We Speak Your Names: A Celebration by Pearl Cleage

On February 21, 2005, I received an invitation from Oprah Winfrey to write a piece for what she was calling her Legends Weekend. The occasion had taken shape in her mind almost a year before, beginning life as a small luncheon and evolving into a three-day event honoring twenty-five legendary African American women whose lives and careers are what people mean when they use the term “role model.” She was also inviting forty-two other women, whom she was calling the “young 'uns” and who would share with her this unique opportunity to celebrate this amazing group. To my surprise and great delight, not only had I been included among the “young 'uns” (my two beautiful grandchildren notwithstanding!), I was now being asked to write a piece that would express our collective thank-you to our symbolic foremothers. I said I would be honored, so she sent me the names of the legends and the young 'uns and left me to my own devices.
Looking at the list, I immediately realized I didn't need to collect biographical information about these women. You could wake me up from a sound sleep in the middle of the night, and I could tell you not only who they are but who they are to me. Oprah's list of honorees mirrored my own personal most-admired list, from Maya Angelou to Nancy Wilson, and just reading their names stirred up a lifetime's worth of memories. I had danced to their music, been inspired by their courage, envied the artful arrangement of their words on paper, and torn their pictures out of magazines to post where I could see them, bold and beautiful, as they redefined style and substance and sisterhood.
So I did what I always do: I started making notes. Enlisting the assistance of my husband, Zaron, I allowed the memories to come tumbling out in no particular order. By the time we returned home to Atlanta after a two-week road trip (we don't like to fly!), we had more than enough material, and I had enough sense to know that the piece was evolving into something more than a poem. It was becoming the sisterhood ritual we needed. I wrote it in one long whoosh and sent it by overnight mail to Miz Oprah, who liked it as much as I did. My part was done. All I had to do now was find a ball gown I wouldn't trip over, pick up our train tickets to Santa Barbara, and get back to work on my novel. A month went by, and then suddenly it was time to go to California.
The weekend, which was now officially known as A Bridge to Now: A Celebration of Remarkable Women in Remarkable Times, began with a luncheon at Oprah's home, to which only the legends and the young 'uns were invited. No dates, no spouses, no anxious publicists or protective mamas. It was just us, and somehow in the absence of other people we became simply a room full of free women, celebrating one another and ourselves and our sisterhood. The poem was read for the first time at that luncheon. That's where it came to life in a small gazebo where we gathered to sing our praise song.
Speaking on behalf of the young 'uns, I joined Angela Bassett and Alfre Woodard and Phylicia Rashad and Halle Berry in paying tribute to our legends. Beside us stood six of the younger young 'uns— Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Alicia Keys, Ashanti, Mary J. Blige, and Missy Elliott—in a chorus that led us in the refrain: We speak your names. We speak your names. And all around us were our sisters in the flesh, weeping and laughing and hugging one another in recognition of how amazing they truly are, and our sisters in the spirit, gone but never forgotten, celebrating with us and forgiving us completely for taking so long to call them back and tell them thank you. It was a moment when no one could deny the magic or describe it, so we didn't try.
The next night, we added the other young 'uns— Yolanda Adams, Debbie Allen, Tyra Banks, Kathleen Battle, Naomi Campbell, Natalie Cole, Suzanne de Passe, Kimberly Elise, Pam Grier, Iman, Judith Jamison, Beverly Johnson, Chaka Khan, Gayle King, Darnell