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Article by Asia at W.P. Davidson High School in Alabama

I think it is vital for the community to learn about their heritage so that they can understand themselves, their world and how they function in it. It is clearly connected with identity and a sense of belonging as well as the place they live. Knowing, respecting, and applying cultural knowledge is an important aspect to the community. We must know who we are and whom we were in order to become who we want to be.

Heritage is an invitation, an exhortation, to encourage in the beauty of the writing, music, the voice, the bodies, the connection, the struggle, the insistent heartbreak of many movements, of many struggles to reclaim freedom and liberation from a history, where memory is owned, validated, and shared. When we are able to remember our stories and remember our collective stories, there is nothing we cannot do.

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