03/11/2023
“Your power is relative, but it is real. And if you do not learn to use it, it will be used, against you, and me, and our children. Change did not begin with you, and it will not end with you, but what you do with your life is an absolutely vital piece of that chain. The testimony of your daily living is the missing remnant in the fabric of our future.
There are so many different parts to each of us. And there are so many of us. If we can envision the future we desire, we can work to bring it into being. We need all the different pieces of ourselves to be strong as we need each other and each other's battles for empowerment.
That surge of power you feel inside you now does not belong to me, nor to your parents, nor to your professors. That power lives inside of you. It is yours, you own it, and you will carry it out of this room. And whether you use it or whether you waste it, you are responsible for it."
Audre Lorde, “Commencement Address, Oberlin College, May 29, 1989” published for the first time in I am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde, from the Audre Lorde Papers, Spelman College Archives