Baldwin understood struggle not as an abstract concept, but as lived experience. He knew what it meant to wrestle with identity, belonging, fear, love, injustice, and the longing to breathe freely in a world that often resists honesty. Yet what makes his legacy extraordinary is not only what he endured, but how he transformed it. He turned observation into insight. Pain into precision. Anger into illumination. Complexity into unmistakable truth.

To read Baldwin is to encounter a mind fiercely devoted to integrity and a heart deeply invested in humanity. He challenged denial without cruelty. He confronted injustice without surrendering tenderness. He reminded us that truth telling, though uncomfortable, is one of the highest forms of respect — for oneself, for others, and for the future we are shaping together.

This reflection honors James Baldwin not simply as a literary giant, but as a witness to the human spirit. His words continue to steady those finding their voice, those reclaiming their dignity, and those choosing honesty in a world that sometimes rewards silence.

May his courage echo where it is needed most.
May his clarity strengthen those still learning to trust their own knowing.
May his legacy remind us that truth, once spoken, cannot be undone — and that is its power.

1. He survived a childhood shaped by fear and scarcity and still chose truth.
Baldwin grew up in poverty and under severe emotional strain. He did not pretend this away. He transformed it into insight.

Affirmation:
My beginnings do not define my limits.

2. He left the United States to save his spirit, not to escape responsibility.
Moving to Paris gave Baldwin the emotional distance needed to think clearly and write honestly about America.

Affirmation:
Choosing myself is sometimes the most responsible act.

3. He believed naming reality was an act of love.
Baldwin insisted that truth telling was not cruelty. He saw it as care for the future.

Affirmation:
Honesty is one of the highest forms of care.

4. He refused to flatten himself for acceptance.
Baldwin spoke plainly about race, sexuality, faith, masculinity, and power at a time when silence was rewarded.

Affirmation:
I do not need to shrink to belong.

5. He understood that survival includes emotional literacy.
Baldwin wrote about fear, longing, rage, tenderness, and grief with precision and dignity.

Affirmation:
My feelings carry information, not shame.

6. He confronted institutions without surrendering his humanity.
Whether speaking to politicians, journalists, or hostile audiences, Baldwin remained grounded and composed.

Affirmation:
I can speak firmly without abandoning myself.

7. He believed denial was more dangerous than discomfort.
Baldwin warned that societies collapse when they refuse to face what they have done.

Affirmation:
Facing truth protects the future.

8. He valued inner freedom as much as external change.
Baldwin wrote that liberation without inner clarity is fragile.

Affirmation:
My inner freedom matters.

9. He trusted language as a tool for healing and resistance.
Baldwin treated words as instruments that could wound or restore depending on how they were used.

Affirmation:
My words can build safety and strength.

10. His work continues to comfort people who felt unseen.
Readers across generations return to Baldwin not just for critique, but for companionship.

Affirmation:
I am not alone in seeing what others avoid.

11. He turned lived experience into illumination.
Baldwin wrote from the inside of struggle, not from a distance. His work carries the authority of someone who lived what he examined.

Affirmation:
Nothing I have lived is wasted when I give it meaning.

12. He chose distance to gain clarity.
Relocating to Paris was not abandonment. It was self-preservation and creative strategy.

Affirmation:
Creating space for myself can sharpen my voice.

13. He believed truth telling was a moral act.
Baldwin challenged cultures of denial with courage and precision.

Affirmation:
Speaking truth is an act of integrity, even when it shakes others.

14. He wrote about vulnerability without apology.
Long before it was widely accepted, Baldwin explored tenderness, fear, love, and identity.

Affirmation:
My sensitivity is not weakness. It is awareness.

15. He refused easy narratives.
Baldwin rejected oversimplified explanations about race, power, and human behavior.

Affirmation:
I am allowed to hold complex truths.

16. He understood that silence has a cost.
Baldwin warned that what remains unspoken often becomes destructive.

Affirmation:
My voice protects my inner world.

17. He stood firm in rooms built to resist him.
From televised debates to lecture halls, Baldwin carried calm, grounded intensity.

Affirmation:
Steady presence can be more powerful than loudness.

18. He wrote about love as transformation.
For Baldwin, love required honesty, courage, and growth.

Affirmation:
Real love deepens truth. It does not erase it.

19. His words continue to accompany Survivors.
Across decades, readers find recognition, language, and strength in Baldwin’s work.

Affirmation:
Voices rooted in truth outlive opposition.

Closing Affirmations:
My voice is allowed to be honest, complex, and enduring. Truth is not too much. It is enough.

My story, my voice, my truth — all worthy, all powerful, all mine.

<p>The post 19 James Baldwin Truths and Affirmations That Still Strengthen the Human Spirit first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

Memory does not keep time the way clocks do.
It keeps impact.
It keeps feeling.
It keeps the moments when something inside us recognized truth before our minds had words for it.

That is why so many people remember February not by dates, but by what it felt like when Michael Jackson took hold of the world’s attention and did not flinch from who he was.

When Black or White premiered at the start of February, it wasn’t just a video.
It was a pause.
A collective breath shared across borders, languages, and living rooms.

And when Remember the Time arrived at the edge of February-Black History Month- it carried that same gravity.
It did not need the exact same calendar placement to land in memory the same way.
It arrived with meaning already attached.

That is how memory works.

Michael Jackson understood something many never learn:
universality is not achieved by erasing yourself.
It is achieved by standing fully inside who you are.

We always knew where he came from.

A working-class Black family. A large one. Jehovah’s Witnesses. 
A small house in Detroit.
Siblings stacked close together in shared space and shared dreams.
A childhood shaped by discipline, music, labor, and love.

Those roots were never hidden.
They were the ground beneath everything he built.

He did not run from them.
He carried them with him into stadiums, into studios, into history.

Some people mistook complexity for rejection.

They misread his skin condition instead of learning about it.
They misinterpreted his wide circle of friends as disloyalty.
They confused his love for many cultures with a lack of love for his own.

But the truth was simpler and deeper.

He did not abandon his culture.
He expanded the room.

He showed what it looks like when a Black man is so at home in himself that he can welcome the world without shrinking. (Never said one demeaning word about Black women or men, only put us all in beautiful lights, set us to music, and put us on stages with alongside him)

That confidence unsettled people who needed identity to be narrow, controlled, and easily categorized.
So they rewrote him.
They projected.
They speculated.

Memory, however, kept the truth.

February remembers him not because of a date on a calendar, but because of alignment.

A Black artist holding global attention without apology

African and diasporic imagery centered with beauty and authority

Unity offered without surrender

Love expressed without dilution

That is why people say, “It was February,” even when the math gets fuzzy.

Meaning leaves fingerprints.
Calendars do not.

Michael Jackson had the world in his hands.
And instead of running from who he was, he stood inside it fully.

That is why people from everywhere found themselves in his work.
Not because he became less specific, but because he became more honest.

Memory remembers that.

Not the date.
Not the broadcast schedule.

But the moment when truth met timing and stayed.

P.S. And hell yeah, I’m feeling Jossie Harris Thacker. Because if I had danced with the Janet Jackson (That’s the Way Love Goes) and the Michael Jackson in REMEMBER THE TIME…

No Sir. No Ma’am. You could not tell me nothing ever again.

She did not say that exactly ……but I would. LOL.  (which is probably why it was not my blessing. lol.)

As Ｓｈａｙｌｙｎｎ, @mjsaura on X.com points out ….in a time when Black women were STILL as underrepresented as we are now, Michael Jackson cast Black women not just as background dancers and singers, but as his love interests, his queen, long lost love, the “girl next door” and the woman that he was in pursuit of.

He showed all cultures on this planet love and adoration, but he never failed to showcase the love and beauty of his home culture.

---

Remember the Time Facts

• Premiered late January 1992 with heavy prime-time rotation spilling into early February

• Cinematic scale, ancient African imagery, and unapologetic Black brilliance

• Premiered as a high-profile TV event in the U.S., heavily coordinated across major networks and MTV

• Closely tied to Super Bowl weekend attention and prime-time placement

• Felt like a cultural takeover, even if it wasn’t a single worldwide clock-strike moment

While its official premiere date is generally cited as January 31, 1992, many people experienced it during the opening days of February due to:

• Saturation airplay

• Prime-time scheduling

• Super Bowl–adjacent media attention

<p>The post Remember the Time: Memory Remembers Meaning, Not Calendars first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

Photo by David Kwewum

We might not be able to be friends and that’s okay.

• Part of my healing is recognizing that not every person deserves access to my spirit.

• I release relationships that require me to dim, shrink, or dilute who I am becoming.

• I do not need companionship that confuses peace with silence or growth with obedience.

• I am not governed by another person’s fears, projections, or unfinished thinking.

• I honor that others may have beliefs, but I am not required to live inside them.

• My inner world is sacred, and I choose what is planted there.

• I am tending to my own beliefs with care, discernment, and wisdom.

• I nurture thoughts that strengthen me, steady me, and remind me who I am.

• I choose friendships that celebrate clarity, not control.

• My light is not arrogance. My light is alignment.

• I am allowed to grow beyond who others are comfortable understanding.

• I trust myself to know what nourishes me and what drains me.

• I am becoming more myself, and that is enough.

<p>The post Survivor Affirmations: I Tend My Own Light (w video) first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

It isn’t that people think that Black art should never be critiqued, but there is undeniable and die-hard racism within the critiques. Further, when most people dislike other art, they simply choose not to engage with it in favor of what they do like.  Not so, with Black art that garners high praise.

Some of you are about to learn something the hard way….like we and all the the people before us did. 

The conversations around Sinners

(nominated for a record breaking 16 Oscars and 18 NAACP awards) are about to expose a truth Black Americans have known for generations:

Many people were taught how to consume Black American art.
BUT, they were never taught how to respect and appreciate it. 

They learned how to copy it.
Dance to it.
Profit from it.
Quote it.

But not how to sit with it.
Not how to read it through the eyes of the culture that made it.
Not how to analyze it without shrinking it.

So the language starts.

“Popcorn movie.”
“Let’s see how it ages.”
“Overhyped.”
“Not that deep.”

Translation:
I don’t see myself centered, so I don’t recognize the value.

There is no white savior to orient them. 
No familiar doorway into the story where they get to be the moral center.

So instead of listening, they pretend to “grade”.

They will overlook:

• the Choctaw presence (as someone said: “one of the hardest film photos of the year”)This is a great video explaining why the Choctaw were chasing Remick.
• Here’s another
• the Irish music (did y’all catch that line dance?)
• the dynamic Asian characters (for me, I love the departure from the typical Westernized “demure & non-observant” Asian woman-Black people know there is more. She is human.)
• the blues lineage (a genre originated by Black Americans with Blues legend Buddy Guy making an appearance)
• the sacredness of the music montage scene that made film LEGEND Spike Lee leap like an excited child with sincere enthusiasm
• the white woman shaped by Black life, raised by a mother who took in Black twins, bound by a complicated love story this country doesn’t like to name
• the fact that the film quietly unfolds as the last night of many lives. It could
•  have been a sad obituary but it was a celebration of life. Much like the going home services (funerals) in Black culture. 

That alone lifts it out of “popcorn.”
But nuance is invisible to people trained to see Black stories as disposable.

This is not new. We were there. We heard it before.

They said it about The Color Purple.
They said it about What’s Love Got to Do With It.
They said it about Boyz n the Hood.
They said it about Eve’s Bayou.
They said it about Crooklyn, Mo Better Blues, and Do the Right Thing
They say it about any Black story that does not kneel.

No matter how groundbreaking. The quality of the work was never the issue. 

If the story does not position certain people as rescuer, validator, or final authority, they call it “small.” If Black Americans are not criminals, sexually promiscuous, or servants then not everyone knows how to engage with that thoughtfully.

At least not from a self appointed position that looks down as the “master” or “judge”.

Not from a place that can hold several dynamic truths at once because it lacks the courage to face OG truths. Foundational truths. 

And yes—
many of us learned this in college classrooms first. Rejected it in our essays and in our spoken the truth.

Where professors “correct” your interpretation.
Where your cultural literacy is treated as bias.
Where your lived understanding is treated as emotional noise.

They will take the teaching posture.

They will explain your story back to you. Maybe even sell it too.
Flatten it.
Sand it down.
Rename it something safer.

But in ten years, everyone will “remember” how they didn’t behave this way.

And then wonder why there are so few films like this.

• As if scarcity is accidental.
• As if it is not engineered. Intentional. 
• As if Black Americans controlling narrative, memory, grief, joy, complexity, and ending is not treated as dangerous.

We are not supposed to tell our own stories.

Not with this much interior life.
Not with this much authority.
Not without permission.

And to my people—and to every person from a minoritized culture watching this pattern unfold:

If it takes this much effort to dismiss your stories,
to reframe them,
to downgrade them,
to re-teach them,to mock them into smallness—

then you are looking at proof of value.

No one attacks what is empty.

People do not work so hard to minimize what has no power.

They do not rush to control what does not shape the world.

Create anyway.

Write anyway.

Film anyway.

Sing anyway.

Archive anyway.

Tell it from the inside.

Tell it without translation.
Tell it without apology.

Your stories are not “popcorn.”

They are memory.
They are lineage.
They are evidence.
They are inheritance.

And some truths only sound loud to people who benefit from silence.

Keep shining and make them put on sunglasses.

as i post this today………

so why learn to engage when you can just tear it down and say that it has “no value.”

AFFIRMATIONS FOR CREATORS

• • I am not here to translate my soul into something easier to digest.

  • My voice is not an argument.
    It is a record.

  • I create from memory, not from approval.

    

• Their misunderstanding does not reduce my meaning.

• I am not responsible for educating people who profit from not knowing.
• My culture is not a genre.
  It is a universe.

• I do not need to center myself in someone else’s mirror to be real.

• What unsettles them is not my craft —
  it is my authority.

• I refuse to shrink what my ancestors survived to preserve.

• My art is not “content.”
  It is continuity.

• I am allowed to be complex without being explained away.

• I will not soften my truth to be graded gently.

• My stories are not lonely.
  They are accompanied by the dead, the living, and the unborn.

• I create even when the room pretends not to notice.

• Being minimized is not a verdict.
  It is a reaction.

• I am not behind my time.
  I am ahead of their courage.

• I belong to a lineage of people who told stories while the world tried to erase the language.

<p>The post When You’re Trained to Consume a Culture but Not Understand It (Amplifying Affirmations for Black Creators) first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

Affirmation: I speak to myself in the tone I once searched for in others—
gentle, unhurried, faithful to my becoming.

Oh how I love, adore, and appreciate me for being me…every time I needed me.

Great news! He has a book. Let’s support art.

(He USED to be on TikTok. I am not surprised that he was part of the exodus.)

<p>The post Survivor Affirmation: I Appreciate Me for Being Me (featuring poet Steven Willis w Youtube video link) first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

In times of uncertainty, it is easy to feel pulled in a dozen directions by the noise of the world. This post is a gentle reminder that while you cannot always control the storm, you can choose where to drop your anchor.

Grounding Affirmation

“In the midst of chaos and crisis, I give myself permission to let go of the noise. I choose to protect my peace and focus my energy on what is truly meaningful to me. My values are my compass, and they will lead me through.”

Why Prioritizing Meaning Matters Right Now

When everything feels like an emergency, our “urgent” brain takes over, often leaving us depleted. Returning to what is meaningful helps you:

• Conserve Emotional Energy: You stop trying to solve things that aren’t yours to carry.

• Maintain Clarity: Focusing on your core values (like family, health, or creative purpose) acts as a filter for decision-making.

• Build Resilience: We can endure almost any “how” if we have a “why.” Meaning provides that “why.”

How to Shift Your Focus Today

1. Identify the “Vital Few”: Ask yourself, “If I could only protect three things today, what would they be?”

2. Mute the Excess: Give yourself a scheduled break from news cycles or high-stress social feeds.

3. Honor Tiny Rituals: If connection is meaningful to you, a five-minute phone call to a loved one is more grounding than an hour of scrolling.

Remember: Choosing what matters isn’t selfish; it is an act of survival and a way to ensure you have the strength to show up for the world later.

Affirmations for Prioritizing Meaning in Chaos

• I am the architect of my attention; I choose to build my focus around what is truly meaningful.

• Even when the world is loud, my inner peace remains my highest priority.

• I release the weight of things I cannot change to make room for the people and purposes I love.

• My values are my North Star; they guide me clearly through the fog of any crisis.

• I am not required to carry the world’s weight; I am only required to show up for what matters most.

• I honor my boundaries by saying “no” to the noise and “yes” to my soul’s essential needs.

• I find strength in my “why,” choosing growth and connection over fear and distraction.

• My worth is not defined by the chaos around me, but by the love and intention I pour into my day.

• In moments of overwhelm, I return to the present and focus only on the next meaningful step.

• I trust my heart to recognize what is essential and my hands to let go of the rest.

<p>The post Finding Your Anchor: How to Prioritize What Matters in Times of Chaos first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

We had a toddler visit us and I forgot what it was like.

I accidently sat on Mickey (the stuffed animal) and she acted like I killed him dead.

I turned the channel because I wasn’t used to her being there so I picked up my remote and turned to my channel and she went off.

We were in the car. No Wifi in some spots. No Youtube videos. Another tantrum. 

Sing her song when she doesn’t want you to sing it. Tantrum.

But those are babies. They just got here. You give them love, snacks, a nap, time alone, or a juice box and they reset. 

We should be embarrassed as a country that words of kindness are a “breaking viral news” moment. Thankfully, women like Lynn Jones are a standard in my culture. Wind beneath our weary wings. 

As it so happens this conversation grabbed me. My bachelors degree is in Organizational Management and Development-it is a degree that helps businesses to see people are every businesses greatest asset. For all the complaints about AI, what Lynn Jones did is what no machine can do without the aid of a human being.

She read the room. She read the person. She was human. She was humane. 

We’ve all seen these “journalists” being intentionally cruel. Who was that that asked the player who just lost his parent or grandparent where he was spending Thanksgiving knowing full well he just lost them? The player immediately zoned out. 

Not only did Coach Liam Coen need that, the country needed that. The calls against “unprofessional” behavior are telling on “professionalism”. You’re telling us that it was never meant to be humane. That it is simply a gatekeeper against human beings and their natural human behavior. Exposed.

And to the women journalists….but for women like Lynn Jones daring to step across lines that never made sense in first place, none of you would be where you are nor wearing what you get to wear.

 If you can only perform your job exactly as you were “trained” and “taught”, you are easily replaceable.

-Tonya GJ Prince

In many spaces, “professionalism” is spoken of as virtue.

Calm.
Controlled.
Polished.
Contained.

But Survivors learn something early:

Sometimes professionalism is not about care.
It is about distance.

It can become a shield people use to avoid:

• sitting with pain
• acknowledging harm
• witnessing truth
• or feeling what has already cost someone dearly to survive

And this lands hardest on the same people again and again:

• Black women, women across the Black diaspora, women from many Asian cultures, and other women whose cultures taught them to carry pain quietly, where emotional restraint is often mistaken for strength and silence is mistaken for maturity 
• neurodivergent people
• Survivors who still have a living nervous system
• Survivors who dare to feel out loud

When we speak plainly.
When our voices carry memory.
When our bodies respond honestly.
When our emotions do not arrive in tidy paragraphs.

We are told:

“Tone it down.”
“Be more professional.”
“Be objective.”
“Be easier to digest.”

But what they often mean is:

Make your humanity smaller so others can stay comfortable.

Even in Survivor spaces.

Especially there.

And that can cut deeper than silence.

Because healing was never meant to require emotional erasure.
Safety was never meant to demand numbness.
Truth was never meant to be filtered through someone else’s tolerance.

So here is your reminder:

Your feelings are not a flaw.
Your nervous system is not an inconvenience.
Your honesty is not unprofessional.

You do not have to sand down your soul to be taken seriously.

You do not have to become quiet to be worthy of care.

You do not have to perform calm to deserve safety.

Some people use “professionalism” to hide from their own unfinished healing.

You are not required to join them there.

You are allowed to be whole.

You are allowed to be seen.

You are allowed to feel — even in rooms that forgot how.

And you are still dignified.
Still wise.
Still credible.
Still sacred.

**And some of these critics have zero empathy of women being punched in the face by men declaring themselves to women, no regard for girls losing to boys or men. So empathy and courage is not their strong muscle. This opens a much needed conversation about how cruel journalists have been to players. Serena, Venus, and others. Empathy and compassion has been lacking for a very long time.

**Speaking of Venus and Serena, they have been telling us the name of the game in sports journalism is to be cruel to athletes since they were children (through their father). Lynn Jones broke that toy and now you see tantrums that outrank toddlers by far.

<p>The post Gratitude to the Humanity of Lynn Jones: When “Professionalism” Is Used as a Shield first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

There is something I’ve noticed across history — and I feel it stirring again.

Whenever those in power get too big, too loud, too controlling…
whenever they forget the people, forget compassion, forget humility…

That’s not the moment to lose hope.

That’s the moment to pay attention.

Because that’s when something new starts breathing under the surface.

Think about it.

Motown didn’t show up in gentle times.
Ray Charles didn’t rewrite music in peaceful comfort.
Hip hop wasn’t born in safety, luxury, and applause.

Those movements rose from neglect, exclusion, boarded-up communities, broken promises — places where people were told:

“You don’t belong at the table.”

And so they built their own table.

They tuned the guitars.
They turned crates into stages.
They wrote lyrics in the dark when nobody was watching.

They created because survival needed a song.

Every time power drifts too far from everyday people, a quiet shift happens:

Real talent steps forward.
Real truth starts humming.
Real voices refuse to disappear.

I look at the world now — 2026 rising — and I don’t just see chaos or noise.

I see seeds.

I see a turning.

People are tired of being manipulated, measured, algorithmed, follower counted, and sold to. “Dang it, we are people.”
They’re craving what can’t be faked:

skill
spirit
discipline
heart
story
presence

We may see more small stages, living-room concerts, local showcases, choirs, poetry circles, neighborhood storytellers, community radio, homemade documentaries, humble projects with deep soul.

Because when the machine feels too cold,
people return to the fire.

And if you are a Survivor — listen closely:

Your voice belongs in this season.

Not polished perfect.
Not filtered and forced.

Truthful.

Weathered.

Loving.

Everything you survived has given you:

eyes that see deeper
hands that carry tenderness
a heart that knows when something is fake
and a spirit that refuses to bow to lies

History shows us:

When power overplays its hand,
the people remember who they are.

And every time that happens,
the world gets new music,

new art,
new vision,
new courage,
new hope.

I’m rooting for you.
I’m grateful for your voice.
And I’m excited for what’s coming next.

Because we’ve been here before.

And look what we created last time.

<p>The post Your Authentic Voice Belongs In This Season first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

The accent.
The neighborhood.
The elders.
The songs.
The faith.
The grit.
The way we survived.

But healing isn’t about waging war on the very ground that held us up when nothing else did.

Survival was not a flaw.
Survival was a blessing.
Survival was wisdom gathered under pressure.

The work now is different:

• We keep what is strong.

• We set down what is harmful.

• We learn new ways without shaming the old ones.

Because while we’re busy rejecting our foundation, there are always others quietly studying it, borrowing from it, profiting from it — and praising themselves for “discovering” what our grandmothers already knew.

You deserve to grow without erasing yourself.

You deserve to rise without apologizing for your roots.

You deserve to heal without rewriting your story as shame.

Your history is not your enemy.
Your history is the soil.

And soil can be enriched, tended, watered — not destroyed.

Affirmations

• I honor the people and places that carried me this far.

• I bless what helped me survive and release what no longer serves me.

• My roots are not a burden — they are strength, memory, and guidance.

• I build forward with gratitude, clarity, and confidence.

<p>The post Artist Jossie Harris Thacker: Building On Where You Come From — Without Going To War With It first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

 I was in front of my television nearly every Saturday morning and pouted when I couldn’t be. Because why do Saturday morning errands have to run over and make me miss Soul Train?

Then at some point, my local television station would run that day’s episode back late at night or maybe late Sunday afternoon if you were lucky.

I wasn’t alone. People across various races, ethnicities, and ages were doing the same thing even if we didn’t talk about it together.

So, let’s talk about Soul Train — not as nostalgia, but as legacy, genius, and cultural leadership. Because those dancers were not just “having fun on television.”
They were innovators. Stylists. Athletes. Choreographers. Cultural architects.

And they made it look effortless — which is exactly why too many people underestimated the brilliance.

Soul Train: Where movement became language

Week after week, Black dancers brought their full selves to that stage:

• rhythm layered on rhythm
• footwork that defied gravity
• style that felt like freedom
• personality that spoke louder than words

They didn’t wait for permission.
They didn’t ask for validation.

They shaped:

fashion (we tried to wear the clothes that they wore)

music trends

hair styles 

how we move at weddings, clubs, cookouts, and celebrations even today 

Artists came on Soul Train hoping to be accepted by the dancers — because if the dancers loved your sound, the culture followed.

That’s power.

And yet — like so much Black brilliance — it was often framed as “fun,” “natural,” “just dancing.”

No.

It was training without trainers.
Choreography without credit.
Discipline without applause.

They paid their own way.
They practiced for hours.
They created moves that later got copied, monetized, and studied — while many of their names were left out of history.

They were leaders.

When excellence looks “easy,” people forget the work

This is where it connects back to you.

When you carry something with grace —
when you move with skill —
when your voice, presence, creativity, or wisdom flows…

People can dismiss it.

“Of course she can do that.”
“That’s just natural.”
“That’s not a real skill.”

They get comfortable with your labor.
They get used to your brilliance.

And suddenly:

• your gifts become “expected”
• your genius becomes “ordinary”
• your effort disappears behind the shine

But what Soul Train shows us is this:

Just because something is done beautifully does NOT mean it was easy.

Just because you make it look smooth does not mean it did not cost time, strength, courage, and soul.

The dancers were unsung — but not unseen

In the years to come, we cannot allow their legacy to be minimized for anyone’s comfort.

We will not:

• let their artistry be written off as “cute”
• pretend they weren’t pioneers
• ignore how they expanded culture, joy, and possibility

They deserve the same respect given to classical dancers, choreographers, and performance artists — because they were all of that.

They owned the floor.
They owned their bodies.
They owned their creativity.

And they built a path many others are still walking.

And you — your gifts deserve that same honor

Whatever your gift is:

• storytelling
• organizing
• caregiving
• spiritual insight
• leadership
• artistic creation
• survival wisdom
• innovation

It matters.

You do not have to shrink so others feel relaxed.
You do not have to dull your shine so others don’t feel threatened.

The dancers didn’t tone themselves down.
They didn’t apologize for being great.

They danced like the world needed that light —
because it did.

And so do you.

Your gifts are brilliant.

Let them shine.
Let them stretch.
Let them lead.

History will remember those who dared to move freely —
and you are part of that lineage.

**There is a difference between Studio54 and Soul Train. Two entirely different entities. Soul Train was a legendary cultural experience that ran on television for 36 years. There will never be another. Respect.

**Note, it is unlikely that these dancers were “high” on anything but the music, the fashion, and vibe which they always knew was special. The producers ran a tight ship.

<p>The post Soul Train: Where art became cross-cultural language first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>