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For the past seven months I have been immersed in storytelling. My small project grant, Black Women’s Storytelling as Healing Pedagogy, has taken me on a journey of wonder, insight, wisdom, knowledge, revelation, and so much more. I had conversations with eleven Black women storytellers who are living their vocational calling at the intersection of the church and academy. Their definitions of story and personal practices of storytelling inform their individual and collective approaches to healing pedagogy that inspires human flourishing. The culminating event of this project was a storytelling excursion to Washington DC, to visit the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. This experience propelled me to the mountaintop of storytelling centered on the African Diasporic experience. Let me share one of a multitude of stories that expanded my worldview. Jim Crow Laws and lynch mobs were a common part of the landscape of the United States prior to the civil war. They continue in a variety of ways beyond the strange fruit that hung from southern trees that Ancestor Billie Holiday sang about. Now unarmed and nonviolent Black men, women, and children serve as target practice for those commissioned to serve and protect. Remembering the 1920’s to 1930’s in Marshall, Texas, and at Wiley College in particular, Professor Melvin B. Tolson confronted racist attitudes and actions to establish a debate team which he knew would be equal to any white teams during that time. The students’ have been given the name “The Great Debaters” and competed in the first inter-racial debate ever held in the history of the south. The film, “The Great Debaters,” was introduced to the world in 2007. The story centered around the young students and their coach, Tolson, played by the film’s director, Denzel Washington. “The Great Debaters” is one of my favorite movies because of its historical significance and embodiment of Black Excellence. During my tour of the museum, I marveled as I thoughtfully and carefully viewed the exhibits and artifacts. One exhibit in particular caught my eye. It was a flier depicting the original Great Debaters from Wiley College. I found myself drawn to the photos of these young men and women, recalling the struggles and obstacles they had to overcome as they sought to establish themselves as just as good or better than their white counterparts in the field of forensics. As I stood there reflecting and paying homage to my Wiley College ancestors who faced the realities of domestic terror in the south, I heard the word “RESOLVED,” in my heart, mind, soul, body, and spirit. During a debate, a resolve is a specific statement or question up for debate. It is also a determination to do or refrain from doing something. Resolve is to come to a conclusion. I asked God, what is the RESOLVE, or what is to be determined, as I engage, explore, and experience the museum? I was led to Psalm 118: 17. BE IT RESOLVED: “We (Black people) will not die, but live and proclaim what the Lord has done.” This is the story of MY people throughout all generations. We will not die, but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done. Ancestor Maya Angelou with her soul’s conviction said it poignantly in her world-renowned poem, “And Still I Rise”: Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.   Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.   RESOLVED—We will not die, but live, and proclaim what the Lord has done.

The car service arrived at my house. I grabbed my purse, suitcase, and briefcase and hurried out the door making sure it was locked behind me. As scheduled, we stopped to pick up a colleague who was also attending the conference in Toronto, Canada. Driving east on Highway 78 and almost to Newark International Airport, I gasped. My passport was still at home. My colleague asked if I wanted to go back and get it. I looked at my watch and said, “No.” Going back would likely mean we both would miss the flight. Once at the ticket counter, I handed the gate agent my ticket and driver’s license. I told him I was on my way to Toronto. He looked at my ticket to confirm an international destination. He asked me for my passport. I told him, in my most contrite voice, that I had left my passport on my dining room table. He stopped himself from rolling his eyes, but a faint sigh of annoyance slipped through his otherwise professional demeanor. Still, in a mode of apology, I asked, “Surely there is some other identification that I can use to cross the border . . .  . Not everybody has a passport!” Without looking up from his terminal, he informed me he would accept a U.S. Voter Identification Card. “EUREKA!” I thought and “EEEEEeeeee!!!!!” came out of my mouth. I gleefully reached into my purse, found my wallet, located my voter registration card, and with the pride of the ancestors, I extended my arm to hand it to the ticketing agent. My flurry of emotion had gotten his attention, and he looked up from his terminal and at me. When I handed him the card, he stared in disbelief. Slowly he reached for the worn card, examined it suspiciously, and was flabbergasted. He went from doubt to shock with the reading of the card. He raised my card above his head and called to his left and then to his right—to the other agents at neighboring terminals—“Someone has it!  Someone actually has a voter registration card!” The other agents reacted with nods of approval and surprise. The African-American gentleman processed my ticket and gave me a boarding pass. He said to me while handing back my voter card, “Nobody ever has these.” I thanked him for telling me of the alternative ID and asked if I would have any trouble getting back into the USA from Canada with only a voter registration card as ID. He said, “It’s the law. They have to let you back home.”  My voter registration card has been in my wallet since 1980 – age 18. I carry the card as a symbol of ancestral work and sacrifice that created the democratic republic, the United States of America. The free labor of my African enslaved people provided ease in the creation of a democracy for those white men who reaped untold financial benefits and whose families still benefit from this legacy of blood and dehumanization. I carry my card to mark the progress of Black women. Through the leadership of such women as Barbara Jordan, Sojourner Truth, and Madam C. J. Walker, we are surviving. The card reminds me that in 1994, the brothers and sisters in South Africa seized democratic rights. I cried when after a three-day journey by wheel barrel—with grandchildren taking turns pushing—the grandmother cast her vote for Nelson Mandela as president. I cried because so many grand-women did not have wheel barrels for transportation to the polls. Lest my repletion become hollow romantic recollection and foolish sentimentality, I admit that I would have, even in 2002, known that my voter ID would allow me to cross the US/Canada border. Welding the power of democracy means knowledge of my rights as well as voicing my dissent when my rights and the rights of others are challenged, and even taken. The politicians and the system that benefits from my not knowing my rights must be challenged and dismantled. Undoubtedly, the recent executive orders by the newly elected president that would have banned Muslim brothers and sisters from entering the United States was stopped by mobilized voters. Unquestionably, the House and House Leader Paul Ryan, on March 24th, canceled their vote to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act due to the pressure of grassroots efforts by churches, synagogues, and mosques; by grassroots advocacy organizations like Black Lives Matter and Indivisible; and by those Republicans, likely voters for President Trump, who felt betrayed when the bill would shrink Medicaid. With widespread acts of protest and resistance in the first hundred days of the presidency of #45, the complacency of the American voter has been shed. It is, for voters, an exciting and dangerous time in democracy. We are coming to the realization (again!) that liberty depends upon a voiced constituency. Without a voiced constituency, we have only ourselves to blame for the creation of a dictator as president. Democracy is not in the DNA of the United States. Instead, democracy is one of the most powerful ideas on earth and each generation must make the decision to doggedly pursue this profound belief or not. Classrooms hold the possibility of being the invaluable spaces where the idea of democracy is re-inscribed on every generation. While I do not believe classrooms are in-and-of-themselves democratic spaces, I do subscribe to the view that classrooms are training grounds for learning to use the spectrum of voices needed for our flourishing democracy. Our students must become border-crossing sojourners able to discern what is right and just. The classroom is where informed and thoughtful citizens should be shaped, constituted, and inspired for the work of justice. Classrooms are the spaces to cultivate the voices that would challenge the oppressions that have a stranglehold on our democracy. What are the rights of students in your institution?  By what means are the rights of students known and owned by students? How do these rights enter into the course design for formation and accountability?  What would it mean to discuss the rights of students in the classroom, and then juxtapose those rights and responsibilities with those of the local and national democratic system? In what ways does a banking system approach to teaching truncate citizenship? In what ways does a banking system approach contribute to a voiceless democratic constituency? Which pedagogies prepare students for full participation in democracy?  What would it mean to assess all introductory courses to discover the kinds of voice students are expected to develop and utilize through class participation and assignments? What would it take to expand the repertoire of voices developed across the introductory courses? What would it mean to raise the awareness of faculty concerning the ways the U.S. democratic system affects international students and recently immigrated students? In what ways can faculty better support international students and recent immigrants through their course design?

I was scheduled to write a blog post on teaching about controversial issues and how they are shaping contemporary Muslim identities in North America. Guessing, however, that many readers may be fatigued from the barrage of unfavorable events – from the U.S. travel ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries to a horrible attack on a mosque in Quebec – I have decided to dedicate this particular blog to one of my favorite pedagogical tools for inspiring hope as well as a lasting sense of personal connection to the subject matter: the telling of a story.  Storytelling is one of the oldest techniques that human beings have used to teach one another. From pre-Islamic times to the present day, all Muslim societies have been shaped by orality in the form of tales, fables, myths, legends, and narratives. As I have emphasized to my students, there are many purposes for storytelling: for spiritual and moral guidance; for creating a sense of the supernatural, the metaphysical, and the existential; for inspiring learning, wonder, and adventure; for critiquing self and society; and for reinforcing historical narratives, in ways that can create positive social identity as well as stereotypes, prejudices, and even a basis for ongoing conflict. Whether I am teaching an introductory course on Islam or a graduate course on Sufi expressions of Islam, some of my greatest moments in class are when I share with students a story of my living experience of traveling to particular places in the Muslim world. For this blog I would like to share a story from a visit to Egypt more than a decade ago, as a window into diverse aspects of Arab and Middle Eastern culture (I also sometimes share this story when lecturing on traditional Islamic cities). While my particular story will differ from the stories other instructors will use in their own teaching, I hope that the manner in which I communicate different realities and experiences will prompt others to harvest their own distinctive experiences, and consider which aspects of those experiences might be richest in content for students – particularly those whose ideas about Muslim-majority and Middle Eastern societies are abstract and largely gleaned from news and popular culture.   In 2003, I had the honor of planning and coordinating a conference at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. After the conference was over I lingered in Egypt for a number of days, and on my last day I wanted to go shopping for books on Sufism in Cairo. (I would share with my students that Cairo and Damascus have long been two of the greatest cities in the Middle East for finding and buying books on Sufism.) A list of books in hand, my husband and I went from one bookstore to another and then another until we finally encountered, at the very back of one store, a beautiful elderly man who wrote and then recited the following sentence on a piece paper: “You must find Abdul Rahman at 5:00 pm in Azbakeya.” Inspired by this new lead, we set out to find Azbakeya but no one knew where it was. Finally, after much searching, we found it – an area in Cairo where there were booksellers of every kind, clustered in row upon row of small metal shacks. Somewhat daunted about where to start, we began to ask where we might find Abdul Rahman. As so often happens in the Middle East, many people were willing to stop, listen, and try to help, leading us from one person to the next but still no Abdul Rahman. Eventually, though, we did find Abdul Rahman and promptly showed him the list. How long, he asked, would we be in Cairo? “We leave tonight,” we informed him. Hearing this, he physically closed his shack for the day and said, “Follow me.” Surprised by this turn of events and uncertain about exactly where we were going, my husband and I then started to follow Abdul Rahman through the busy streets of Cairo, swerving this way and that. The sunset prayer had just begun and people were bustling about – some going home, some praying on the street, and others on their way to whatever events they had planned for the evening. Abdul Rahman then did a strange thing. He climbed into the front passenger seat of a taxi cab and beckoned us to get into the back of it. Still unsure of our destination, we complied with his request and felt good about this new, unforeseen but promising development. As a professor once told us, “Surrender to the grace of the moment.” As we made our way down paved but dusty streets, we started to realize that our cab was approaching “the City of the Dead” (I would share with my students how this is an area known to be both one of the largest cemeteries in the Middle East and also a place where the poorest of Cairo’s poor find spaces to live.)  Abdul Rahman was taking us to his home. The cab dropped us off in front of a modest mausoleum building, and Abdul Rahman yelled up to the second floor where his beautiful daughter, perhaps 8 or 9 years old, was holding a baby. She peeked out, ran down to the front gate, opened it, and handed the baby to her father. We then entered the building and followed Abdul Rahman to his living quarters, where there were books on all four walls, and books in boxes as well as on top of boxes and tables. We could not imagine fitting more books into one space. Abdul Rahman then handed the baby to my husband before proceeding to search his stacks, and I thought to myself, “This is the first time I have seen my husband hold a baby and it was in the City of the Dead!” Knowing his collection well, Abdul Rahman moved efficiently from one stack to another and brought forth a stack of books on Sufism. Some, he pointed out, were hundreds of years old – for instance, an early edition of Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Futuhat al-Makkiyyah. Even though we did not want to bargain – no easy task for us in any event, made somewhat more awkward by the circumstances – we then had to haggle for the books. (I would share with my students the social significance of haggling and the art to a good haggler!)  Soon, after a few purchases and some small talk about baby names (Abdul Rahman cited a hadith of the Prophet to explain his own preference for boys’ names starting with Abdul [meaning servant of a particular divine quality] and etymological variations on Muhammad [which translates literally as “praising and praiseworthy”]), it was time for us to leave. We had to get back to our hotel, check out, and then leave for the airport to catch our flight. Abdul Rahman went outside and hailed a taxi for us in the City of the Dead. While conversing with our young cab driver, we discovered that he was a Nubian, with roots in Egypt’s culturally distinctive south. Upon hearing that we had come from the United States, he smiled and, with a thumbs-up signal, articulated a single word with much drama: “Schwarzenegger!” We immediately grasped his meaning, though this was our first news of the matter: Arnold Schwarzenegger had won the election, becoming governor of California. Unable to resonate with his obvious excitement, we felt what might be described as the beginning stage of reverse culture shock. My husband and I looked at each other, and could read the same meaning in each others’ faces: “We are going back to that.” In an attempt to change the subject, we tried to steer the conversation to Egypt and Egyptians – so much hospitality, and so many amazing things to see. Our driver was happy to hear of our positive experience, and appeared to enjoy the exchange. Then about five minutes before arriving at the hotel our driver pulled over to the side of the road, and turned to us with a hand signal that every visitor to the country must learn within the first day or two: “Please wait just a minute.” He then hopped out of the car and left us in it! Once again we consulted intuition but things felt good and we “surrendered to the grace of the moment.” A few minutes later, our driver popped out of a small roadside shop, slid into the driver’s seat, and turned to present us with a single rose in each hand. He looked at us with light in his eyes and said, “Welcome to Egypt!”  Many of my students over the years have told me that this is one of the stories they remember. Like other stories, it beckons them to encounter the Muslim world with openness, wonder and awe rather than fear, perplexity, or prejudgment. With this story, I invite my students to enjoy the process of entering into the same sense of discovery experienced by a traveler abroad on some new journey, never quite knowing what to do or what to expect, but open to common humanity, curious about cultural nuance, and eager for the inevitable experience of surprise.