Patrice Hill

I struggle every day because I’m Black

I struggle every day because I stand out in society

I struggle every day because I talk different

I struggle every day because I dress different

I struggle every day because the place I come from

I struggle every day because I’m Black

—SAYS student, in-class journal free-write

Something detrimental happens to Black children when the only history they are exposed to in school is their ancestors being battered and in bondage. As a teaching artist, it is my duty to intentionally integrate and blend art, social justice, history, hip-hop, and current events in a historical and present context to help make learning more engaging, student centered, exciting, and empowering.

One of the most consistent and powerful ways I engage with Black youth in Sacramento is through my work as director of Sacramento Area Youth Speaks (SAYS). Founded in 2008 at UC Davis, SAYS strives to change the world through education and empowerment. Building on a foundation of critical literacy and spoken word performance poetry, SAYS breaks the chains of underachievement by elevating the voices of young people and creating spaces for students to become authors of their own lives and agents of change. Through SAYS I have been given access to a wide array of schools throughout the Sacramento region. I have facilitated residencies in more than twenty-five schools in the region and worked with thousands of students. Black youth are experiencing life in a way they often do not get the opportunity to explain, but they do have something to say.

Before the Black Child Legacy Campaign was created, there were small and intentional movements designed to improve the health and well-being of Black children in Sacramento, such as SAYS. An overwhelming number of youth murders occurred across the city of Sacramento in 2016. These violent and unprecedented murders disproportionately were of Black children. Before we understood the technical term “third-party homicide,” we knew that Black children were victims of violence and homicide at an alarming rate and that the aftermath and trauma from these homicides were a detriment to the livelihood of Black children in Sacramento. The Sacramento Office of Violence Prevention (directed by Khaalid Muttaqi at the time) put out an RFP for curbing youth violence in the city. The call was simple: keep Black children alive. SAYS applied for these funds, and Project HEAL was born.

After SAYS was granted these violence prevention funds, we met with the administration at Luther Burbank High School to plan how to use these funds to support Black children at the school site during the school day. Although there were generously funded academic and cultural interventions for Black males on campus, Black girls were consistently left out of targeted interventions aimed at improving academic outcomes and social emotional health. The school administrators recommended that the SAYS grant be directed to Black females, who were creating and perpetuating a culture of violence and hostility at the school. Fighting, arguing, and disputes over social media were just some of the destructive behaviors exhibited by Black girls that were not conducive to a positive learning environment for them.

Project HEAL (Healing/Health, Education, Activism and Leadership) is a credited, elective course on the high school level, which is delivered every day of the week in a cohort-style format. It exclusively and unapologetically addresses the experiences of Black students and other students of color who are disproportionately confronting oppressive social systems, including their schools. Project HEAL is geared toward students who are having challenges with finding culturally relevant and supportive systems of care within school and are experiencing difficulties translating their brilliance into academic success.¹ It is one of the small but critical pieces of a focused effort to empower and serve Black children within the classroom walls. I am honored to have a stake and a leg in this work.

Maybe there’s a youth posted near your block right now

Having to make the choice of being broke and go to school or come up

The only way they know how

It may seem crazy, but poetry can save lives

So, if spoken word can save soul then why don’t more youth know

They can make school their hustle and be like the rose that grows through the concrete

Like Tupac told you and me

Every Black child deserves to have a legacy

—Patrice Hill, “Every Black Child Deserves to Have a Legacy”

In Black Sacramento, violence had become a normal occurrence in the life of the community; unfortunately, the accompanying trauma was also normal. Project HEAL began two years before the Black Child Legacy Campaign was initiated but aligns directly with the BCLC’s mission and vision of creating safe and healing spaces for Black children to live and thrive in Sacramento. If spaces for Black children to thrive do not exist in the schools they attend, we must build them.

As an educator with and for Black children, I am most involved in the BCLC’s targeted prevention effort, “Issue 4: Third-Party Homicides.” The BCLC defines third-party homicides as the killing of a child by a person with or without malice aforethought, where the perpetrator is not the primary caregiver. I have shown up in classrooms with Black children the Monday after a Black child is murdered on the weekend, attempting to make sense of the loss of another innocent Black child’s life and to hold space for the Black children left to mourn the child who looked like them. For Black children and youth practitioners in Sacramento, third-party homicide is an unfortunate recurring tragedy that plagues the Black Sacramento community.

The reality is that Black children are forced to internalize the fact that Sacramento streets are not safe for them to live in, walk, drive, and thrive. Sacramento streets are borderlands where Black children must grapple with the grief of the continuous killings in and through these green-and-white sign streets. SAYS created healing-centered spaces with culturally relevant and supportive adults who help youth process grief.

The youth out here dying in the streets

We trying to Advance Peace

The youth searching for peace

So some carry piece to maintain peace

But the pain of Black child slain on the concrete

Means no peace and the cycle repeats

How long the is the cycle going to repeat

How many more funerals to attend for you and me?

Every Black child deserves to have a legacy!

—Patrice Hill, “Every Black Child Deserves to Have a Legacy”

Art is always needed to transform the culture of a city. SAYS has been in consistent partnership with the BCLC since its inception, participating in a myriad of events centered around bringing voice to and empowerment of Black children’s and communities’ stories through a focused effort on the preservation of life, voice, and resiliency of Black children. As a Black educator facilitating spaces of healing through intensive writing workshops based on the principles of poetry and spoken word, I employ the same pedagogical tools used with students inside the classroom for the core constituents in various BCLC Community Incubator Lead spaces.

I have curated innovative workshops at the BCLC annual GLORY (Giving, Love to, Our, Rising Youth) Conference and multiple BCLC events such the Kings and Queens Rise, Juneteenth Community Celebrations, and many youth and community pop-ups. Most notably I created the Black Child Legacy Poetic Service Announcement, which is used as a culturally relevant literacy tool to elevate the mission, vision, and urgency of the BCLC on an artistic platform.² My poem titled “Every Black Child Deserves to Have a Legacy” is both an honest and compassionate reflection of the goals of BCLC and reflects my experience teaching in middle and high schools across Sacramento: Take these liquor stores out our hoods and give us, us free

Even if all we have is this poetry

Let it be enough to swim through this poverty

Let it build legacies

Let it empower Black children to be free

Let is strengthen you and me to be here for these beautiful Black children to able to build legacies

—Patrice Hill, “Every Black Child Deserves to Have a Legacy”

There must be a shared understanding that there is not one program or movement that will save all Black children. We must continue to work in partnership with one another to do all we can in our specific fields and using our specific expertise to save and empower Black children. How do we build legacies when freedom isn’t free?

As an educator, I am often faced with the reality that most of the Black children I work with in K–12 public school systems in the greater Sacramento region often do not see themselves reflected positively in their curriculum. They are familiar with the familiar—slavery and some pieces of the civil rights movement. However, their knowledge is often limited. As a Black educator for Black children, I know how imperative it is that Black youth see themselves reflected consistently and courageously in the curriculum. There is an urgent need for Black youth to be exposed to the historic accomplishments, art, experiences, and achievements of Black folks, which they have contributed to in American life and culture.

Using poetry, spoken word, and hip-hop, I facilitate a classroom experience that ignites and inspires, motivates and transforms. As an educator and a community-based teaching artist, it is my honor, purpose, and duty to serve Black youth. I do this most effectively by curating classroom experiences rooted in youth voice and social justice and developing a curriculum that is culturally relevant, responsive, and deeply engaging for Black children.

My story is for those just like me

My story is for young black boys who have been misled

My story if for my younger brothers and sisters

My story is for those looking for a place is this world

I come from where you get or get got

Where you run when you hear that gun pop

Where more people are sent to prisons than schools

These streets are cruel

Us thugs and thots right?

We are shot down on our way to work and on our way to school

Why is it that a teacher would rather fail you than help you?

—SAYS student, “My Story Is for …”

It is very difficult to fully describe everything that encompasses Project HEAL. No answer can give space to all the magic that is manifested in this transformative classroom space.

I walk into a classroom space where the curriculum surrenders to the stories, the plights, and profound pieces of the art, music, and history that have been left behind. There is healthy debate about concepts, movements, and people who have never made their way onto our students’ history books. Multiple perspectives are presented of folks sacrificing their lives, leaving legacies and blueprints for us to continue the education and liberation fight. Some were wrong, but most were right. We discuss movements and deep writings describing life in the past and more recently.

In this classroom space we internalize the lives of artists and freedom fighters who together waged the war on injustice, deciphering their messages in the music, black codes, and genocide. In this classroom space we carve out intentional time to study what they have done and are doing to us; we analyze historical documents and the planned attempts to suppress us. We delve into documentaries, developing reflections of who we are and all we are meant to be.

These classroom walls sing a song of freedom, of sacrifice, of honor to the ones who risked their lives, primarily so Black youth could stay alive. Survive. Thrive.

At this point in life

I am angry, anxious, and confused

Searching for what to become in life

At this point in life

I am exhausted, depressed and frustrated because

I’ve got this far in life and still don’t know where life is taking me.

At this point in life, I’m struggling in all types of ways.

At this point in life, I struggle with working hard and trying hard.

At this point in life, I’m ready to finish school and go to college.

At this point in life, I’m ready for whatever comes my way.

Even though I’m going through some things.

I keep pushing.

—SAYS student, “What To Become”

I walk into a classroom space where there are no stories that do not involve pain. A display on a wall, titled “Rest in Power,” gives visual representation to those who have been violently ripped away—youth murdered before they could graduate, youth of various hues who didn’t get to finish high school. In this classroom we share the collective blues. In this classroom we know about red snow too. In this classroom space we remember all that these Sacramento streets have given and all that they take away. We repeat the names of our loved ones who have passed so their memories don’t fade away. In this classroom space, the libations are poured onto the page. In this classroom, we learn what it means to say “Ase” (a Yorube word meaning “so be it”).

In this classroom space we collectively confront fear and individually tackle the grief. In this classroom space we pick up our pens and let the pain speak. In this classroom space we look in the mirror and see our ancestors reflecting life through the students who choose to speak. Students eventually gain the courage to get past the fear and become confident to speak about their future and becoming all they dream they can confidently be.

I am a beautiful Black Queen

As though people don’t see me as me

I keep pushing because

I know what I want to be

Head held high

No matter what the case may be

My Black is beautiful

Like a sunset in disguise

One day I will rise

Success is on my mind

And I will grind until it’s time

If you’re not on the same level, then stay behind

Hate is in the air

And it’s an increase in Black crime

Martin Luther King Jr. would be out his mind

He fought for our freedom

And we’re letting him down

We all need to come together

And make him proud.

—SAYS student, “My Story Is for …”

In this classroom space there is courage in the composition books; brilliance in the banter, word play, and the word of the day, some crying; and lots of laughter. In this classroom space there is no judgment, no fear. In this classroom space Black children are acknowledged and celebrated. In this classroom space we study Sojourner and Sista Souljah, Garvey and Rosa.

Using poetry and spoken word in the classroom is a transformational process. It essentially turns the classroom into a healing space where learning is reciprocal and both student and teacher are free to be our true authentic selves. It is a safe, student-centered space that is empowering, authentic, and free from judgment and from fear. It is a reflective classroom space, where we can learn about each other in a way that connects our differences and highlights how we are most alike.

In this classroom space, melanin radiates, and learning is experienced in a safe and sacred space. There are no wrong answers, Dear, and any truth you share will be protected here. No one will take your truth and make fun of you. In this classroom space, empathy resonates: we are more understanding humans because we choose to stand in truth.

In this classroom space, it is a must that we authentically partner with youth, because we know the youth only speak of truth: truly partnering with youth means there is no big me and no little you. In this classroom we are righteously equals, where the educator learns just as much from the students, always takes into consideration their points of view, and highly values their lived experiences as valuable classroom tools. Youth are encouraged to speak up and stand in their truth, nor are they belittled when they have an alternative point of view. In this classroom space we partner with youth because they can help develop the curriculum we use. Youth can build measurements to double study (examining the curriculum and not just taking lessons at face value, especially when it is Eurocentric and inaccurate) to make sure what they are learning is the truth. Youth are given opportunities to develop their agency and public speaking skills, which they can use beyond the classroom.

Youth are motivated to enter youth poetry slams and be a part of the Brave New Voices International Poetry Festival and Slam, which changes locations every year. In Sacramento, young people throughout the region compete in “Slam Season” and the winners comprise the SAYS Slam team. These students compete at Brave New Voices and also serve as ambassadors of youth voice throughout the city.

Youth agency is elevated when they are taken to City Council meetings not just to observe but also to sign up for public comment and get their three minutes to speak, authentically reflecting on political matters that affect their education and communities. The youth can tell us all they need; it is up to us heed the words they speak.

In this classroom there are prestigious poetry program pipelines. A student could be crowned the Sacramento Youth Poet Laureate, which could lead them to their being chosen as the next National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States and have the opportunity to travel and perform their poetry at prestigious universities and important events in other states; they could perform on the National Mall and even in front of people who paid to hear them speak in poetry.

In this classroom the power is in the voice of the youth, and it is our duty to see it through. Youth voice is one of the most valuable tools we have in transforming education. Young people have so much to say, but they are often limited in the spaces where they can truly be their authentic selves without censorship. Creating environments where youth voice is embraced and not feared allows young people to have a critical stake in their future. It allows for honest feedback about how young people are receiving and navigating their education. When young people become the authors of their own lives, they become agents of change.

In my time as an educator, I witnessed many schools and systems become disengaged from youth voice, especially when it leads to youth developing personal agency that empowers them to speak their truth regarding their education. Sometimes the truth is too painful for schools to accept. When youth begin to question the value and the authenticity of their education, it further illuminates the inequities that plague our schools for Black children. Youth voice is all good until it puts young people in a position to advocate for themselves, to call out and name systems of harm within our educational system. Youth voice is great until young people are organizing school walkouts to address discriminatory school policies. Youth voice is powerful until youth are organizing and leading citywide protests, where hundreds of young people collectively march to the State Capital during the school day to speak out against injustice. Youth voice is amazing until youth are agents of change at their schools, debating history lessons with teachers and fighting against oppressions in tangible ways that directly confront oppressive education and community systems that harm and prohibit youth from living their best lives and accessing the resources needed to do so.

We need to be honest about the way we want youth voice to look: it cannot always be pretty. Youth voice reflects reality. Youth voice is purposeful and can be painful for false prophets. Youth voice calls for an honest appreciation of the good and the bad that the youth are experiencing. Constructive criticism can be hard to hear when you do not really want to listen. Youth voice is youth honesty, but do schools honestly want to hear what our children need to heal? Youth voice is the testament of what we are doing wrong with our youth, revealed. Youth voice exposes education, many schools aren’t ready for that expose.

When we truly listen to young people, we are provided with brilliance and bravery. When we truly listen to young people, we are offered tangible solutions to complex problems. If we are brave enough to listen to youth, we receive critical and honest narrative about what they need to succeed and thrive. Don’t we all want our young people to do more than survive?

They don’t care if my students get high at school

Long as they get by at school

Get by institutionalized racism and intergenerational oppressions systems that keep

Prison pipelines thriving and standardized test categorizing

Even if all we have is this poetry

Let it be enough to swim through this poverty

Probably there’s a youth posted near your block right now

Having to make the choice of being broke and go to school

Or come up the only way they know how

It may seem crazy, but spoken word can saves souls

—Patrice Hill, “Every Black Child Deserves to Have a Legacy”

In this classroom space there is Ago and there is Ame; we usually begin our day with call-and-response.³ Then we write in our empowerment journals and let the resistance spill on the page. We acknowledge that some of us live with the grief of losing a loved one every day.

The circle is a cipher (see figure 5.1).⁴ There are no rooms for rows because our brilliance grows in a circular motion just like a rose. Straight from the deepest part of the dirtiest concrete, we come to push through barriers and be everything they said we couldn’t be. In this classroom, we come to heal and build all that was stripped from us. We cool and we hustle school, just like the poets and wordsmiths before us. In this classroom poetry, spoken word, knowledge, and hip-hop define us.

In this classroom we engage in courageous conversation, facilitate diplomatic debates, resuscitate righteous rigor in a safe and creative space. In this classroom the standard is the self, and our testimonies tell on themselves: we are aiming to reach the fullest potential of our selves.

Why we gotta scream to be heard?

Why we gotta die to be recognized for being alive?

Are our screams like triggers

That spring you into action?

Why we gotta die?

Oh I’m sorry, did I interrupt your dinner?

Did I interrupt your polite conversation about the weather?

Oh excuse me!

Was I too loud; did I shock you into existence are you woke now?

Do you see me?

Do you see me wounds or shall I paint a clearer picture?

Death don’t get no clearer.

Was the pain not evident in my voice?

Are your butts at the edge of your seats now

Are you learning forward, inching closer?

Are you drawn to my sorrow?

Are you drawn to my pain?

—SAYS alumnus, “Are You Woke Now?”

In this classroom space we are shown the victories and changed trajectories made possible by higher education degrees. In this classroom we evaluate our transcripts so we can know our A through Gs. In this classroom space we have access to college campuses and can more clearly envision our academic journeys.

This work is more than a passion: it is the true pedagogy of my life. There is profound purpose in an intimate life calling to be a vessel to serve. Poetry has the power to transform spaces into those where we are free to speak our truth, free to be who we are, free to be fearless, free to grow, free to learn, and free to change. In those spaces, we are encouraged to become our ancestors’ wildest dreams, to speak our truths, and to document the world as we see it.

I have had the opportunity to facilitate spaces where I am able to witness young people blossom into bearers of truth. They are fearlessly writing for their lives: writing to heal, writing to live, writing to win, writing to see a word more beautiful than the injustices we see, writing to be, and writing to believe that there is something bigger and better than what these schools tell our children they can be.

Every day I go to school with the world on my shoulders

Thinking of what complications these teachers have in order

You do your work on a daily

That still isn’t enough

I think these teachers be playing me, purposely making it rough!

The Black skin on my body and the strong power in my heart

I honestly think that’s where all my complications start

They see me trying as hard as I can

But yet all the white kids got all the A’s in hand

All my brothers and sistas going through the same things

Don’t give up, they needs to use us on them TV screens.

—SAYS student, “These Teachers”

There are too many young people who have not yet received a chance to become the author of their own life, to have the opportunity to tell their story in their own words. These youth have been silenced by schools and systems that refuse to recognize their brilliance. They are marginalized by the confines of institutionalized racism and never get an authentic chance to speak their mind; Youth who have experienced more than a lifetime worth of violence must secretly swallow their silence.

Poetry has the power to free us, to push us beyond the confinements of the classroom. Social justice arts education is an essential component of producing liberatory classrooms where learning is alive and the curriculum both speaks directly to the students’ lives and liberates their minds. When classrooms become sanctuaries of scared spaces to speak from the soul, we all grow, we all heal, we all feel. We become more in touch with our humanity, and isn’t that what we want our children to see?

I encourage my students to never stop writing. I tell them to confidently speak their truth—to say something, to stand firm in their beliefs, to speak up even when it is unpopular and you are afraid. I want Black youth in Sacramento to become empowered authors of their own lives, capable of determining their future, capable of telling their stories, capable of teaching the next generation how to use their voice. The youth are speaking: Are you listening?

In this classroom we are the words we speak, the limited food options we must eat, the trauma we live through, the healing we seek. In this classroom poverty is protagonist and poetry is pedagogy. In this classroom there is freedom in the pen, and we can always begin again. In this classroom there is a celebration of life and freedom to write. In this classroom we embody our right to write—our write to life.

If poetry can save lives, then

Why don’t more youth know

They can put down nines and pick up poetry lines

Attend poetry night or the open mic

And eventually

Learn how to love to write

Articulate their faith

We done living in vain

Be the rose that grows straight through the concrete

Like our ancestors fought for you and me

Every Black child deserves to have a legacy

—Patrice Hill, “Every Black Child Deserves to Have a Legacy”