The excellence and the pride and creativity that swept through Harlem and reverberated around the world—they’re all there. Even now, standing here in the circle of Canon’s arms, I’m an echo of those artists—their talent and persistence in the face of prejudice or war or poverty or any flaming darts the world threw at them. Instead of burning them to death, adversity lit a fire under them to make something the world had never seen. Innovating with their bodies and minds and voices. The chaos and necessity of imagination. And this is their legacy. I am their legacy.
