne on the line with us.

An adult services librarian for the Pittsford community Library.

Hello, Jim.

Hey, thanks for having me.

So, Amanda, let me pull back a little bit.

And why don't you make sure the audience understands a little bit more about the mission of in this moment and some of how it comes together.

And then we're going to talk about where people can find these stories, and we're going to hear some of the stories.

Sure.

So in this moment is a series of books that I started with Jean Strouse of Bosco.

She really wanted to do something to highlight black voices through black artists in Rochester.

And so she approached me and we brainstormed up together with teacher, who is at Visual Studies Workshop at the time.

He's out at Brockport now.

we brainstormed up books and books.

Book production is actually usually very costly, and we didn't want these to be cost prohibitive.

So we went with the chapbook because we could produce them at a cost that made them easy to distribute.

And because we started during the pandemic, a really natural partnership for us was with the libraries.

We would send them the books, and when people would drive up to the library to get their drive up books because we couldn't go into the library, then the library would also toss in and in this moment books.

So we distributed them early in the pandemic using the library system.

And we still use the libraries today.

They're they've been an excellent partner in helping us distribute and spread the word.

And how do you determine the kinds of stories that you want to tell in the series?

I focus on luminaries in Rochester who have not had as much opportunity as they need and deserve to share their voice and to share their story, and to receive recognition for their work.

one of the people, for example, who I'm often told, that we need to put in one of our books is, former mayor Bill Johnson.

And I asked Mayor Johnson if he would like to be in a book, and he politely declined because his story is told, he said.

And he would really rather reserve the space for people who need to have their stories shared, who need to be recorded in our historical record.

And he feels like he's already reached that spot.

But there are still a lot more stories that we need to tell when you work with writers and photographers and now you work with lunch, a door and libraries.

And so it comes together in multiple formats now.

Yes.

So the books are not just printed material, they're also available for free on our website in PDF format.

And then lunch at or has helped us make audio books both in a traditional audio book setting that actually we also produces a, podcast, where we just sit down and read the text, but we also write image descriptions.

So people who have a visual impairment or people who just don't have access to a PDF or a physical copy of the book, can still experience the artistry of the chapbook as an object and still understand the beauty that goes into each of these stories and online.

Where do you want people to go again in this moment?

585.org in our chapbook archive, in the hamburger window in the top right corner, that will have, all of our PDFs there in this moment.

585.org Chris Lindstrom, how did you get involved here?

You know, I think it's something that I've tried to focus on over the last year is finding community partners that we feel match our ethics and match our intention to do good works, with anybody who is interesting to work with and, met Amanda officially for the first time, which is a very weird thing to say last year at a behind the glass event, considering we've bounced around near each other online for probably ten years, the arts community in Rochester is a very online space, so I meet all sorts of people who I've known for a long time but have only seen face to face, and then an interesting experience by the way.

You know, their work, you feel like you know so much about them and now you know them in person.

Yeah.

and and I should also say, Chris, as, as you describe how this relationship grew here, I'm kind of guilty of assuming that everybody knows what lunch stories we've talked about with you on this program before, but remind people what lunch is.

So lunch at or is a local podcast network.

right now we have, 13 different shows on the network covering everything from food and business to the arts, underrepresented photographer gallery.

Like behind the glass, behind the studio door, we have coffee, we have movies, and we just launched a music show called Nights and Weekends with, Kate Rogers from The Sound and also our prepping to launch a couple more shows, very soon.

So lunch of doors, you know, really aiming to be a wide ranging sort of cultural and community hub for local podcasting, getting to know different voices, ideas.

and it's not just food, although Chris loves food, certainly the food over the years.

and so is this a partnership that is going to continue, you think, here?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm, we're thrilled.

I mean, this is this is the kind of project you want to you want to work with.

You want to live, and you want to give it the respect it deserves.

And I think part of that is one getting the stories out to everybody who wants or needs to hear it, whether they think they do or not.

giving it out to everybody who needs to hear it or, read it, but reaching them on their level.

Maybe you love to listen to things and you're an audiobook person.

Great.

You can grab it on the podcast feed or the library, but if you happen to need it because you aren't able to read, well, that's also a great opportunity.

But what an amazing opportunity for us that I get to sit and listen to these stories told by people involved in the project and learn about Rochester history through meeting all these people and in person.

What a delight and what a luxury for me.

So again, where do listeners find it?

Yeah, they can go to lunch or.org and check out all of the shows, including In This Moment we have three of the books, prepared and up right now, including one of the guests today, Elmira Warriors, Herb Smith, and then also Joe Beard.

All right.

So that's a little bit of background there.

And, Amanda, you want to describe a little bit about the relationship with, with Jim Byrne and, and a community library there.

our relationship with the libraries in general has been great.

We've received a lot of support, both from the Rochester Public Library network and the surrounding libraries.

And one of the things that in this moment does is strive to find equitable opportunities for our artists.

many of them have, all of them have expertise in areas outside of their art.

and so we are frequently approached by the universities or by libraries and one of the things that Jean and I do is kind of double check contracts, make sure people are getting a fair rate, but also partner help build relationships and help build partnerships.

And Jim has been great at bringing in, in this moment, people, photographers, writers and luminaries to help kind of expand on the work that the books are already doing in a localized community.

His is Pittsford.

Jim's on the line with us.

You want to elaborate on that?

Jim?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it was, great to be able to get these chat books, into the library to begin with.

I thought, especially from the suburban library standpoint.

Right.

I mean, everyone knows Rochester and its suburbs, the history of redlining, segregation.

but so to be able to kind of chip away at that with, with these chat books was fantastic.

But and and you know, you got to you learn what you hear about Rochester all the time is right where you're 15 minutes, 20 minutes away from everything.

But I don't think people know the people who live 15 and 20 minutes away from you.

Right.

So this is a way to get to know those neighbors and your fellow citizens of Rochester.

and then this created community, you know, partnerships with this library where then little bring it in to the library.

people like Tau Savant and Franny Padilla who have contributed to in this moment, you know, in fact, we have tourists coming back here at the end of the month to do a spring show concert and poetry.

So it's just been fantastic to be able to kind of just bridge the divide between the suburbs and the city in this way.

And it's all thanks to Amanda in the In This Moment team, I think.

Well, and Amanda, on that point, you have been you're not been shy about being critical about, the history of, of our region, our towns, our suburbs.

So is it is there a poignancy to seeing this in the Pittsford Library for you?

I think that there is some really deeply entrenched going back to George Eastman himself.

attitudes about race in Monroe County, in the Rochester area, that are really, you know, Eastman George himself, while he funded Tuskegee University, he contributed money to black universities, but he really firmly believed only certain black people really, actually deserved that.

And he also adhered to and espoused and read a lot about eugenics, particularly pertaining to black people.

So his interpretation of what blackness should be and what blackness deserves is something that has permeated the culture in Rochester for many generations.

And, I don't think we need to keep relying on this man who, while he was great, has passed many years ago and definitely held not just racist, but outdated ideas, I don't think we need to keep adhering to his standards, and I think we can rewrite our history in our own voices instead of thinking about, well, yeah, the city's nice, but yeah.

No, none of that.

None of that here.

Jim, you agree with that?

Yeah.

I mean absolutely.

she said it best, and, you know, I wouldn't want to, add too much to that.

it's just it's been so vitally important for us to to just partner in this way.

And I think, you know, libraries are about information and stories and learning about other people and places and the understanding that comes from that.

And what better way to start than with, you know, the folks in Rochester today.

And I think that's what in this moment gets to the heart of just capturing the stories of people who live here now, who are doing vitally important things.

black leaders, black artists.

It's just been, an amazing partnership for the libraries.

In a moment, we're going to hear more from Almeda and Anita about their own stories and what it's like to be featured here.

this program can't capture all of the stories, nor can it capture all of the artists who you have work with.

And I just want to give you a moment if you want to mention some of that.

Amanda.

wow.

There are so it takes us about a year and a half to two years to publish a volume.

Each volume has ten books.

Each book has a writer, a photographer, and a luminary.

Some of our writers, like right now, are also photographers.

some folks, come back year after year.

Some folks do writing and photography.

But over the last four years, three times ten is 30 different artists, luminaries.

So approximately we're working on.

But then we also partner with Panther Graphics, which is, black owned print shop in Rochester.

So it's not just about providing opportunities for these black artists, of whom are many, but also supporting black owned businesses in Rochester.

And again, as we talk about this online website where Amanda, in this moment 585.org and Almeida whiteness is someone who I've had the the the absolute pleasure of talking to in the past.

But I want to I'll give a manager second.

You want to say a little bit about Almeida before we dive in.

Tell me the story here.

What a personality, what a person, Almeida.

if you haven't had an opportunity to go to our book launches at the Dryden Theater at the Eastman Museum, you absolutely should go.

Each one is a little bit different, because we allow the team to do kind of a little bit of what they want in as far as they present.

And, Almeida entrance and storytelling for her book launch was such an, a, mind opening, community oriented experience.

It's unless you go to big concerts where everybody's sitting there singing the same song.

You don't really know what that vibe is like.

But when you're sitting in the Dryden Theater and I'll meet a guy walks in and suddenly gets everyone, all 400 some odd people in the theater to sing along with her.

It's it's a pretty.

And this is the Dryden.

I mean, people are very used to coming in and sitting in their seats and staring at the stage or the screen for the thing that they came there for, and then they clap politely and go home.

that's not what this was.

And I think it was for the benefit of everyone, not just in this moment, not just the people in the theater, not just the Eastman Museum, but all of us earned so much from being in that space with Almeida.

Yeah.

And I was sitting next to Taurus and my co-founder in the center of the balcony.

And the thing I turned to Taurus and said, the only thing I want to do forever is sit and listen to Almeida, White House, tell whatever she wants to tell.

Almeida says, I'm.

I am that storytelling lady.

I feel like a Pied piper.

Sometimes.

Children follow me wherever I go.

I'm an eight year old inside finding joy, love and surprise in all things.

Get that microphone close so we can hear you.

Almeida.

Okay, so how do you keep that?

That sense of love and joy that you described there in the piece?

It's why I'm here.

Get even closer.

Yeah.

Pull that microphone.

Get right on it.

So okay, then I'll look at the microphone instead of you leave that better.

It'll move.

It'll get close to you okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes I know I'm not gonna I'm not telling normally the what to do for the rest of the hour, by the way.

I mean, you can do whatever you want.

As I feel about that, age does have its privileges.

The question that opens the piece about Almeida is, on what planet do you live?

A question once posed by an acclaimed concert pianist and Almeida response.

Can I read it and you can talk about it, he said.

I'm a rare breed, a strange duck.

There are very few places where I fit in.

I embrace many philosophical concepts that others don't.

And then you, shared more of your backstory in your life and your challenges there.

But why do you say you're a rare breed?

Well, I know that this particular lifetime.

I am here to be the artist, the teacher and the priestess.

And I'm not talking religion.

I'm talking about the fact that we are all energy, no matter what form we take.

Each time we decide to manifest.

And as energy, we are interconnected forever.

And I simply use the power of story to have people mine.

That motherlode of connection and the creativity is the is the magic source in that sense of finding, maintaining and promoting unity in our diversity.

And I know that's not a word people want to use anymore, but I like it because we live in a diverse universe.

I sure do.

And so on the subject, by the way, Almeida is such an interesting thinker.

I loved reading about your thoughts about energy.

So you talk about energy.

You point out, this is, I'm going to use a scientific term that's going to get me in trouble because I use the wrong term.

It's a scientific principle.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Yeah.

So that's why you believe, number one, that we should feel more connected, as forms of energy.

and that you also believe that we exist on different planes.

And there have been times where you feel present in multiple, multiple places simultaneously.

You feel connected to past lives.

Tell me about that.

Oh, yeah.

it's to me, it's something I've always known and embrace ever since I was a little kid.

And I see my girl next to me.

She's Val and her, and she's saying, yeah, yeah, it's something that, indigenous cultures, especially the African diaspora, we understand that, we are not here for just one time, that we emerge over and over and over again, not because we did anything bad, not because we do anything good, but it's because that's the nature of energy.

Like Einstein said, matter cannot be created nor destroyed.

We are energy.

We are energy.

I just messed that up.

Equals MC squared energy equals matter times the speed of light squared.

And essentially that says that we have always and will always exist forever and we never did not exist.

When you look at your life and that, oh my goodness, that opens you up to say, hey, whatever I want to do to leave my mark upon the world, I have to do it now.

Some people, they decide to leave a not so good mark, and that's not for me to judge or for them to judge or whatever.

That's just the way it is.

But most of us, when we, understand, when we hear the little ones get this, when they hear it and they embrace it and they're like, wow, I can do all the good that I want to.

And it's going to help everybody.

And.

Right.

Yeah, that's what we're here to do.

And we use the art forms.

All the different art forms.

And I'm obviously drawn to storytelling because it's my belief that storytelling is the first art form that was ever, so called access.

I don't want to use the word invented access because it was a storyteller who told you what the world was about.

That was a storyteller who told you what your place was in the community.

It's the storyteller that helped you.

just get that creative spark to say, oh, I wonder what will happen if I do that.

So story created science.

Why are you looking at me like that?

I'm listening.

I'm locked in and.

I'm listening.

But I'm also.

So there's a couple things that I wanted to ask you about.

Well, I want to add one more, please.

Because I forget a lot.

I'm kind of old.

there is a Swahili word in sa.

Sorry, it's not Swahili, it's Adinkra.

It's an Adinkra symbol of the icon people of Ghana in West Africa and a they say that whatever you do, you must do with an SA with genuineness, authenticity and excellence.

And if everybody in the world would do just that, whatever they do, use an SA as their I don't speak French that well, reason that their reason for existing.

Yeah.

Genuineness, authenticity and excellence.

That's a big that's a big ask.

And it's not at the same time, where else are you going to get metaphysics.

Philosophy.

Ghanaian language.

Little French.

That's how I roll.

Okay.

Ever since I was little.

Ever since.

Yeah.

One of the things that's so important about in this moment is it very clearly illustrates the depth and breadth of what it means to be black and how you can be black.

I think that one of the things that culturally, as Americans, we really struggle with, I personally use capital B black to defend, just, to describe people who are, descended from the diaspora.

I couldn't look at my father's family tree and point to where on the map in Africa my father's family came from.

So I use capital B, black because this is a thing that has been created.

Blackness is an is an idea that has been created.

But we struggle with treating that as a monolith.

And it's not.

It's blackness is so much to so many people.

And, in this moment is both on those from the diaspora and, those who have immigrated from Africa.

And I think that over the years, one of the things that we have illustrated is that you can sit in a room full of black people and talk metaphysics and talk philosophy and talk art and talk in different languages and talk about your community.

And you can talk about science and you can talk about education, and you can talk about medicine, and you can do all of those things are in in this moment.

All of those things are part of what it means to be black.

Despite this generation's long effort to to turn us into a single type of person that usually through racism and paternalism, needs some kind of control.

Remarkable.

Well, Almeda, what came to mind?

A couple questions for me come to mind before we dig in a little bit more of your story, and I want to ask you a little bit about this idea that you have this kind of comfort, even enthusiasm, and thinking of the fact that when you think about energy, it cannot be created, it cannot be destroyed.

So in in your view, we are energy.

We have always existed.

I think it was Mark Twain.

I don't know if I'm going to get this quote wrong, but essentially said I was I was not the least bit disturbed by my nonexistence before I was born, and I suspect I will not be disturbed by my nonexistence when I am gone.

Twain I think that's Twain he's in.

Someone will correct me, but he is essentially saying there that he doesn't think of us as anything other than a light switch that comes on at birth, and the light switch that goes off at death.

He doesn't think about it in the way that you do.

So why do you think about it differently?

And do you have a comfort?

I mean, clearly you're thinking in different ways.

You're feeling connected to other lives, other energy in a way that someone like Twain wasn't.

Of course, I've experienced it.

So yeah, I know it as a truth.

It's it's a personal truth, and it's also a philosophical and scientific.

we're talking Astrophys.

Six and Allen lot of stuff.

Truth.

And it's interesting because our other guest, entertained me with the story of their birth.

And you're going to I hope to tell they tell it.

but yes, to answer what you said, first of all, I love books, I embrace knowledge, I live and breathe and live knowledge gaining knowledge because I love it.

If I weren't able to hear or speak, that would be anathema.

I don't know what I would do because.

Or I should say hear or see or speak.

Thank you.

I knew there was three, I would be bereft because as a, as a child, books were my friends.

Learning was my friend.

And I did it because not only did I love it, but I loved sharing the knowledge and and and and and being being being.

Oh, shoot, I can't find the word.

So I'm just going to use a word.

But, we were we were homeless from the time I was five until I was 12 and went to a lot of schools, and we would be the only I would be the only new kid.

And I got straight A's.

So I was, you know, I was fodder for getting beat up on because I was smart and pick up lots and because I was the new kid, and then I was a little coward.

And so I would say, can I tell you a story?

What's your favorite song?

And I would tell them a story or sing them a song, and nobody wanted to beat me up anymore.

But then they kept asking for, hey, come over and I come over and sing this.

Oh Lord have mercy, why don't they leave me alone?

But apparently the gift that I came here with this lifetime just reaches out and just envelops people.

And they're like, oh, we feel so good when we when we listen to you and when they listen to me, nobody wants to fight anymore.

That's I mean, that last part I minute you have this way of connecting people.

Clearly, Amanda talked about the dried and the way that you have a way of capturing and bringing people together.

And, you're describing a very difficult childhood, but you use this gift to bring people together and maybe change hearts or minds.

Why then I feel so much despair sometimes lately because people are looking in the wrong place.

Why are we so disconnected?

When you find all the reasons that we should be connected, you find all of the ways to find love and respect for one another.

Why are we still so disconnected?

Because we're looking in the wrong place.

Is.

First, we look within and find that kernel of what we are authentically inside genuine.

This authenticity and excellence.

And then you find your crowd.

It may be a crowd of one or 2 or 3.

It may be a crowd of 400. whatever.

you find your crowd a thank you spirit.

I do use that term a lot because things come to me.

and it's not me.

I was at North Street, North Street school, elementary school in Geneva, New York, maybe the late 90s, and I had a month long residency where I was to touch every child from the preschool through the sixth grade.

So each week I would take a group and we would sit in the circle on the stage, in the auditorium and we would communicate.

And one little, oh, he was so sweet.

Latino.

I don't know which particular country, may have been.

Barrington.

but those of you that don't know Puerto Rican, and he said to me, said to us during the circle, he says, Miss White, us, we are all divine oneness.

Six years old.

Probably destined for a life that's going to be really rough.

but he was able to capture that kernel that we are, each of us, a spark of the divine.

When you grab a hold of that.

Oh, my goodness, it's not that you want to use it to to to to beat down an over Overlord.

And, no, it's about where do I find my family?

Where do I find my friends?

What can I do to to to pass this on so that everyone else can feel this, this wonderful spark of life within?

Oh my goodness, life is such a wonderful, wonderful thing.

I'm going to describe life.

It's a it's a privilege.

It is a privilege.

And each of us on this earth ought to be doing everything we can to help enhance others lives.

Because when we do that, we enhance our own.

Oh, made a story.

We barely even touched it.

And that's why you're going to have to pick up in this moment.

I mean, there's a it's a story at times of activism.

It's a story at times of of of art and what you have done over the years.

I mean, there are these great stories in the chapbook, about l made a story that, you know, we barely will have time to even get into here.

but, you know, Amanda, what is there, like, a word that you used to describe?

I mean, if she's so many things and she's done so much in the community, how do you how do you think of of the person sitting across from you?

a teacher, a storyteller, a leader, an activist.

She has.

Almeida.

Almeida?

Yeah, yeah, she is Almeida.

We when we started in this moment, we were using the word leader to describe who we were writing the books about.

And I realized, maybe last year that the word luminary is much more, accurate for what we're doing.

Because these aren't just people who are in what we would consider a traditional role of leadership.

These are people who bring, light and bring light in that Prometheus kind of way.

Like bring these are the people who have brought us the fire.

The they are the luminaries now.

I mean, I mean, it's got a lot of light, that's for sure.

and what we're going to do is after we take our only break, I'll me to turn into Anita.

So we're going to talk about Anita story as well here before the hour's up here.

but, Alameda Story is one of ten in this, I would say ten in this volume.

In this volume, I to say a volume.

We have finished three volumes so far.

in our in volume four right now.

Yes.

If you're just joining us in this moment is, annual, semiannual, series that has, ten and a volume and they are the stories of, Almeida White House as an example of regional black luminary stories that, Amanda and the artists involved with the creation of this think that maybe you've heard their story.

Probably you haven't.

And you're going to find not only the chapbooks, within this moment, which will come back and tell you about where to find them, but also in audio form, also in local libraries.

So when we come back, we'll remind you where you can get these stories and where you can share them and direct others to them.

And we're going to talk to Anita Cameron on the other side of this.

Our only break of the hour.

I'm having Dawson Thursday and the next.

Connections, a local theater production addresses themes of suicide, depression and childhood trauma.

Blackfriars theater is staging the play.

Every brilliant thing about a child looking for everything that's brilliant about the world.

To help his mother.

We'll talk about those broader themes then it's mountain stage, the music, radio show.

We talk with the host, Kathy Matera, about the show and how it's helped artists.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Excel Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Believing that everyone deserves to be cared for and to live well through community investments, partnerships, and education.

Excel is blue Cross Blue Shield is working to address health inequities more@bcbs.com.

This is connections I'm Evan Dawson okay a lot to squeeze in in our last 18 minutes.

So if you are just joining us and you want to access in this moment Amanda Chestnut where what etc.

in this moment 585.org.

If you are a student, you can pick up a book at any one of the over a hundred schools and colleges and educational institutions that we give our books to you for free.

Or you can find them at your local library.

Okay.

And on the launch of your podcast network, Chris Lindstrom.

Yeah, that's lunch dawg.

Love a doctor.org to find all of the shows, including in this moment.

And you can also search for in this Moment five, eight, five wherever you get your podcasts.

Jim Byrne is adult services librarian for Pittsford Community Library, and the community needs to know about accessing in this moment with the Community Library's Jim.

Yeah, the hard copies you can find in the libraries themselves, ours are upstairs on a display.

we're hoping to get them into Libby soon, which is your e-book and audiobook app.

and they're going to be the best news there.

There's not gonna be any holds or anything.

So once they're available, if you want to listen to it now, you can do just that.

and before we turn to Anita Almeida, there's one other thing you want to mention here about your son, I think.

Go ahead.

Yes, yes, my son Christopher, are the New Bedford Brown.

He's, an award winning poet.

He's, screenwriter, stage writer.

And he's has created 45 plus franchise stories, of which I'm using as the foundation for my work going forward, especially with my creative aging for seniors with Lifetime Arts.

Awesome.

I mean, again, Almeida is a true luminary.

and the story is is a chapbook.

Is is how long Amanda Chestnut.

Each of our books are only about 20 pages.

I mean, really, you're capturing so much what you do.

But, that's why we're we're grateful to have this audio form to have these conversations.

Anita Cameron's story could fill a full could fill any format, I would say.

And so I want to start by asking, you needed to tell a little bit of your own story, and it goes back to, you know, Almeda mentioned even from your birth, you know, what happened to you and how that helped shape you.

So I'm going to give you a little bit space to tell your own story.

Anita, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sure.

I'm Anita Cameron.

I'm sorry.

I'm very, very shy, I really am.

you wouldn't believe that if you read my biography, but I am, I am a twin.

I was born with disabilities.

My twin is non-disabled.

I was born in 1965, and my mom did not realize she was carrying twins.

And so she had my twin sister.

a healthy, bouncing baby girl, at home on a table.

And a couple of hours later, she went back into labor.

I was born four hours after my twin sister, and we actually have different birthdays, so, you know, just that alone is probably going to tell you that my story is a bit unusual.

And doctors gave you too much oxygen at birth in an effort to save you.

And, that left you partially blind.

Yeah.

It took away almost all the little sight that I had.

and yet, at age five, you're not just reading.

You're reading college level books at age five, learning to read and write.

we learned saved you from special schools at the time, because at the time, kids with disabilities weren't given the right to an education.

No, we did not have the right to an education at that time.

disabled children were mostly sent to like, state schools or institutions.

when we finally, when they began letting us in school, most disabled schools or any self-contained classrooms, segregated, and that's where they were all day.

because I was gifted, I was what was called mainstream.

So I was placed in regular classes, until they figured out that they had to send me to the higher level classes for reading, and eventually I started attending high school in the seventh grade because they really didn't know what to do with me.

I have multiple disabilities.

I'm also autistic, and at the time, little girls, neither little girls or little black children were diagnosed autistic.

I knew that I was autistic, I read about autism at that young age, said, oh, this is me.

But I didn't get diagnosed since I was 43. and that happens a lot.

fairly common, with black women, older black women minds.

But, I was born, so I was born on the south Side of Chicago, at the end of my corner, at the end of my block, there was a house on the corner, where, some ladies from the Black Panthers would be the kids.

They would go in there and, you know, they get, you know, a little breakfast stuff and whatnot.

Doctor King was assassinated three years after I was born.

But obviously I knew about the civil rights movement at all.

And I felt guilty.

I felt guilty for being born too late to participate because children did participate, and were even arrested.

And, I felt guilty that I was born too late.

and so around the age of nine, though, I made a vow that I would work to make the world a better place for all, and I didn't know what I would be doing.

I just knew that I wanted to make the world a better place.

And at 16, I got to start doing that.

I got involved in social justice and social change organizations and movements.

various.

I mean, you name peace and justice, you know, anti nuclear, you know, proliferation, working with immigrants, working with houseless people, anti-apartheid, some LGBT persecuted disability.

Although, you know, I was for my disabilities, I had no role models.

I had, you know, and certainly, you know, not in the black community.

so I had no role models or anything like that.

I had, you know, no one, you know, who was like me.

Thankfully, although my parents really had a hard time accepting, my me and my disability and all, they expected me to do the same things that my twin sister did.

And so, you know, I learned that, if I put my mind to it, I could do whatever I wanted.

It would probably be different.

It would probably have to be done in a different way.

But that I could do it of someone told me I couldn't do anything, I would.

You see, I was bearing up under a number of things, you know, being a little black, you know, child, and being disabled.

And when you disabled automatically, you know, you were assumed to be incompetent in anything like that.

When I was in the fifth grade, the what would become the individuals with Disabilities Education Act went into effect.

and so I, was able to access my teachers access, large print for me, extra tutoring, all of these things, except that once I got into high school, it stopped because they felt that because I was gifted, I didn't need accommodations, unfortunately.

You know, that's that's the thing, you know, the.

I don't know how much you want me.

Well, so I need it.

Let me just do this here.

I'm.

I'm going to read a few of the highlights from the In This Moment piece.

So listeners have a picture of the work, the activism that you've done, literally starting with kindergarten all the way, all the way through your life.

that, you fought for everything that you've already mentioned lives to be added to busses, greater accessibility for voters, emergency and disaster protocols for people with disabilities, expanding home care.

It is a long list.

Today marks 35 years, I'm told, from the Capitol Crawl, which is, when the when the Ada was up, for consideration.

The Capitol crawl was this iconic moment of activism.

Do you want to describe that?

So it at about this time in 1990, the Ada was, in Congress, but Adapt and other disability activists, we felt as if it was stalling.

We felt that we needed to do something to push this along.

And so several about hundred of us, there were there were lots and lots of folks there at the bottom of the system, about, 100 of us or thereabouts.

got out of our wheelchairs or, you know, use our mobility, equipment at all.

and we crawled up the stairs.

I remember that, it was very hot and sunny.

you know, I felt as we were doing this, I felt like we were crawling into history, that we were creating history.

and we were, and we were.

And that's, you know, we're not even talking about what happened the next day with the rotunda takeover.

that, that ended up, so there were several hundred of us there.

it started out, The biggest secret never told was that this started out as a, as a fake, tour.

A tour started out as a tour of the Catholic.

And when we got to the rotunda, that once it history began, that rotunda.

What a story.

I should also mention, among the many times you've been, arrested that's in the triple digits now, one of them was 1991 at the Peabody Hotel in Orlando, thrown to the ground on your stomach.

And you said police tried to spook their police horses so that the horses would injure protesters.

They had mounted, mounted police there.

this was 1991 and Orlando.

And it was truly scary.

they the officers literally were, trying to spook their horses so that we would get injured.

I was actually beat up twice on that action.

in the Orlando Sentinel.

on that day, there was huge color picture of me, being shoved back.

Cop also on that action, I had a chain.

We call it a Kryptonite chain.

One of those, you know, specialized bike chains that we were going to use to chain ourselves together.

The officer took that from me, threw it into the crowd, and like, you know, injured, one of our people.

And then, later on, injured me.

that particular action, there was 76 of us arrested, and we spent three days in, in jail.

You're killing Alameda with these stories here next year.

I mean, these stories are just.

I've been arrested and 40, 240 times.

140 times.

but by the way, we don't even have time to.

You got to pick up in this moment because you ought to read.

What?

what Anita says about, the reality that some activists die in the courts about what it means to consider the desire not to die in the cause.

And, the work and the risks.

They're also asked, they asked what your proudest moment of the your protest career was.

You said once I was getting arrested near Congressman John Lewis, his office in the early 2000, he came out to figure out what the commotion was.

He saw us being arrested.

He stopped the arresting process, and the police let him come through.

The crowd shaking our hands and talking to us.

I introduced myself to him and he hugged me and told me, you keep on making good trouble.

What a moment.

so I want to thank you for being on the program to tell your story today, and I want to encourage listeners again, as remarkable as these stories are, that is not nearly the whole of where you're going to what you're going to learn about in the chat book.

but Anita Cameron, so, really, really remarkable stuff.

And you're seeing why Amanda Chestnut it's got to be a challenge to choose, you know, who you feature.

But, all of these remarkable people are our neighbors.

They're.

They're your neighbors.

They're my neighbors.

These are people who we run into at the grocery store.

These are people we say hello to when they walk by and we're sitting on the porch.

These people are Rochester.

And Rochester doesn't hear nearly enough how amazing all of these people really are and how much they've contributed not just to us, but nationally.

I really I hope that for so many people who are struggling right now and looking for guidance with what to do and how to feel and how to coax their, emotions, their frustration, their anger, their fear into something productive.

I hope that in this moment can be a place where people will look to find comfort and inspiration online.

Where Amanda, in this moment five, eight, five, where, otherwise, Chris Lindstrom.

Yeah.

Lunch talk to hear all of these stories.

And I think if one message from today be present when you're in the presence of somebody who's worth being present with, that's wonderful.

PDFs available on the website as well, PDFs available on the website.

Our books are available on audiobook, at lunch store and on through the Rochester Library, soon to be through the Pittsford Library as well.

Yeah, Jim Byrne from the Pittsford Community Library, thanks for being on the program and hopefully some listeners will come find you soon.

Talking about in this moment, Jim sounds good and looking forward to it.

And I want to thank Anita.

Cameron Almeida is for sharing your stories here.

Thank you both for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me from all of us of connections.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for watching.

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