History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. History tells a people where they have been and what they have been, where they are and what they are. Most importantly, an understanding of history tells a people where they must go and what they still must be.

(John Henrik Clarke, p.11)

How do you view the role and relationship between history and self-understanding?

WE CAME FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE NILE.

(Ancient Indigenous Egyptians and Nubians)

Describe home and community in your own words.

I had no idea that they would ultimately lead to my understanding that the African Diaspora is indeed global and that communities of this Diaspora share commonalities that they usually have no idea they share. They also continue to have links with their continent of origin that they don’t usually know they have—ancestral connections often integral to revealing what they share.

(Dr. Walker, Cultural Anthropologist)

A social theory determines the destiny of a people by establishing guidelines of life. It defines their relationship with other living things, it defines values and rituals, methods of education, how enemies are to be dealt with, etc. The ultimate achievement of a Black social theory would be the recreation of Black culture.

( Bobby E. Wright, p.33)

What is your guiding framework? What are the problems you are ready to confront, address, and solve?

What are the words you do not have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own?

(Audre Lorde, p.14)

I reside at the intersections of historical consciousness, the development of personhood, collective liberation, and optimal mental health.

Hence, the birth of Liberation Social Work™. My particular approach to optimizing wellness, fostering self-knowledge, promoting dignity, affirming cultural diversity, and cultivating critical and cultural consciousness.

How do you situate yourself, with all of your lived experiences and multi-stories, in the context of human service and transformation?