to Black writers who feel that their work and words are useless: remember Ida B. Wells. remember the Black female journalist, activist and feminist who wrote on mass lynchings in the 1800s when no-one else could, for fear of dying, who wielded her words for the cause and lived.

i’d never heard of Ida til i did my fabled a-levels History coursework on the Civil Rights Movement and when i read her story - witnessed her drive to write what no-one else dared, to speak and be heard, and the incredible impact she had as an early CRM leader, it changed me.

she did so much, in her lifetime, but it’s her work on the lynchings — literally as they happened, during what was essentially the birth of the K/K/K — that i first read, and it was that work that truly drove home the invaluable and wicked power of writing as activism.

she fought in every way possible - refused to give up her seat to white men and was physically dragged from it; risked her life to fight the KKK with her journalism; went head to head with other leaders + activists in the CRM over her specifically Black, feminist beliefs.

she did more than i can feasibly put into this thread - toured the USA and UK, speaking to Black + white people alike, persuading and agitating + inspiring; she understood + investigated the complexities of the horrors of white supremacy, + did it with a target on her back

she fought white suffragettes on their silence and refused to *be* silenced; lost her job, the support of many fellow activists time + agin and almost her life. she fought against silence with her words and as a Black writer, i find her more inspiring than i can put into words

@ other Black writers - remember the power of what you do. remember that your gift is a weapon, a defence, evidence and documentation of a reality that white and non-Black people will try time and time again to dispute, to ignore, to silence.

don’t let them. at all cost, write.

and to Black artists (which ofc includes writers) - the value of your art is unimaginable. make it. don’t ignore the call to use your gifts, your skills, to do all you can to help and when you can’t bear to make another piece on the pain we all bear, make something else

just... don’t stop making art. we are needed. i am needed, and i need you, too