[Applause]
if you are a dreamer come in if you are
a dreamer a wisher a liar a hope or a
prayer of magic being buyer if you are a
pretender come sit by my fire but we
have some flax golden tails to spin come
in come in imagine if you will a world
where shel Silverstein’s open invitation
has been lost or stolen silenced or
simply only extends to the affluent
wander further into this world without
the Arts this Neverland of lost hopes
and gray dreams peer around the corner
of that clean brick wall free of
graffiti or messy murals impressionist
store even impression for everyone walks
the street and lives the narrow here in
this color starved existence this world
without access to the Arts oh look at
your faces you don’t like it here do you
you don’t like this world without arts
no then let’s go home a mass exodus for
the door I accept and here is the
spoiler alert here is the devilish
detail here is home for 16 million poor
and impoverished kids in the United
States without access to the Arts here
is home for 25% of all children in North
Carolina here is home it’s as home to
them as zora neale hurston or Frank
Lloyd Wright is to you but I’m here to
assure you to bear witness as I was once
one of the 25%
I was once one of that 16 million that
as Stephen Sondheim so aptly slipped
into the score of West Side Story there
was a place for us somewhere a place for
us now ironically adults with our short
term memories had to be reminded hmm had
a reminder of that truth children on the
other hand are born knowing it yearning
for it and the only be guided to it
sadly there were very few people willing
to guide willing to shape willing to
mold willing to point our children with
smoldering artistic aspirations to that
place my third-grade teacher was mrs.
Dorothy darling of the Southwest
Virginia diaries great-granddaughter of
Colonel Andrew Jackson died early a girl
raised in the south a grit a daughter of
the Confederacy I was the lone black
child in her class mmm shortly after
integration have finally made its way
into the southernmost regions of South
West Virginia Virginia was a stronghold
out in the fight for school integration
mmm as a matter of fact Prince Edward
County Virginia in 1959 voted to close
all of its schools rather than to allow
a single black child to darken school
doorsteps every single public school
closed for four years so there I was a
product of Brown being bused some 30 45
minutes across town to the mostly if not
all white neighborhoods of the city by
the late 1970s 45% of all
african-american children in the south
were bused to predominantly white
schools an early assignment I recall
asked that we students pick out the
Sunday comic strip we read and liked the
most
now I love cartoons what child doesn’t
love art what child doesn’t look drawing
what child doesn’t so while the other
kids went with the peanuts or Beetle
Bailey I went in a completely different
direction
we didn’t get the daily paper at our
house let alone the Sunday edition that
was 75 cents that could have gone
towards milk or bread bus fare keeping
the lights on or the bill collector at
bay not the newspaper so outside of
peering over the shoulder of someone who
was reading the paper I rarely saw it
but when I did when I did one particular
comic strip jumped out at me and DK up
that’s your favorite comic strip Michael
Andy Capp mr. diary skepticism poured
from her mouth like blackstrap molasses
or the warm ray smoke from one of my
grandmother’s Benson & Hedges menthols
in a way that wasn’t a question it
wasn’t even a statement it was an
accusation an accusation that I must be
lying what in my little poverty-stricken
world could possibly give me an inkling
of understanding the world of Andy Capp
you see Andy was a working flat
working-class figure who who had trouble
finding work he lived with his life flow
they argued they fought he drank he
watched football and he was always on
the verge of having his furniture
repossessed if that wasn’t my little
poverty-stricken world I don’t know what
was what could you possibly understand
about a handicapped December of that
third grade year she wrote and directed
the third grade Christmas pageant which
he called it’s a small world after all
so there are only two children of color
in our entire class myself and whalen
Vietnamese girl who spoke very little
English so after mrs. direly cast the
entire white section of the class as
individual countries she then turned
towards Whelan and myself and said
Michael you’re gonna be Africa and whale
and you don’t be a yeah
practice a few years after that my
mother finally broke the cycle and and
when I say the cycle I mean that cycle
of abuse and she moved us to a four room
duplex not far away and though the
physical move was simple the emotional
journey was far more difficult you see I
watched family members and neighbors and
friends get arrested
I watched fights break out in school
that turned into shootouts on the street
because I learned that alone a young age
that you had to be ready to fight for
what you believed in to stand up for it
to throw down as we would call it she
had to be ready to throw down Claude
didn’t like his sister Lena dating
Melvin so Claude pitha hell out of
Melbourne one afternoon in the cafeteria
now Melvin was a little guy could barely
protect himself until a few weeks later
when we were all getting off the school
bus at 10th Street in Loudoun not far
from the corner store where they had a
flea infection a year before a flea
infestation and that that we didn’t care
about we’d ran in and get our cherry
knee-highs and I’m Mike and Ikes and all
of that well on that particular day
Melvin stood waiting for Claude with a
pistol as Claude descended the bus steps
Melvin shot Claude point-blank in the
face the bullet lodged in his cheek just
inches from killing him just inches from
killing one of us still through it all I
knew there was a place for me somewhere
somewhere there was a place for me so I
secretly rode the city bus downtown
where they were holding auditions for
Alice in Wonderland
there I was this skinny moon face black
kid in a sea of punky Brewster’s and
Ricky Schroeder’s
what’s your name Mike Wiley and what
role will you be reading the Queen of
Hearts but the queen is a woman I know
and you’d still like to read for it yes
ma’am
it’s the best part later that evening as
I stood under the awning of a Woolworths
as the rain poured down and I watched
those kids get into his shiny Volvo’s
and their warm
BMWs a tall woman with beautiful brown
skin and deep eyes and an Adam’s apple
look down at me and she said whose
little boy are you now when I look back
on that moment I realized what she was
asking me who whose little boy Hugh was
not who my parents were
she was asking me where do I belong
where do you fit in now I wish I could
tell you that I bagged that audition and
I got the role of the Queen of Hearts
because they were just so taken with my
gumption or that mr. diary and I became
friends you know I called her mrs. Daisy
and she called me Hoke and we had tea on
Sundays although I always wonder what
would have happened if we had a Latino
kid in that class you know and Juan
Pablo you get to be South America
Central America Spain and the Bronx
let’s practice no what I do recall is
one teacher one teacher knowing that
there was a place for me asking me to be
Abraham Lincoln in our school play so I
stood up onstage in our cafeteria that
was also our gymnasium that was also our
auditorium so it was a Kappa gymatorium
and I said well sir the people of the
North believed that there should not be
any more slavery yet because of
economics and selfish reasons the
southern states wanted slavery to
continue to help them raise crops and
and and all the students cheered and my
momma was on the front row because
that’s what Mama’s like to sit right
mm-hmm
and she said y’all know what you said
that’s my baby and from that day forward
I knew there was a place for me the Arts
in America the NEA taking guns out of
the hands of young people and replacing
them with paintbrushes play scripts film
cameras play taking folks off the
streets and putting them on stage in
dark rooms giving them a brand new beat
to walk and dance to that doesn’t end at
the courthouse so I asked you if you
believe in the arts and everything that
the arts can do there is a place for you
just like there was a place for me on
the way here today I heard a song on the
radio by David Bowie and now I’ve never
been really
good or particularly swell at
deciphering lyrics and pretty terrible
at it actually
you know help me Rhonda help help me
Rhonda get her out of my car or swing
low Sweet Chariot ah well so I listened
to it I thought yeah
even though Bowie didn’t sing these
lyrics this is what I hear I I won’t be
king and you you won’t be queen but we
can be heroes just for one day we can be
artists so I ask you are you ready to
fight for the arts are you ready to
stand up for what you believe in
are you ready to throw down thank you
you
if you are a dreamer come in if you are
a dreamer a wisher a liar a hope or a
prayer of magic being buyer if you are a
pretender come sit by my fire but we
have some flax golden tails to spin come
in come in imagine if you will a world
where shel Silverstein’s open invitation
has been lost or stolen silenced or
simply only extends to the affluent
wander further into this world without
the Arts this Neverland of lost hopes
and gray dreams peer around the corner
of that clean brick wall free of
graffiti or messy murals impressionist
store even impression for everyone walks
the street and lives the narrow here in
this color starved existence this world
without access to the Arts oh look at
your faces you don’t like it here do you
you don’t like this world without arts
no then let’s go home a mass exodus for
the door I accept and here is the
spoiler alert here is the devilish
detail here is home for 16 million poor
and impoverished kids in the United
States without access to the Arts here
is home for 25% of all children in North
Carolina here is home it’s as home to
them as zora neale hurston or Frank
Lloyd Wright is to you but I’m here to
assure you to bear witness as I was once
one of the 25%
I was once one of that 16 million that
as Stephen Sondheim so aptly slipped
into the score of West Side Story there
was a place for us somewhere a place for
us now ironically adults with our short
term memories had to be reminded hmm had
a reminder of that truth children on the
other hand are born knowing it yearning
for it and the only be guided to it
sadly there were very few people willing
to guide willing to shape willing to
mold willing to point our children with
smoldering artistic aspirations to that
place my third-grade teacher was mrs.
Dorothy darling of the Southwest
Virginia diaries great-granddaughter of
Colonel Andrew Jackson died early a girl
raised in the south a grit a daughter of
the Confederacy I was the lone black
child in her class mmm shortly after
integration have finally made its way
into the southernmost regions of South
West Virginia Virginia was a stronghold
out in the fight for school integration
mmm as a matter of fact Prince Edward
County Virginia in 1959 voted to close
all of its schools rather than to allow
a single black child to darken school
doorsteps every single public school
closed for four years so there I was a
product of Brown being bused some 30 45
minutes across town to the mostly if not
all white neighborhoods of the city by
the late 1970s 45% of all
african-american children in the south
were bused to predominantly white
schools an early assignment I recall
asked that we students pick out the
Sunday comic strip we read and liked the
most
now I love cartoons what child doesn’t
love art what child doesn’t look drawing
what child doesn’t so while the other
kids went with the peanuts or Beetle
Bailey I went in a completely different
direction
we didn’t get the daily paper at our
house let alone the Sunday edition that
was 75 cents that could have gone
towards milk or bread bus fare keeping
the lights on or the bill collector at
bay not the newspaper so outside of
peering over the shoulder of someone who
was reading the paper I rarely saw it
but when I did when I did one particular
comic strip jumped out at me and DK up
that’s your favorite comic strip Michael
Andy Capp mr. diary skepticism poured
from her mouth like blackstrap molasses
or the warm ray smoke from one of my
grandmother’s Benson & Hedges menthols
in a way that wasn’t a question it
wasn’t even a statement it was an
accusation an accusation that I must be
lying what in my little poverty-stricken
world could possibly give me an inkling
of understanding the world of Andy Capp
you see Andy was a working flat
working-class figure who who had trouble
finding work he lived with his life flow
they argued they fought he drank he
watched football and he was always on
the verge of having his furniture
repossessed if that wasn’t my little
poverty-stricken world I don’t know what
was what could you possibly understand
about a handicapped December of that
third grade year she wrote and directed
the third grade Christmas pageant which
he called it’s a small world after all
so there are only two children of color
in our entire class myself and whalen
Vietnamese girl who spoke very little
English so after mrs. direly cast the
entire white section of the class as
individual countries she then turned
towards Whelan and myself and said
Michael you’re gonna be Africa and whale
and you don’t be a yeah
practice a few years after that my
mother finally broke the cycle and and
when I say the cycle I mean that cycle
of abuse and she moved us to a four room
duplex not far away and though the
physical move was simple the emotional
journey was far more difficult you see I
watched family members and neighbors and
friends get arrested
I watched fights break out in school
that turned into shootouts on the street
because I learned that alone a young age
that you had to be ready to fight for
what you believed in to stand up for it
to throw down as we would call it she
had to be ready to throw down Claude
didn’t like his sister Lena dating
Melvin so Claude pitha hell out of
Melbourne one afternoon in the cafeteria
now Melvin was a little guy could barely
protect himself until a few weeks later
when we were all getting off the school
bus at 10th Street in Loudoun not far
from the corner store where they had a
flea infection a year before a flea
infestation and that that we didn’t care
about we’d ran in and get our cherry
knee-highs and I’m Mike and Ikes and all
of that well on that particular day
Melvin stood waiting for Claude with a
pistol as Claude descended the bus steps
Melvin shot Claude point-blank in the
face the bullet lodged in his cheek just
inches from killing him just inches from
killing one of us still through it all I
knew there was a place for me somewhere
somewhere there was a place for me so I
secretly rode the city bus downtown
where they were holding auditions for
Alice in Wonderland
there I was this skinny moon face black
kid in a sea of punky Brewster’s and
Ricky Schroeder’s
what’s your name Mike Wiley and what
role will you be reading the Queen of
Hearts but the queen is a woman I know
and you’d still like to read for it yes
ma’am
it’s the best part later that evening as
I stood under the awning of a Woolworths
as the rain poured down and I watched
those kids get into his shiny Volvo’s
and their warm
BMWs a tall woman with beautiful brown
skin and deep eyes and an Adam’s apple
look down at me and she said whose
little boy are you now when I look back
on that moment I realized what she was
asking me who whose little boy Hugh was
not who my parents were
she was asking me where do I belong
where do you fit in now I wish I could
tell you that I bagged that audition and
I got the role of the Queen of Hearts
because they were just so taken with my
gumption or that mr. diary and I became
friends you know I called her mrs. Daisy
and she called me Hoke and we had tea on
Sundays although I always wonder what
would have happened if we had a Latino
kid in that class you know and Juan
Pablo you get to be South America
Central America Spain and the Bronx
let’s practice no what I do recall is
one teacher one teacher knowing that
there was a place for me asking me to be
Abraham Lincoln in our school play so I
stood up onstage in our cafeteria that
was also our gymnasium that was also our
auditorium so it was a Kappa gymatorium
and I said well sir the people of the
North believed that there should not be
any more slavery yet because of
economics and selfish reasons the
southern states wanted slavery to
continue to help them raise crops and
and and all the students cheered and my
momma was on the front row because
that’s what Mama’s like to sit right
mm-hmm
and she said y’all know what you said
that’s my baby and from that day forward
I knew there was a place for me the Arts
in America the NEA taking guns out of
the hands of young people and replacing
them with paintbrushes play scripts film
cameras play taking folks off the
streets and putting them on stage in
dark rooms giving them a brand new beat
to walk and dance to that doesn’t end at
the courthouse so I asked you if you
believe in the arts and everything that
the arts can do there is a place for you
just like there was a place for me on
the way here today I heard a song on the
radio by David Bowie and now I’ve never
been really
good or particularly swell at
deciphering lyrics and pretty terrible
at it actually
you know help me Rhonda help help me
Rhonda get her out of my car or swing
low Sweet Chariot ah well so I listened
to it I thought yeah
even though Bowie didn’t sing these
lyrics this is what I hear I I won’t be
king and you you won’t be queen but we
can be heroes just for one day we can be
artists so I ask you are you ready to
fight for the arts are you ready to
stand up for what you believe in
are you ready to throw down thank you
you
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