Intersectionality is not additive. It’s fundamentally reconstitutive. Pass it on.
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Kimberlé Crenshaw
@sandylocks
Professor and ; Executive Director ; Host ; Views expressed here are my own!
NY, LA, SF & Canton, OHJoined May 2009
Kimberlé Crenshaw’s posts
I voted for today b/c she listens to Black women, understands that “Economic justice has not ever been sufficient to ensure racial justice,” admits mistakes, is a tough broad, and b/c we now see how not having a leader w/ a plan costs lives. dailysoundandfury.com/the-root-ranke
A sick racist is still a racist. Keep the pedal to the metal. He's gotta go.
While many of us see her as one of the last true warriors, to her family she was a mother and a grandmother. Let’s not forget in our angst the mourning of the people who loved her.
In a school named after Robert E. Lee, in a majority Black school, Amy Donofrio was fired for displaying a Black Lives Matter flag in her classroom. Just think about the message in that--Robert E. Lee is fine, but asserting the value of lives he fought to enslave, not ok.
We want answers. We must demand them.
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Priscilla Slater died in police custody on Wednesday. Harper Woods Police Department are refusing to provide her family with full information. Call or email the Harper Woods Police Department to demand justice. #SayHerName
Phone: 313-343-2530
Email: vsmith@harperwoods.net
If we thought the problem and the solution to the tragedy of Breonna Taylor was simply prosecuting these cops, then we’re not understanding the broader systemic conditions that allow for the kind of policing that disproportionately imperils Black Americans...
"A Black woman having a baby in America is like a Black man in a traffic stop." It's that lethal. A stunning reality lifted up in the phenomenal documentary, "Aftershock," screening now at Sundance. See it if you can. Heartbreaking. Infuriating.
Who knew there was a Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, the same year as Woodstock, that 300k Black people attended? With Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Nina Simone, Herbie Hancock & more? I didn't!! Watching Summer of Soul doc at Sundance now. Look for it. Another history recovered.
1. Racism: When Zimmerman racially profiles and murders a Black teenager.
2. Institutionalized Racism: when every branch of government works to let him get away with it. Period. #TrayvonMartinStory
Let’s not kid ourselves: This woman believed that if she called the cops and said a Black man was threatening her, they’d kill him. She knew exactly what she was doing.
This is whiteness vividly and unmistakably weaponized. twitter.com/melodyMcooper/
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The John Lewis Voting Rights Restoration Act would be a living tribute to the man who almost died to secure the right to vote, and did not live to see it restored. “We have to change that. We must change it and we will.” John Lewis
While it's personally dispiriting to see your work targeted in bad faith, what's more distressing to me is that the lives of women of color I've written about are being diminished and erased in a political moment in which we need their stories most.
"When people tell me that intersectionality marginalizes class, I say no, intersectionality is what we need to understand why it’s been so difficult to mount a fully class-centric movement."
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It's Friday. A day shy of three months since #BreonnaTaylor was murdered.
Arrest the officers who murdered Breonna Taylor.
Adam Serwer: "To say the system worked in this case is like saying your car made it home—after your entire family had to get out and push it miles down a dirt road."
It’s Juneteenth. I’ll be testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee this morning.
So...about the Central Park 5? They'd be dead if Trump had his way...
We cannot begin to address the obscene injustices in this country without grappling with whiteness -- not as a simplistic racial categorization, but as a deeply structured relationship to power and group entitlement.
An infuriating example of the difference that difference makes.
#SayHerName is a campaign to reverse the invisibility of Black women killed by the police, and the long legacy of state-sanctioned violence against Black women that has repeatedly been erased.
The debauched right-wing use of #SayHerName is a continuation of that erasure.
Right! Today we celebrate, congratulate and appreciate. Tomorrow, we must fight--not against division but white supremacy, not against patrioism but fascism, not against difference but dominance. We can never make peace with any of Trumpism. Nor abandon those most harmed by it.
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This celebration, for me, is about Trump’s eviction and the power of Black organizers to unseat a president.
In our 2015 #SayHerName report, we highlighted that sexual misconduct is the second most common form of police misconduct.
Patriarchy manifests violently in law enforcement. A robust critique of the police state must incorporate this disgusting reality.
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Brett Hankinson, one of the officers who murdered #BreonnaTaylor and who's been accused of sexually assaulting two women, is a member of the Louisville Police Merit Board, which reviews police officer disciplinary appeals.
The officers who murdered Breonna must be arrested *NOW*
Black women killed by police are no less grieved by their loved ones. Their lives are no less worthy of being celebrated and uplifted.
They are not afterthoughts.
Happy birthday, #BreonnaTaylor.
#SayHERName
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Today, #BreonnaTaylor should be celebrating her 27th birthday. She would be celebrating if not for the Louisville police officers who stormed into her home and murdered her.
We lift up Breonna's story and celebrate her life. #SayHerName
To win the coming policy battles, intersectionality must be embraced not as a buzzword, but as a political necessity.
The more we know about #BreonnaTaylor's killing, the more we know that it wasn't just some "bad apples" acting recklessly. It was the result of a toxic ecosystem that operates with Black precarity at its core.
We haven't forgotten you, Breonna. #SayHerName.
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We haven't forgotten you. We won't stop fighting for you. #BreonnaTaylor #SayHerName
My first thought upon waking this morning was a prayer that nobody dies trying to vote today.
This is the world Trump made, a place where the resurrected monster of white supremacy freely roams. If that's not enough to vote him out, I don't know what is.
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Healing requires disinfecting the wound, not ignoring it. And holding those accountable for inflicting it. This emerging "let bygones be bygones" is why Black folks who saved the US the first time it broke lived in hell for a century after. Not even trying to do that again.
Got caught up and forgot to tweet until I read someone call intersectionality dangerous today... So for those who want to really know rather than stereotype try this.......Kimberlé Crenshaw on What Intersectionality Means Today | Time
The far right has mobilized around Trump's Equity Gag Order, which labels ideas like intersectionality and critical race theory as "un-American."
Today, in a win for social justice, a judge issued a nationwide injunction preventing the implementation of this Executive Order.
“If we do this unified as a league, it looks different. Because this league is close to if not over 80% Black women. We have cousins, we have brothers, we have sisters, mothers, everyone. We matter ... I’m tired of telling people that.” This...so powerful. Thank you W/NBA.
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Center @E_Williams_1 reads statement on @espn as the representative for all @WNBA players. Tonight's games have been cancelled.
Intersectionality
Structural racism
Critical race theory
White supremacy
Implicit bias
White privilege
These ideas help many people understand social injustice. And that's exactly why Trump and his co-conspirators want them banned.
This had me shaking my head. In the midst of a pandemic, with panicked people cleaning out shelves like crazy, one thing was left untouched at Wholefoods. Wanna guess where? Of course, I'm now happily cooking a big pot, but ya'll who know what I'm talkinbout please caption this:
So woke up to the news that CRT is banned as the greatest threat to Western Civilization. This is McCarthyism 101. I've often wondered what our allies would do when they came for us. Now we'll see.
bitly.ws/9DEr
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It’s been six months since Louisville police officers murdered Breonna Taylor. We won’t forget about you. We won’t stop fighting for you. #SayHerName
Acquitted. All fucking charges. Understand what this means.
"Intersectionality is a uniting framework...Black people are not just straight. They're not just men. They're not just middle class. When we expand our understanding of Black reality...it means we have connections with other movements and other people."
Brittney's wife speaks the truth: "If I can’t trust you to catch a Saturday call outside of business hours, how can I trust you to actually be negotiating on my wife’s behalf to come home? Because that’s a much bigger ask than to catch a Saturday call.”
And lest we forget that not all skin folk are kinfolk in the struggle for racial just, one son of Georgia put his life on the line to birth to Voting Rights Act, and another one—Clarence Thomas—cast a deciding vote to kill it. The costs of asymmetric solidarity. Any questions?
"Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, murdered nine innocent African Americans at Mother Emanuel AME Church, and police managed to capture him alive. Brooks wounded a police officer’s pride and appears to have been executed for it." Eugene Robinson,
It’s been 134 days. We won’t stop fighting. #sayHERname
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The New York Liberty play and demand justice for #BreonnaTaylor. #SayHerName
nyliberty.com/justiceforbreo
This.
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Today's decisions from the Supreme Court on Affirmative Action represent a significant setback for Civil Rights in the U.S. and are a cornerstone of the conservative movement's coordinated effort to roll back access to opportunity for systemically marginalized Americans.
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Before #BreonnaTaylor, there was #MichelleCusseaux -- a Black woman killed by police when they barged into her house on a mental health call. Michelle’s death, and her mother’s activism, began the #SayHerName campaign. Read more and support the movement: AAPF.org
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Michelle Cusseaux was shot and killed by Phoenix police during a mental wellness check.
Say her name.
And let's not forget that Clarence Thomas--our lone Black justice--was the deciding vote gutting the VRA. And while you're shaking your head about that, remember how he won that seat--when millions of people flocked to his defense when Anita Hill told her truth. Misogynoir kills.
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Today marks 7 years since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.
Since then, states with a history of voter suppression have closed 1,688 polling places throughout the South.
It couldn't be more blatant:
We should not need to see graphic video of a Black person being killed by police to know that Black Lives Matter. Tyre Nichols should be alive today, and our hearts are with his family, friends and community.
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In one video, Tyre Nichols is shown on the ground with officers around him, and he can be heard repeatedly screaming: “Mom, Mom, Mom.” Lawyers have said that his mother’s home was about 100 yards away from where he was beaten. nyti.ms/3HE7apV
This is what it looks like when the dogwhistle becomes a bullhorn.
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I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood...
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We have to be united in our protest of censorship and in our fight for the freedom of ideas. This is about more than one politician or the AP curriculum. This is about protecting ourselves against creeping authoritarianism and all the discrimination that comes with it.
The most effective propaganda is the kind that calls the truth propaganda.
30 years ago today, Anita Hill became an exemplar of courage, but believing her was the road not taken by millions of Americans. Our community and our nation have paid a steep price for this failure ever since.
I finally took a moment to read Judge Cahill’s sentencing memo in the trial of Derrick Chauvin and I’m appalled. Buried deep in Judge Cahill’s justification for Chauvin’s sentence is a shocking disregard of the trauma inflicted on the Black girls who witnessed Floyd’s murder.
If even Serena gets overpoliced, on the world stage, with millions at stake, for the world to see, in a Grand Slam final, just think happens to many of us every day. Implicit bias on display? Probably, yup. #USOpen
Breonna Taylor's murder forced every Black woman to confront a horrifying fact: “Breonna could easily be me.”
Honored to have partnered with and . Here's my essay, "Breonna Taylor and Bearing Witness to Black Women’s Expendability."
Make no mistake: This is the President of the United States threatening to kill Americans.
It will only get worse, and he will only drift further toward authoritarian white nationalism as the election nears.
He sees it as his path to “victory.” Don’t let him be right.
What is happening in Florida, as reported by , is state-sponsored censorship and it is wrong. Our universities, students and national discourse benefit when we are free to teach and learn about racism and anti-racist ideas like CRT.
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The problem with racism is not that people know it exists and are being trained on how to do better. The problem with racism is racism. And today, tragically, makes that all the more clear.
So here, in 60 secs, CRT de-mystified. Watch, share, and challenge the lies that are being used to justify the GOP repression of history, knowledge, and justice.
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So what is Critical Race Theory, really? And why is it so important?
Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks) sets the record straight on CRT and the right's disinformation campaign in our latest video. Watch and share:
Imagine what would happen if massively armed POC fueled by anti-white rhetoric of a Black president poised for re-election with foreign help & race hatred, killed scores of people & his party refused to denounce and opponents failed to impeach? People would be in the streets.
Kathryn Johnston was 92 years old when plainclothes police officers burst into her home in a botched drug raid. They fired 39 shots at her. They killed her.
#SayHerName #BreonnasLaw
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These 5 Black women were all killed by police in Georgia. Take some time to learn their stories today. Their lives mattered. #SayHerName
Come through come THROUGH! He cannot apologize his way out of the trauma he caused, directing police to ride through our communities like slave patrols, “throwing” countless Black & Latino men against the wall to “fight crime.” Speak that truth to power! #TeamWarren
"The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free." Beautiful, haunting, and true in every way. Thank you "No One Is Coming to Save Us"
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When there is progress, there is always retrenchment. There is momentum behind anti-racist and intersectional frameworks to help American students understand history and make sense of justice. The pushback now is from the forces that stand against multiracial democracy.
Textbook case of what I call asymmetric solidarity, as in, ya’ll ride or die for me but don’t expect me to do the same for you. This is the worst of it but by far not the only example of sisters being thrown under the bus by the same people we have supported.
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Beyond disappointing. Terry Crews could have spoken to his experience without going overboard to discredit @itsgabrielleu. BTW, I didn’t have to know Terry Crews or see what happened to him to support him. Sadly, black women are used to this. twitter.com/IWriteAllDay_/…
I'm devastated for Brittney Griner and her family. For months, we have failed to free her while she was inhumanely detained. A Black, Queer woman is being exploited as a political pawn of war and unjustly imprisoned. She deserves freedom and safety. #JusticeForBrittneyGriner
End qualified immunity.
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Never would have thought a Tik Tok on qualified immunity would have 575K views
The Right has repeated the lie so often that they may actually believe that King would have opposed CRT. This is the consequence of their power to redefine reality. We must not acquiesce. We must reclaim him and our story. "
Just wondering why Biden couldn’t say Trump can’t afford to denounce white supremacists because he’d lose his radical right wing, storm troopers, and violent provocateurs? And Wallace can’t nail Trump for refusing to denounce right wing murderers, even murderers of cops?
We must address the lethality of intersectional vulnerability.
My statement, with , in support of those who have been intentionally scapegoated and made unsafe by the reinvigoration of anti-Asian racism — fully inclusive of its misogyny:
Happily, proudly, and gratefully vaccinated today! Surprised how bright the sky looks even though it's a cloudy day. Hate needles but I've got a new attitude now. C'mon second dose! Bring it on!
Thanks so much, Selena! What an honor.
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Today, @sandylocks takes over my Instagram. Please check it out and follow her too! instagram.com/selenagomez?ig
Karma is a powerful thing.
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Donald Trump built his real estate empire evicting people of color.
Today, people of color evicted Donald Trump.
And this. The only way the disregard of our lives won't be met with business-as-usual attitudes is if we don't meet the disregard of our lives with business-as-usual attitudes. Thank you WNBA, NBA, and for making this plain.
So...predictions about the Republican spin on this? Postpone the election? Declare a national emergency? Demand Biden to suspend campaigning? What’s it gonna be? I say imagine the craziest thing—and then the reality will be crazier.
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Breaking News: President Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, throwing the nation’s leadership and his re-election campaign into uncertainty.
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“These women’s names have slipped through our consciousness because there are no frames for us to see them, no frames for us to remember them, no frames for us to hold them.”
#sayHERname
Our demands for justice and accountability MUST include the stories and perspectives of Black women and girls who are killed by the police.
Learn their names. Remember their stories. #SayHerName
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Will you learn their names?
Will you remember their stories?
"The United States can neither know nor heal itself if its self-narrative is dictated by the white nationalist right, its political and deep-pocket enablers, and those who stand aside as the march toward racialized violence and authoritarianism passes by."
This is unbearable. Just this weekend I revisited her testimony after reading how Judge Cahill denied that she'd been traumatized after witnessing Floyd's murder. She worried about precisely this - - her own family members losing lives to police. And here it is, exactly her fear.
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Minneapolis police killed Darnella Frazier's uncle last night. She has posted about it on FB & shared the funding link: gofund.me/62d1d5bb
This is why Pulitzer prizes etc nothing in the face of the police violence those who record interactions face directly & indirectly.
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I'm incredibly proud to be part of this critical effort to change the narrative about race and Reconstruction. Premiering April 9th on PBS, this series isn't just about our past, but about the...
No unelected body should have the power to strip people of their human right to autonomy, especially an institution as plagued by controversy, illegitimacy, and naked partisanship as the United States Supreme Court. on #DobbsVJWHO #RoeVWade #LiberateAbortion
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"Our bodies were loot. The forced extraction of our labor was loot. A system of governance that suppressed our wages, relieved us of property and excluded black people from equal schools and public accommodations is a form of looting." - Robin D.G. Kelley in today's
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Should the theft of sneakers and computers become our obsession when the police are bashing the heads of protesters? writes the historian Robin D.G. Kelley nyti.ms/37H4t2W
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These are historical and structural problems. And now, even the effort to understand this sort of structural racism is being imperiled by people like President Trump, who is trying to eliminate anti-racism discourse...
For doubters about whether white privilege exists, I give you Exhibits A-C: For staging an attempted coup, occupying the capitol & attacking cops, you're a patriot not a thug; a protester, not a treasonist insurrectionist & you get to walk out, not be carried out. Any questions?
Gotta say, I just love this for too many reasons!
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The mail-in ballots pic.twitter.com/dKnULySeR5
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If Black people were immune to the coronavirus, their mortality rate in 2020 would still surpass white people's.
If you need to know the difference that difference makes, read this gut-wrenching piece -- twice if you have to:
Missing for a week, police found Toyin only “by accident" when they went looking for Victoria Sims, a white woman. Shattering, infuriating story of misogynoir in police utter disregard for Black girls' lives. BLM means no more of this, too. jezebel.com/the-short-life via
So let’s get this right. Trump denounces CRT—IDEAS about racial justice—as such a threat to our society that it must be “extinguished” but tells white supremacists— who MAIM and KILL people—to “stand by.” If this isn’t exposed and unpacked then the media aren’t doing their jobs.
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White Supremacist President Refuses to Disavow White Supremacist Street Gang; Gives Them Marching Orders Instead
The headline that very paper should lead with tomorrow morning.
As we learn the shocking truth about Ulvade, do lift up the name of Aaron Salter, Jr., a true hero whose willingness to fight in the face of possible death no doubt saved lives. Do not forget.
Juneteenth must be more than a symbol.
Please watch & share 's video below, then read our full statement on anti-racism education in schools & colleges: bit.ly/3cT6NrG
#TruthBeTold
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Stand up for racial justice. We need to fight back against this repressive censorship campaign like our lives depend on it— because they do.
Watch and share our new video with @sandylocks:
Intersectionality, explained: meet Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term - Vox. Plenty of food for thought for our conversation tonight—Mythbusting IntersectionalityUK. Live-streamed today! vox.com/the-highlight/
Now this is a drop - the - mic response to lies about CRT from the one and only Mari Matsuda. Nothing like an OG to talk about what actually happened at its moment of inception. And it's continuation.
So, just to be clear, the GOP will not hold a thug accountable for endangering their own lives, so imagine what message this is sending about the lives of the rest of us. And the Dems failure to leave it all on the field is a gargantuan mistake of unimaginable consequences. Imho.
This year with all the madness this was exactly what I needed. Thanks to my fam—born, chosen, extended, and not-yet-met for sending love, support, and joy.
I was speechless after watching that press conference. Thanks for laying out what was so bone-chilling about what was named (his "bad day") and what was not named-the misogynistic dimensions of anti-Asian racism. To reckon, we have to denounce every bit of it.
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The refusal to name anti-Asianess, racism, white supremacy, misogyny, or class in this is whiteness doing what it always does around justifying its death-dealing. The centering of the suspect’s “rage” vs the vulnerability of the victims is also disgustingly familiar. twitter.com/nowthisnews/st…
My latest op ed argues that “The call to defund the police might thus be framed more accurately, and broadly, as the mandate to dismantle the hyper-militaristic, racist functions of the police... defunding the police needs to be a call for the de-weaponizing of white supremacy.
Woke up to see the whitewashing of Bush II’s legacy. Trust that I have a piece coming in tomorrow that shows Katrina NOT as an example of Presidential leadership, but as an illustration of the dismissal of Black humanity.
COVID is history, rinsed and repeated.
She remembers their laughter the most, two friends having a good time at her expense. Heartbreaking. Remember this moment when Kavanaugh issues his categorical denial. Watch how the sheer authority of male power overtakes the trauma we just saw. #KavanaughHearings
We rarely acknowledge that breeding Black women and removing their children built the wealth of this country. We never acknowledge how the ideology that grew around this practice impacts Black women and families today. Don't miss "What Slavery Engendered."
We began #SayHerName as an act of bearing witness. It is a campaign grounded in the belief that while the names of Black women killed by police are not on our tongues, their mothers don’t grieve for them any less, and their children don’t miss them any less.
He would have been 93 today. Thank you Bernice, for reminding us that behind this holiday was a father, a husband, a person who enjoyed life. His loss was and continues to be immeasurable.
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A favorite photo of my parents. What a genuine, joyful smile. And I wanted to share it with you on Daddy’s 93rd birthday.
#MLK #MLKDay #CorettaScottKing
