GTM Sisters Write Another Letter to Michelle

Over the last two weeks members of the GTM Sisterhood Network penned new letters to First Lady Michelle Obama. This time we asked the First Lady to invite the members of the Network to the White House for a personal meeting and book signing. Yes, we have the "audacity to hope" that Michelle Obama will meet with us and sign our books! Now that's optimism!

Our letters were in response to the White House quiry about what we were requesting of the First Lady. They asked that we put our request in writing and 43 of the GTM Sisterhood responded to that request. The letters were mailed to the White House today and we look forward to receiving a response in the near future.

The following excerpts are from two of the letters:

"I am a contributor to the book, Go Tell Michelle, which was published earlier this year. This book contains the personal letters of African and African-American women who supported the President in his efforts to gain office last year, and who felt compelled to also express their fulfilled hopes, dreams and support for you in a published form. Therefore, I would like to request the opportunity for me and the other contributing writers of this work to meet you at the Whitehouse to have you acknowledge and sign our book.

Having grown up in a neighborhood like so many of us, you know all too well how difficult it is for black women to access positive images in the world today. As we continue to struggle in our own neighborhoods, in our careers and in our roles as wives and mother’s, we are up against devastating and long prevailing biases about what we represent, with far too few positive examples of who we are or who we can become. In contributing to Go Tell Michelle, it was my hope that black women who are struggling might pick up this book or hear our stories, stories from women that came from neighborhoods like theirs, and learn that they aren’t alone. That perhaps there is hope. That they might be motivated to work a bit harder to achieve beyond what they have been taught to believe about themselves. That they could fulfill a higher potential than they may have dreamed of before." N.D.

"I am one of the contributing women who wrote you a letter in the book "Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Write to the New First Lady". I know that I along with the other 99 women would love to be able to meet you and have you sign our books. I am sure you are very busy 'running' the White House and raising your girls, but it would be such an honor, privilege and a piece of history for me to pass on to my daughter to be able to meet the First Lady of the United States. The first African-American First Lady!" A.M.

We look forward to the receipt of these letters by the First Lady and await a response from her office.

Thank you to the GTM Sisterhood for, once again, demonstrating that there is strenght in networking and being supportive of one another. We are especially pleased that a number of the younger contributors responded to this request giving us an opportunity to mentor these young women and provide an opportunity for them to exercise their advocacy skills, practice their writing skills and express the tremendous impact of this election on their lives.