Your Quick Guide To Following ESSENCE's #Woke100 Women On Social Media

When my son was shot down, I stood up and it make me wake up and it made me want to participate and made me want to do my part. And so I'm just simply doing my part as a parent, as a mom. [MUSIC] [UNKNOWN] but I think for me, a lot of it was Watching what happened as a parent, watching what happened with Trayvon and then getting to Ferguson. For me, I could not sleep. And after awhile I thought I can't just do nothing and feel bad. And for me that was my moment where I thought I have to start speaking out, no matter what. [MUSIC] Trayvon Martin being killed And having a son of my own really brought it home to me that no one is safe. And I need to do as much as I can to ensure that more young, black boys and girls are not taken from their parents. It's. I dont think there was ever a time where I wasn't wope. But a more recent turning point for me was when Trayvon Martin was killed. That's where black lives matter came from. So for us to still have to debate that point with so many people who just don't get it, I think is important and I think it was definitely a turning point for me. So I'm the daughter of two amazing Nigerian immigrants, I came of age in Phoenix, Arizona. I witnessed first-hand a lot of attacks on my immigrant community, I witnessed people being put into immigration detention, I witnessed my best friend's mom getting deported. There was this law called SB 1070 It was one of the most draconian anti-immigrant laws of our day, and it essentially legalized racial profiling in Arizona. This chain reaction, this domino effect of attacks on our communities, I knew that they weren't going to stop. And so that's when I became an organizer, because insight without action Is vanity. I got woke late in the game because I was born in Nigeria. Born and raised in Nigeria, didn't come to the US until I was 9. So I didn't even know what being black was. Cuz you don't have to define this cuz everybody had this. It was through learning about Slavery the middle passes, the fact that this country was built on the backs of black and brown people. My mom unfortunately passed away when I was 17 and I moved back to Brooklyn. And I happened to come back to Brooklyn at the time when there was an intense war against us. Yousuf Hawkins murdered in the street. Central Park five happening. So we were sort of pushed into wokeness. You had to either be on the side of Reverend Sharpton or on the side of black death. I'll never forget in high school Co-founding a diversity club at our majority white, very affluent high school. And my sophomore year of high school I got good at it. Having to handle those things, that was the kind of stuff that you prepare for right. So you have to practice courage in those little moments, so you're ready for those big moment, when it's time to say whoa. I don't know that there was a moment. I think that there are Continuous moments. Just recently working on the Women's March with the disability community. We continued to just say, as I said, the disabled community. We still just sort of box them in as if they are completely separate from also living the other facets of their lives. So, to me I continue to be woke. and to have moments of awakening. I was blessed with well parents and so that help but became my movement when my son's father was murdered. when I begun to pull back the layers of life, how this happen to him? What we gonna do the poverty question comes up. The question of inequality comes up. And just all the ills that are happening in communities and to disadvantaged people, marginalized communities. And then I wasn't embarrassed anymore. I was really more so ashamed of America. I always knew there was inequality, but the day that I was woke, really woke, was as a young 21 year old immediately after the horrific attacks of 9 11. And as I lived in one of the largest Muslim communities and just watched Grown men in my community be hold off, picked up, businesses raided for things like name sharing, just being able to see my community criminalised just for the faith that we follow or for the countries our parents came from, and I never thought that I would see that in my own eyes in a place like New York City so I've been Pretty well for 16 years right now. For me there's several moments that kind of have led to me being really really woke. I was a freshman in high school, my boy Timothy, I played ball, basketball. And he was killed by a white supremest and he was African American. When my brother was held at gunpoint and it was just because he Fit the profile and I always talk about when my sister was buried on my 17th birthday, I think that just kinda fueled who I've become at this moment, just the different levels of oppression and injustice that then have you open your eyes. And also open your heart and your mouth, [MUSIC]