{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/b27pn90c4c/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Oral history interview with Talim Lessane"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["3/25/22"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Talim Lessane was born in Manhattan, New York, to activist parents and moved to Charleston at an early age. Lessane is the director of the Upward Bound program at College of Charleston and  was active in Black Lives Matter Charleston."]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Note"]},"value":{"en":["For more information contact the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, 125 Bull Street, Charleston, SC 29424."]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Statement"]},"value":{"en":["All rights reserved."]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewee"]},"value":{"en":["Lessane, Talim"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewer"]},"value":{"en":["Brown, Millicent E., 1948-"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Topical"]},"value":{"en":["Black lives matter movement","African Americans","Activism","Political participation","Community organization"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Personal or Corporate"]},"value":{"en":["dÕBaha, Muhiyidin, 1985-2018","Moye, Muhiyidin, 1985-2018","Scott, Walter, 1965-2015"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Geographic"]},"value":{"en":["Charleston (S.C.)","North Charleston (S.C.)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Geographic County"]},"value":{"en":["Charleston County (S.C.)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Contributing Institution"]},"value":{"en":["Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture"]}},{"label":{"en":["Media Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral Histories"]}},{"label":{"en":["Resource Locator"]},"value":{"en":["AMN 1168.001.030"]}},{"label":{"en":["Digitization Specifications"]},"value":{"en":["Mp4 derivative audio and video created using Davinci Resolve. Archival masters are mp4 files."]}},{"label":{"en":["Date Digital"]},"value":{"en":["2022"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Talim Lessane was born in Manhattan, New York, to activist parents and moved to Charleston at an early age. Lessane is the director of the Upward Bound program at College of Charleston and  was active in Black Lives Matter Charleston."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/291/383/small/talim-lessane.mp4_1757958769.jpg?1757958770","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - talim-lessane.mp4"]},"duration":3274.58,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/291/383/small/talim-lessane.mp4_1757958769.jpg?1757958770","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-cofc.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/291/383/original/talim-lessane.mp4?1757958765","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3274.58,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["talim-lessane.docx [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nWe're going to ask you to give us your full name, and if you don't mind spelling both first and last for us. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=9.0,16.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nAbsolutely. Talim, T-A-L-I-M, Lessane, L-E-S-S-A-N-E.  ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=16.0,25.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nAnd Talim, you're from where originally? Or what do you call- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=25.0,30.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nNew York, born and raised. Basically, I was born in Manhattan, I lived there until I was about seven and then moved to Brooklyn. So I'd pretty much say I'm from Brooklyn, because all my, any major childhood memories from seven up to high school, and going back and forth in college was Brooklyn-based. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=30.0,53.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nOkay. What kind of title, or position head, or labeling do you put on yourself now in the year 2022 in terms of what you're doing now? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=53.0,66.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nI'm the director of a program called Upward Bound here at the College of Charleston. It's actually a grant-based program from the Department of Education, Federal. And we work with low-income, first generation high school students from various high schools in the area to serve to instill within them the skills and the motivation that are needed to be successful in high school and college and hopefully beyond. I'm director of Upward Bound. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=66.0,99.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nYeah. And it's a well-established program. How are you feeling about the success of Upward Bound at the College of Charleston? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=99.0,107.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nI love it. We've been here since '75. We're still recruiting students now. We're in a little bit of a recovery from COVID. As far as this year has been about reestablishing relationship with the high schools, the counselors, the students. People know that we're here, but people don't really know that we're here as far as really making sure that there's students in the program, making sure that we're still active and just getting reinvigorated, I would say. One of the things that it's done in the last two years or so, has made us recalibrate the way we do things. So things are a little bit more hybrid, we can do things like virtual college tours and presentations, career panels, that we didn't think of before that now make the most sense. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=107.0,159.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nAnd the purpose is to recruit students to the College of Charleston? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=159.0,166.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nNo. The purpose is to get them to be successfully in college, wherever they want to go. Some do come. We actually have three students currently at the college from the past five years or so, but they're not required at all. Where our job is to get them to be successful and graduate wherever that makes the most sense for them. So most of them quite frankly, get more money somewhere else, particularly HBCUs, they make it a full ride. And also they just didn't want to get away from home. So if they come here and it's a good fit, that's fine. If they don't and they go somewhere else, that's fine too. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=166.0,203.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nWhat are the geographic boundaries that you recruit for your program? Is it just Charleston County? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=203.0,211.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nGenerally Charleston County, but also parts of North Charleston, that may include Dorchester County, but the City of North Charleston, because the way that the grant is written essentially is, we do what's called a need section that establishes low-income families, establishes low performance in schools as far as graduation rates and so forth compared to other areas. And so, I mean, a whole bunch of other factors. But essentially it's we have five core target schools that are North Charleston, Burke, Star, West Ashley, and St. John's. But we can take students from elsewhere in the district provided that they meet the criteria for the program. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=211.0,257.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nI have two questions, I'm not sure which one to go to first. What kind of early influences do you think you would say led you to this kind of work? Are there people in your youth or examples in your family? How did Talim Lessane get down this pathway? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=257.0,287.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nI would say it started with a general sense of activism. My parents, when I was little brought me to rallies and so forth, primarily like progressive or left-leaning antinuclear activity, that was the '70s and '80s. My parents were really upset when Reagan won the election in 1980, that kind of thing. They were big fans of Jimmy Carter. He got a bad rap, all that stuff. And so, I think just being around a certain philosophy of life that you do the right thing for people, you do the fair thing for people, you help people when they need to be helped. You basically, it's not right to hoard wealth when the people are suffering. All that was just the general philosophy that I was raised with, that was instilled within me. \n\nSo then finding my pathway into that and finding a way to express that and do something with it. And I started to be the one in high school that everybody would come to, to talk about their problems like in the cafeteria, or in the auditorium in the morning. And so, I leaned towards psychology. So I knew I wanted to be a psych major in some way or something of that nature by the time I was probably a sophomore in high school, just because that seemed to be what I leaned toward, and what I was good at. \n\nAnd so that led me to major in psychology, and then I got a master's degree in counseling. And I always wanted to do some more community work, but I just followed whatever the path led me to. When I was in grad school, I-  MILLICENT BROWN\n\nWhere? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=287.0,397.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nWhere? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=397.0,397.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nWhere?  TALIM LESSANE\n\nI went to the SUNY Albany, State University of New York at Albany, Go Danes, from '88 to '92 in Upstate New York, Albany of course. And then I went to grad school at Howard University. I chose HU because by that point in my life, I wanted to focus my career and my intentions, my energy on the black community, and that was a better fit than Boston College by far, which was the other school I got admitted to. So when I got to DC, it was like I had a lot to do obviously. I worked in group homes pretty much all through grad school. That wasn't a black one agency, but all the kids in the group home were primarily African American. And so that fed me in terms of what the direction I needed to go in, just being aware of the issues and the lack of support that's around. \n\nI moved from that. When I graduated I did counseling in-home with families and youth for about a year and a half, two years working on their relationships and so forth, and not-for-profit agency. And that got heavy for me. Before I understood what an empath is, I just knew that it was taking stuff home with me. And so, I transitioned from that into doing community work as far as after-school programming. So I worked for two years roughly as an after-school assistant coordinator in DC, so we did everything... It was a program called Adventure Clubs. And so what it basically did was introduce young people to different activities that they normally wouldn't be able to participate in on their own because of economic availability and so forth. \n\nSo they did horseback riding, ice skating, poetry, computer assembling, programming, and a whole assortment of things. We had basically a [inaudible] semester, so from maybe August or September to November. We'd have one set of program they would choose from. And then from about February to May, we'd have another one. And we actually drove them to the activities ourselves, you know, a couple times a week. And so, that laid the foundation in a sense for what I'm doing now, because it kind of— everything that I've done comes full circle. \n\nI left DC to actually get married to someone who lived in Chicago. We were there for 10 years, and I was— for four years, my first four years in Chicago, I was the director or coordinator of a 21st Century community learning center grant at Phillips High School, which is basically the Burke of Chicago as the first predominantly African American high school in the city— or the oldest. And so I did that for four years, because I always wanted to work with a community center, and not just do counseling per se, but I know resources and resource development and availability is important. \n\nYou can't talk to somebody about their problems if their life is still the same when they leave you. You know, it’s addressing the actual underlying fundamental issues that people live with every day. And I kind of have always said, that even though my master's degree has been counseling, some parts of me wish I had done social work because it's just a broader scope of practice in, some sense. And so, but I'm not going to go back for that. It's just— And so after four years of that, I actually transitioned into being a college advisor at the University of Illinois, Chicago for two years from '04 to '06. And then I moved to being a college advisor at the community college in Chicago, at Olive-Harvey College from 2006 to 2010. \n\nAnd so, my youngest student there was 13 and my oldest was 73. People who literally came, the youngest was homeschooled, finished his GED, I think his parents were from Ghana, and he was just taking college courses until he pretty much was old enough and mature enough to go off to college somewhere. And the oldest was like I said, 73. And what she told me was, \"I put my kids and my grandkids through college, now it's my turn.\" And I was really proud of her. \n\nAnd so, that gave me really a broader perspective on how people view education. The average age of students was 27 rather than 19 to 20. And so, I mean the reality of that it's important to do but having the motivation and the knowhow to actually get through it, and being available as an advisor to navigate the system when they're brand new, really gave a greater sense of purpose. So I moved to Charleston with the same person that I was formally married to in 2010, and because of a job offer she got, and that's why I came to Upward Bound, because it was an availability as academic coordinator, which is essentially assistant director. \n\nAnd I did that for two years from 2010 to 2012. Then my predecessor, Mr. Lewis, rest in peace, retired in 2012 and I basically took over, which coincided with the renewal of our grant back then. So I wrote 85% of the grant in 2011 and 2017, and we just resubmitted in 2021. In 2022 actually, January 31st. So I've written the grant itself three times now. It's worked and I've used my skills in writing, in counseling, in program development, in relationship building, in youth work, in community networking. All that stuff coalesces into what I do now on a daily basis. \n\nAnd I'm coming up on 12 years on August 9th, and I don't think I've ever been bored. It's the longest and best job I've had by far, and I also get to intersect with a lot of aspects of the community, including different movements and so forth, because ultimately Upward Bound is based in the Civil Rights Movement. It was rooted and grew out of directly the Higher Education Act of 1965. Upward Bound was established in '64, and then the Higher Education Act passed in '65. And so, it's part of an umbrella program called TRIO, which is originally Upward Bound, Educational Talent Search and Student Support Services are the three original programs that are part of the TRIO network. \n\nAnd so, it is rooted directly in civil rights, educational access. The idea that education is the passport to the future because tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today, Malcolm X. Who wasn't a civil rights activist, but a human rights activist. So it's civil rights and human rights wrapped up in one at its very core. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=397.0,870.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nWow. That's a lot to unpack. Thank you. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=870.0,876.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nI know it's a long answer to a short question. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=876.0,879.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nNo, but it's so obvious, first of all, that Charleston was lucky to get you because you had this background and understanding of those intersections. And I know that has to have real meaning to this community. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=879.0,898.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nI've had the same poster of Malcolm and Martin, I have the same two posters of them probably since college. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=898.0,908.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nHanging in your office? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=908.0,910.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nWell actually at home, because I do what I am. And so I'm the same person at home as I am at work. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=910.0,923.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nFor the purposes of our project, we said we were going to look, especially at the kinds of activities that we're going on through the community. And I think to the extent that you can help us understand or perhaps bridge when events occurred, tragedies happened, and ever since the death of Denzel Curnell and Walter Scott in 2014, it is, and then several other things obviously that happened after that. But we just wanted to hear from you about what you saw going on in the community that you're already embedded in by that time, and how that relates to really what you're doing at the college. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=923.0,984.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nOkay. So I would say back... I'm going to back it up a little bit. I had been observing the things that were going on in the country like anybody else was rightfully enraged, but didn't really know what to do about it necessarily. Starting particularly with Trayvon Martin and then Tamir Rice, and a whole host of other, you don't have to run all that down right now. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=984.0,1017.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nMichael Brown. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1017.0,1018.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nRight. Exactly. All of that. All of those unnecessary deaths at the hand. But I mean it's not something new to me, it's just a matter of the inner agitation of, I need to get off the sidelines and figure out what I can contribute. I'm not sure what that looks like, but so I made more inroads, and those Facebook friends I had met Pastor Thomas Dixon, for example, who mentored me through getting involved and meeting some people. And then Brother Muhiyidin d'Baha actually got in touch with me because of a project he was working on called From The Block Up, which was actually his master's project, which is a comprehensive approach to community development. \n\nAnd so we sat and talked. They came by the office, and we talked for a while and became really, really good friends. And he basically adopted me as his older brother in a sense, and maintained that for the next few years. And so, there was actually a call, a meeting that a few of us went to map out like, \"Where do we go from here?\" Everybody that wants to make a change but didn't know exactly how to coalesce around a certain area or certain subjects, or certain focus or whatever. So essentially the decision was made in a closed room to coalesce around the bubbling Black Lives Matter movement. And this is I think, November of 2014, I believe. \n\nSo I'm not going to name names because it's not my right to incriminate because it's righteous work, but if people don't want to be named then... So I'll just say I was one of the people in the room that decided to use in a good sense, Black Lives Matter because it was recognizable, it was moving as a way to elevate various work that people were doing. And so, that's the way that decision was made. But to be clear, it wasn't really an association with the national Black Lives Matter organization necessarily, it was more the idea that black lives do matter in every aspect of life. \n\nAnd so, when we had large meetings at the ILA  and so forth, Moya pretty much took the head because he had all these ideas from his master's project, From the Block Up, as far as youth work and job development and all this other stuff that people can address as ways to invigorate black life. Not just Black Lives Matter as a slogan or a movement, but black life in general. And using that idea to build that up and to frame things around in a sense. And then Walter Scott got murdered, and that shifted things into immediate action. And so- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1018.0,1244.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nThat looked like what, when you say immediate action? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1244.0,1248.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nIn terms of response, people had been meeting for a couple of times for a couple of months, and then all of a sudden here’s this police action, and so what are we going to do about it? And so, I mean I wasn't in every single room, but I do know that people wanted to erupt. And because we had been organizing, when I say we, I mean a larger body of people who cared about these things, and literally like 50 people that were getting together. So then the focus shifted to how do people respond to the police, how do they put pressure in North Charleston government to take action, to do the right thing. \n\nIt became a matter of protesting, not just police brutality in terms of death, but in terms being over-policed and harassment by the police, and so forth. The things that have been happening in every city with a major black population in America for the last 100 years. So how do you change that culture in North Charleston? How do you put pressure on the government, and the mayor in particular to make different decisions, to change the culture around how people are treated? Accountability, having an oversight committee by the community and so forth. \n\nAll the things that were said at North Charleston City Council meetings were demands or ideas that had come out of planning a couple of months prior. So it didn't just come up out of nowhere. People who wanted to, who were able to speak out and had voices and had flexibility and freedom to actually be a voice of action, had the backing of people who had been planning for months. Just to address the community needs in general, but that particular aspect ended up being directed as a response to Walter Scott's death. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1248.0,1390.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nAnd can you talk a little bit about, of all these various directions that people wanted to go in, what pathway did you find yourself taking? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1390.0,1408.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nI would say being more of a consultant in a sense of ideological, in terms of strategy, in terms of how to approach certain things. So people would come to me for advice in terms of how to actually frame certain things. I didn't want to be in the front lines, in that sense of being out there at every protest, but in terms of making copies out of my own budget, in terms of even just making food for people who were meeting at two in the morning, and bringing it to a safe house. Or providing rides for people who need to get from one place to another, who may not have had a car. Because they basically did a cop watch for several months, maybe a year. \n\nAnd I didn't have the time or the energy to be involved with that at three in the morning to watch the police, but I knew people who were doing it and where they were. So I provided transportation, food, ideas, just even allowing people to vent. Just if they were tired, needed to crash, when my kids weren't at my house, some people just stayed on my couch sometimes, that kind of thing. So the behind the scenes part that is involved, this aspect of every movement. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1408.0,1499.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nI'm going to ask you to explore that just a little bit more, because we've had other interviewees who told us about roles they played that normally folks don't talk about. Like who raises the bail money if you decide you want to get arrested protesting? But let's talk about the food thing. How did that particularly appeal to you or what was it about feeding people that- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1499.0,1533.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nI would say food out of these five so-called love languages based in the book. But food probably is really in mine. I've been cooking since I was seven. And at the same time all this was going on, I was also working on possibly catering out of my home, my kids encouraged me to do that. I've always tried to make people happy through food. I was in the process of developing a cookbook at the same time, which I put out in 2016. But this is always, sustenance is the nature of life. There are people who are putting their lives on the line, but they needed fuel. So I basically would make anything from greens and cornbread to just lima beans, or just a bill of the vegan food. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1533.0,1597.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nI was about to say, you had already adopted a vegan lifestyle. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1597.0,1602.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nI've been a vegan or plant-based since I was 25. So yeah, people knew me for that here, unrelated to activism, but I basically would bring whatever I could make, whether it was anything made from seitan which is wheat gluten, or tofu like fried tofu, anything, all that stuff. Like soul food, vegan food, and just bring it. I would cook enough food for like 10 people, and bring it to a meeting like on a Sunday at 5:00 PM, or drop a plate off to somebody at one in the morning when they're recuperating from being out all night, or whatever the case may be. So I might get called like, \"You got anything?\" \"Give me a second. I got some leftovers from yesterday.\" ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1602.0,1660.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nI'm a little bit curious as to what impact you think introducing those kinds of foods to people who maybe were not already eating that healthily or whatever? Do you think you had an impact on people understanding the food? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1660.0,1681.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nYeah. In my early days, like a lot of vegans in this era of proselytizing, there's always an argument like \"Who's more obnoxious, vegans or New Yorkers?\" And I'm both. \"Or who's more likely to mention it first, a New Yorker or a vegan?\" I happen to be both, so guilty. But I've kind of mellowed. But I do think that when people taste certain... They expect vegan food to be nasty, they expect it to have no flavor. And so, when you bring brown rice with herbs and all this other stuff, and then you bring pinto beans that have been sitting in a pot for three hours in low flame, just simmering, it's like, \"Oh, I didn't expect that.\" So just my whole idea has always been to open people's minds to what plant-based food can be. It doesn't have to be boring, it doesn't have to be dull, or tasteless, it can actually be good. \n\nYou can go without meat for a day if you have the right flavors involved. If it's nasty to you, you're not going to want it. So it's not just telling people to donate pigs and cows and chickens, or fish, you have to give them a viable alternative that actually is palatable and attractive to them. Just like in terms of community work, one of the things, just taking us back to making a connection, one of things in, From The Block Up that Moya tried to really instill and tried to really emphasize, and which I think a lot of people missed in his relationship with them was you have to give something if you're the kid on the block or grown man on the block who maybe makes $2,000 selling weed. You have to give them a viable alternative to that. Otherwise, it's not going to make sense. You can't tell them, \"Go work for McDonald's for $500 to feed your family,\" when it's not going to pay the bills. So you have to build things that are going to be sustainable, that people can buy into and see an alternative to the life that they're living now that people may think is wrong, but you have to really give them an option to buy into. \n\nAnd I see that a very rough analogy to vegan food versus eating meat. In terms of, you have to give people an option. Something is \"bad\" for you, but you have to give them a viable alternative that is more attractive, or just as attractive to them in various ways that would make them consider doing something different. And, no, I didn't just compare meat to drug dealers; it's just an analogy. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1681.0,1865.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nRight. But I am wondering whether you see that same philosophy acting out with these original 50 people that are meeting and even- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1865.0,1884.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nIt's just a rough estimate. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1884.0,1885.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nYeah. But even if the numbers changed over time, and more and more horrendous things are happening in the community by this time, we've got the Emanuel Massacre as well. This idea of offering people an alternative, when it comes to political action, what do you think was being offered as an alternative? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1885.0,1917.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nThat gets a little dicier I think. Not dicier, but it's really not much because in Charleston, in particular, the city is rooted in politeness, it is rooted in maintaining a very well-protected status quo. And so, when you have people who want to go out and shake their fists at the system, but the system itself, although it functions well is not really interested in making all that much change, then there's not that much to do. And I think people got burnt out by that quickly. Maybe even disillusioned in a sense of, \"You can yell and scream all you want, but we're really not interested in putting meat around the bones of changes that make sense for everybody in terms of not just politic equity for the right to vote, but political economic social equity in changing the landscape of Charleston.\" I've been here for 12 years, and it's changed since I've been here, but- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1917.0,1997.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nYou say it has changed since you've been here? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=1997.0,2000.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nYeah. I mean, gentrification's only gotten worse, the price of housing has only increased. It's at the point now where people, black folks in particular who may be on the lower to the middle end just working hard, making $35,000, $40,000 a year cannot afford to live Downtown where they work. And so, yes, everybody's affected by those things, but a culture society like Charleston, which is based unofficially on the backs of black people to not offer any rectification to that, and there was an apology a couple of years ago for slavery, but the effects of-  MILLICENT BROWN\n\nOffered by the city?  TALIM LESSANE\n\nHmm? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2000.0,2060.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nOffered by the city?  TALIM LESSANE\n\nHmm? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2060.0,2060.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nOffered by the city?  TALIM LESSANE\n\nHmm? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2060.0,2060.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nOffered by the city?  TALIM LESSANE\n\nHmm?  MILLICENT BROWN\n\nBy the city? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2060.0,2062.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nRight. By the city. But nothing substantive that I can see actually came with that. There's no incentives for black home ownership, there's no incentives for black business development. All the things that slavery and Jim Crow prevented are still not being supported in terms of rectifying it. It's again, I don't think we talked about – maybe before the camera – was on how there's a politeness or there's a certain framework that black people are expected to forgive and be gracious that is very strongly pervasive in this city. And there's no real interest in allowing anything else. \n\nSo people will go buy baskets and people will go on plantation tours and say, \"Oh, it's awful,\" but they're more than happy to drop $500,000 on a house that raises property values for everybody. And it's not their fault, but there's no way of actually saving homes. There's a whole, what's it called? Not- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2062.0,2151.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nHeirs' Property. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2151.0,2152.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\n—Yes. Nobody's invested in heirs' property, in terms of digging deep into saving people's property that have been there, handed down for generations. So if anybody really was interested in black lives mattering, I know there's proper grammar, but really making Black Lives Matter in terms of every aspect and facet of black lives, the city and individual would invest in protecting heirs' property, and things around that, and connecting the community that was partly destroyed by the Crosstown, that kind of thing. And the things that were done to make Charleston into a tourist town on the backs of black culture, but without actually reinvesting in that same culture. \n\nAnd so, I think the things that need to be done go beyond protesting police brutality, they go beyond doing a roof, shooting up near Emanuel church, and being angry over that. It goes into what people are really invested in, in protecting black life and culture in this city, in this state. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2152.0,2239.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nIf you don't mind, let's go back a little bit to your involvement again, with some of the, in some cases, younger people than yourself. But talk a little bit about what you saw transpiring. You talked about some people got disillusioned, others were just doing the angry protest. Help us understand what the feelings were among people who were rightfully indignant about situations, but what did you see playing out? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2239.0,2284.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nTo be honest, I was in and out, but I can basically say, because I was also trying to raise children at the same time so I couldn't be in every space. But from my sense, like for example, there were people who were protesting, some arrested at one point. And so, people drove up to the Al Cannon Jail and were protesting outside the jail. But it seemed to be, people wanted to make change but weren't really... I'm not sure how to say this. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2284.0,2323.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nDon't censure yourself. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2323.0,2324.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nWe, we needed more structure. I think that was probably the best way from my perspective. Even in terms of getting arrested without making sure bail money was available first. In the civil rights movement, there was a whole structure. They had the bail money, they had the lawyers ready, all that stuff. And so, people would go protest, but then folks would try to raise bail money after the fact as opposed to having it available on the front end. And so, I think that lack of structure and lack of organization, or understanding about how to actually build this thing out to make sure that people are taken care of, was not there. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2324.0,2378.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nTo what do you... I don't want to use the word complain [crosstalk","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2378.0,2379.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"], but to what do you ascribe the lack of organization? I mean, was it not knowing? Was it because certain people were not brought into those discussions? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2379.0,2393.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nI think, there was, and this is somewhat secondhand just from casual observation, but I would say it seems to have been different factions, not factions, but different people who were operating independently. And so, you may have somebody who protested in one area, but it didn't seem to be a streamlined, organized plan that went through central figures or went through a head. It was more independent. And so, when you have people who do get arrested or who do get picked up or do certain things, it wasn't necessarily that it was planned that way. \n\nFor example, like when Rosa Parks before obviously, but when Rosa Parks got arrested, this old mythology of her back in… was it in '54, just the little old lady who got arrested for would not want to give up her seat, that was planned. They actually had her get on the bus on purpose. And I don't need to tell you this, the sit-ins and so forth, they practiced for days. I didn't see a lot of practice, if that makes sense. And so, I think it was just a more matter of people wanting to get their anger out, or getting their frustration with the system out, but not having the patience to strategize enough so that it would really have a lasting impact. And I think that's where the burn outcomes, because if you do the same things over and over again and get the same result... ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2393.0,2502.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nYeah, yeah. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2502.0,2504.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nThat's probably the most I could say on that safely. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2504.0,2506.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nYeah. No, we appreciate that because certainly one of the goals ideally for talking to people like yourself is lessons learned. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2506.0,2520.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nRight. Well I would say this to add on, I think that's one of the reasons why Black Lives Matter in Charleston faded after Moya got killed in New Orleans in 2018 because people looked at him as, not a savior, but they looked at his example but he didn't necessarily want to be that. He had other work he wanted to do. He was trying to pull back. And so, it left all these independent operators in a sense who basically had no head to look to. And so, it just in a sense fell apart. And there are other people who picked up the Black Lives Matter Facebook page, but people were contributing to that in ways that weren't necessarily agreeable to those of us who were in that, I guess inner circle in a sense. So it just got shut down basically. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2520.0,2581.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nAnd it won't be the first movement to have faced that same fate for sure. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2581.0,2586.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nRight. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2586.0,2587.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nBecause we know that, fast forward 5, 10 years from now, somebody, some young person perhaps, some researcher will be listening to your words, to this tape, what is it that you would want for the record that you shared about how to go for the, as people have always referred to the marathon as opposed to the sprint? Is there anything that from your own personal experiences, professional training and involvement in the community, what are the words that you think are most important to leave for those coming behind you? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2587.0,2647.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nI'm a fan of Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and it is not something he really made up, he just sort of borrowed from philosophy that have been around for thousands of years, obviously. But the idea of beginning with the end in mind, I think is crucial. Some of us, yourself included, want Charleston to look a certain way, want diversity, equity to look a certain way, to have the freedom to not just forgive but to actually seek resources and make people move the needle a little bit. And I would say don't overburden yourself, but find a place that you feel comfortable with, whether it's donating again to like supporting saving heirs' property, whether it's being active with public transportation to make sure it's accessible and more available to more people and pushing the government to provide more ready resources around those things. \n\nWhether it's pushing the city or the county to develop job development for youth, so that there's a viable alternative because I've been here for... In 12 years, once you hit past 12, 13 years old, there's really nothing for young people. I would not want to be a teenager in Charleston, to be honest with you. Having raised them, having worked with teenagers almost every day in some sense for 12 years now, I wouldn't want to be a teenager here because there's nothing to do. There's a Mayor's Youth Commission he asked kids what they want to do, but there's no real teeth to it. And that started before Tecklenburg, it started I'm sure before Riley. It's pushing the government and/or even independent businesses to provide things that will allow people to move forward from the most vulnerable up. \n\nA couple of years ago, there was a thing with the kids selling roses that were pushed from the market, and there were activists who worked with the city to allow them to sell in certain areas. They kind of resolved that. So that's the kind of thing that can be done rather than just when the cops are arresting kids or they're shooing them away, that doesn't solve anything because the point of them being out there is for them to do something safely to raise money for themselves and to learn entrepreneurship. They may be harassing people because they haven't been taught social skills, so put something in place for them to learn entrepreneurship, social development, to learn how to actually do customer service properly and support them in a way that's not accessible to them currently. \n\nThat's the solution. Not giving a cop to kick them out somewhere else because tourists are uncomfortable. Reach back and develop that whole process so that they can do it \"the right way\" on a broader scale. And more of that needs to be done, but there just seems to be no vested interest in it, so people who want to be involved, at the very least, push the city to do more things for youth and for low-income people and for housing rights and all that kind of stuff. If you raise enough voices in a singular enough fashion, eventually people will have to listen. But if there's people talking here and here and here, then it's easy to ignore all of it. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2647.0,2896.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nDo you feel optimistic about be it the city, the county, or even- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2896.0,2909.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nNo. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2909.0,2912.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nI don't even have to finish that question. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2912.0,2914.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nYou don't need to finish the question, I don't. I pretty much see it staying the same. That's why I kind of stay in my lane in a sense of, I know I can have an impact on a 14-year-old ninth grader at Burke High School who wants to go to college, and turning that young person into somebody who can change the world if they choose to. That's where my greatest impact is one at a time or 90 at a time. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2914.0,2953.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nThank you, Talim. We appreciate it. Are there any other comments that you want to make before we close out? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2953.0,2961.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nI would just say, I just think there's...I really…wanted to just give honor to— I talked about him before, but I miss Moya. I really do like- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2961.0,2978.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nDon't we all? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2978.0,2981.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nWe would talk for five minutes or hours at a time like behind the scenes. He wanted what I had in terms of raising a family, just having a quote-unquote \"normal life.” In that sense, he was trying to get away from— he didn't want to be this rebel figurehead per se, he was trying to do things that could really better people from a broad scope and get back to doing the community work that he had planned. That's why he went to New Orleans to kind of learn from activists there and pick up nuggets from people around the country in a sense. \n\nBut we would talk about spirituality, we would talk about community and history, and how all of it plays together in a way that I think a lot of people just didn't see because they wanted pieces of him, and he was just tired. But I'd just want on the record to say that a lot of people miss him for a lot of the same reasons, but I just want to make sure that his master's degree work and his community work and his heart and his mind, his brilliant mind don't get left behind in this whole conversation. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=2981.0,3080.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nI really appreciate that because we've seen even with what has happened with the image of Martin Luther King, that if we're not very careful, these marvelous people can be mischaracterized. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3080.0,3096.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nRight. Even like with his famous leap for justice, he walked by me and one of our friends, we were in line to see Bree Newsome back I think it was 2017, 2018. And he said- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3096.0,3107.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nBree Newsome the young women who climbed—  to pull the flag down? [crosstalk ]- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3107.0,3109.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"]- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3109.0,3109.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"]-  TALIM LESSANE\n\nWe were here to see her speak, and then you had all the fools across the street. He walked by us and said to our other friend like, \"Literally I'm about to go get me a flag.\" And he was like, \"What?\" And next we know, he was running across the street. I actually watched him do it. And I was like, \"You crazy.\" And then a couple of days later I just happened to be in my office, and when I went to go eat lunch, I walked out and he just happened to be walking across the street coming to get his bike right where he left it. \n\nAnd so we just talked for like an hour. I just happened to be going to lunch at the same time he came back to get his bike. But that kind of synchronicity happened with a lot of people with him because that sense of spirit is something that connected him to everybody in that way. He didn't have to explain it, it just happened. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3109.0,3176.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nBut I appreciate that, because several people have talked on record about what Moya meant to them and to the movement, but- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3176.0,3184.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nThat's my little brother. Beyond everything else, he was my little brother. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3184.0,3194.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nThe idea that he had multiple, and he individually but people like him had multiple talents to share. And I thank you for making sure that we're reminded of that and not see him in some narrow context as just sort of a rabble-rouser. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3194.0,3218.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nRight. And my main thing with him was just to care for yourself first, which was hard because there were so many people pulling on him, but that was always my consistent message to him was like, \"Take care of yourself first.\" ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3218.0,3231.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nSo that's again, part of the message that you're leaving for folks in the future as well? ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3231.0,3236.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nYes. And I've said the same thing for people who have tried to pick up that mantle after he was killed and so forth. It's always, \"If you burn out your own torch, you can't light the way for anybody else.\" ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3236.0,3254.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nMm-hmm. Well, we appreciate the wisdom of that, and again, thank you so much for joining us for the project. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3254.0,3263.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"TALIM LESSANE\n\nThank you for having me. I just want to say on the record, again I didn't want to do this at first, and then when I was told that interviews were being done by Millicent Brown, I said, \"Why didn't you just lead with that?\" So you are- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3263.0,3276.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383/transcript/84165/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nThank you, Talim.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/160073/file/291383#t=3276.0,3278.5"}]}]}]}