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"I've got people in me."

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So sang the late Abbey Lincoln.

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I take that lyric as mantra.

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"I've got people in me."

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Jomama Jones is the person in me
I turn to as a guide.

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She's my alter ego.

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I've been embodying her
in performance since 1995,

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and she comes around
when she has some insight to offer folks.

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At this time of radical change,

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I'm glad to be the vessel
for her message to you.

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Jomama Jones: What if I told you

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it's going to be alright ...

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but what if I told you not yet?

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What I told you there are trials ahead

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beyond your deepest fears?

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What if I told you will you fall ...

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down, down, down?

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But what if I told you
you will surprise yourself?

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What if I told you will be brave enough?

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What if I told you

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we won't all make it through?

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But what if I told you

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that is as it must be?

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What if I told you I've seen the future?

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Do you like my hands?

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They're expressive, yeah?

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Now look at your hands -- now go on.

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There's so much history recorded
through their touches

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and marks of the future
sketched on their palms.

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Sometimes hands grip tight,

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sometimes hands let go.

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What if I told you

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it's all going to come undone?

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Hm.

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Ladies and gentlemen

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and otherwise described,

37
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I am Jomama Jones.

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Some call me a soul sonic superstar,

39
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and I agree,

40
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though even in my past
that was from the future.

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Let me take you back to girlhood.

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Picture this:

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it was Planting Day,

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which was a holiday I invented

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for the Black youth
community group I founded.

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I dashed home to put on
my gardening ensemble

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when I caught my uncle Freeman red-handed.

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He was standing over my piggy bank
with his hammer raised high.

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He was fixing to steal my coins.

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And you see,

51
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my uncle Freeman was a handyman.

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He could fix anything --

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a broken chair, a shattered pot --

54
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even bring grandmother's
plants back to life.

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He had that magic touch
with broken things ...

56
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and broken people.

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He would take me with him on his jobs

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and say, "C'mon Jo,

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let's go do something
to make this world a better place."

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His hands were wide and calloused,

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and they always reminded me
of displaced tree roots.

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As we worked he would talk with folks

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about the change he was sure
was just around the corner.

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I saw him mend flagging hopes

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and leave folks
with their heads held high.

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His hands stirred the sunshine.

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And now he was about
to break my piggy bank.

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I said "Step back, man,
and show me your hands."

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You know the irony was

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he used to give me all the old coins
he'd find under floorboards while working.

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And I put them in the piggy bank

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along with the money I earned
through my childhood side hustles.

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But by the spring of 1970,

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Uncle Freeman had lost his touch ...

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along with most of his jobs.

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He saw a heavy future

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of civil wrongs and Black power
outages in his palms.

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The last straw had come
the previous winter

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when they had gunned down Fred Hampton.

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Overwhelmed with fear

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and rage

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and grief,

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Uncle Freeman tried to game his future.

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He gripped too tight,

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and he started playing the numbers.

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"Well, one of these numbers
is gonna hit, little girl.

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You got a quarter for your uncle Free -- "

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Now some of y'all have that relative.

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But I knew right then and there
I had to do something.

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I jumped up and I grabbed that hammer

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and I brought it
crashing down on that pig.

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And Uncle Freeman started to weep
as I gathered up all the coins.

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"We're not buying
no lottery ticket, Uncle Freeman.

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C'mon."

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We spent every last cent
at the seed store.

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You know, the kids in my gardening group?

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They didn't bat an eye
when I had Uncle Freeman get down

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and put his hands in the earth again

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and start breaking up
that soil for our seeds.

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And my little friend Taesha even came over
and started slapping him on the back

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saying, "Cry it out, Uncle Freeman.

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Cry it out."

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"I can't fix this," he sobbed.

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It's an ancient-future truism, that.

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He wasn't the first to feel that way,
and he wouldn't be the last.

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Right now, it feels as though
everything is breaking beyond repair.

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It is.

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But that breaking apart
can be a breaking open,

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no matter how violent and uncertain

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and fearsome it seems.

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The thing is ...

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we can't do it alone.

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Uncle Freeman cried so much that day
as we planted our seeds,

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he was our very own irrigation system.

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"I don't know who I am
anymore, little girl,"

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he said to me at sundown.

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"Good, Uncle Freeman.

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Good.

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You're new again,

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and that's just how we need you."