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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,
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I am Jomama Jones.
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Some call me a soul sonic superstar,
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and I agree
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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'd 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,
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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 --
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even bring grandmother's
plants back to life.
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He had that magic touch
with broken things ...
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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 we 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."