After San Diego, Baltimore!

The February 8th performance of "Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Speak to the New First Lady" is the first performance of this play by professional actors. However, on March 18th, Peggy, Karima and I have an opportunity to reprise our roles in the play in a performance in Baltimore at Coppin State College. Our premiere of the play on January 19th and 20th 2010 was to a packed house of nearly 200 people. The audience was enthusiatic and complementary. A year later, the script has been slightly revised and the three of us are looking forward to this performance.

Details are provided on the accompanying flyer. so if you're in the Baltimore area, we'd love to see you for our performance.

GTM Play Goes to San Diego

The Women's Museum of California &
Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company

Invite you to join us for an evening of wine, cheese and words with
a staged reading of

“Go, Tell Michelle:
African-American Women Speak to the First Lady”

Adapted by Robert Knopf in collaboration with
Barbara A. Seals Nevergold and Peggy Brooks-Bertram based on their book
Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Write to the New First Lady.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

5:15 PM Reception & Mingle with the Authors
Barbara A. Seals Nevergold and Peggy Brooks-Bertram

6:00 PM Reading of Go, Tell Michelle
Featuring Lorene Chesley*, Diona Reasonover, & Sylvia M'Lafi Thompson*
Directed by Seema Sueko*

The 10th Avenue Theatre
930 10th Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101


Reservations: Space is limited.
Email: tickets@moolelo.net or call 619-342-7395

Louisiana State University Libraries Puts Spotlight on "Go, Tell Michelle"

In celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, January 18, 2010 and Black History Month during February 2010, LSU Libraries offers you a recommended reading list of current publications relating to the African American identity. As always, unless they have been checked out, these books are all available to you via LSU Libraries. Special thanks to Linda Smith Griffin, LSU Libraries Liaison to the African and African American Studies Program, and Alice Daugherty, for compiling this list of books and authors.

Thus far, the list has been viewed by 168 World Cat users.

MAUMBUSOMA: Sisters Reading Book Club

I don’t know if they’re the oldest continuously operating book club in Western New York and the country but after 17 years of monthly meetings to discuss books authored by Black women, I have to believe that they are one of the oldest. The Maumbusoma Sisters Reading Club met on Sunday, November 08, 2009 to commemorate this milestone and invited us to discuss “Go, Tell Michelle”: their featured book selection for this event. Held in a building aptly named “Our Healing Center”, we felt like we’d been wrapped in a soft, warm comfortable blanket of sisterly positive regard and support. What a great feeling! This was one of the few times we’ve had an opportunity to speak to a group who’d already read the book. This freed us to talk more about the wonderful, poignant and funny, experiences we’ve had on this journey with “Go, Tell Michelle”. This book has created so many opportunities to network, develop friendships and expand sister-connectedness (okay, maybe that’s not a word, but you know what I mean!) with other women across this nation. This presentation was the last formal reading and book-signing on our schedule this year and was a wonderful climax to what has been an extraordinary experience. We are looking forward to next year and more exciting news about “Go, Tell Michelle” as we work on a dramatic adaptation of the book for the stage. Stay tuned!

Above: Dr. Sharon Amos introducing the authors.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Convention Center

Taxi cab drivers are an interesting group. We often talk to cabbies we meet in the course of our travels. On September 24th, we were in Washington, DC on our way to the Walter Washington Convention Center for the Congressional Black Caucus' Author's Pavilion. Our driver asked what we were doing in DC and we jokingly replied that we were authors and that we had written "Go, Tell Michelle". Oh, he replied, I've heard of that. I have to admit that we were somewhat skeptical, so we asked him what he'd heard. "Oh, I know all about it", he replied. "A group of women sent Michelle Obama letters of advice." Hey, we replied, how did you know that? "I heard you all on NPR.", our cab driver responded. He added, "it was a great program. I enjoyed listening to you."

Well, we have learned our lesson. Never underestimate the man who is driving you around in his cab. Not only was our driver an NPR listener, but he was a musician, who had played with some of the greats including Coltrane and Miles Davis. Like I said, taxi cab drivers are some of the most interesting people.

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.