031 - Leading the Mellon Foundation, How You Champion Artists and Inclusion, with Dr. Elizabeth Alexander

As an artist, I am dearly acquainted with failure because every day that you work, you fail at the page, you fail at the first pass of the sentence, you fail at the first draft of the poem, and you persevere to make it sing, to make it better. I actually do think that that takes a lot of toughness. I just talked with a young person today who was disappointed about getting a piece of writing rejected, and I used to, when I was doing more of this, I used to go around with when things were on paper, with a big fat, bulging folder of my rejections, and I used to say the rule is, and this is again, nothing electronic, the mail, you know, you get a rejection in the morning, you send it out somewhere else in the afternoon. The kind of perseverance that is necessary. Also from writing, I have learned that you have to listen and evolve. It could be listening to a trusted person with whom you share your work, or it could be learning to listen to yourself, or it could be learning to listen to the great work that comes before that we measure ourselves against. I learned more from Wendell and Brooks and Tony Morrison, and Robert Hayden, and any workshop. I didn't really come up in workshops. So, you know, in order to improve, in order to get better, in order to get from the first draft to the hundredth draft, you know, we have to be open and evolving. So I think the ability to evolve is the thing that I say to the United States of America, and that I say to each of us trying to, you know, learn from all of the people and things and opportunities in this extraordinary world to bring out an even better version of what we have to contribute to evolve. We have to. Welcome to Black Philanthropy, our stories, where each episode spotlights awesome black and African-American leaders committed to transforming lives and communities through philanthropy. These authentic conversations will inspire, challenge, and remind you. You are not alone. Here's your host, award-winning writer, director, and founder of Simule and Surrey, Michelle Renee Jackson. Hello there. You're listening to Black Philanthropy, our stories. We are so pleased to have our next guest today, Dr. Elizabeth Alexander of the Melan Foundation, Dr. Alexander. We are so grateful for you today. I have been looking forward to this conversation, so thank you for being here. Why is it important to talk about Black Philanthropy with us today? Well, I think that when we talk about philanthropy, we usually don't think black. I mean, there are some African-Americans who were in philanthropy, but I thought that the opportunity to bring together our traditions of generosity and care for community with the professional field of philanthropy in which I'm working now was a great opportunity. I already know this is going to be an awesome conversation. And also, you all came serious, so I want to say seriously the depth of your preparation and your wanting to understand deeply how this work gets done is also something that made us say yes. One of the most interesting things about philanthropy is how many times is Google today, and then what's associated with that googling of philanthropy, which is ultimately the question about what is philanthropy? When people are searching for philanthropy, they're asking that question, what is philanthropy? And I wondered from your perspective in all the work that you've done here, but also prior to coming here for you, how do you define philanthropy? When I was coming of age, when I was in college, when I was thinking about what jobs to do and starting on my career, I didn't ever think about philanthropy. I knew that there were, you know, charitable donations that people made, but I didn't understand it as a field. I didn't know what foundations were. It was something that I think was very invisible and shrouded and whispered, and suddenly things would get resourced. So finding myself in it now, and we'll talk about that path more, as the writer and the English professor that I am trained to be, I think of the roots of the word philanthropy, love of people. And so, you know, in those roots, I think that what animates our professional giving, so, I mean, again, as a field, it's important to say that we are a professional organization. We are structured. We follow a set of specific laws that govern us. We have extraordinary professional staff who, like any philanthropy, who have worked in fields and come with tremendous expertise, which helps us make the decisions about where the resources go. So, you know, we are philanthropy is also a set of organizations that function professionally, distinguishing it from how you or I might make our charitable donations, you know, in our communities or elsewhere, and also distinct from how some people of tremendous resources give out their money, but don't have the professional staff to, you know, hold responsibility for fields. And for us at Mellon, those fields that we hold responsibility for are arts, culture, humanities, libraries, archives, higher learning. Back to the love of people, I think, you know, for the good of people plural collectively and organized in societies. So, you know, out of that love, we activate our targeted strategic generosity. It's kind of more than generosity, because I think that generosity, um, suggests you're doing it kind of out of the goodness of your heart. I think there is an obligation in philanthropy. What's the obligation? The obligation is to give as well as possible as much as possible to better our society. That's what I think the obligation is. We talked about love of people. Yeah, we also talk about the people that we come from when I wonder where your people come from. Yes. So you mean that literally. And so my people, first of all, my mother and father come from Harlem, USA. Oh, local. Yes. And my grandparents, I know we have a Yonkers person with us. So my grandmother, Edith Callister, um, was born North Carolina, grew up in Yonkers and then came to Harlem. My paternal grandfather, Clifford Alexander, came from Jamaica, West Indies when he was 18 years old. And then my mother's parents came from Alabama, also to Harlem, in the Great Migration, in the Harlem Renaissance. So I think about that extraordinary, extraordinary swirl of black aspiration and brilliance and struggle and accomplishment that was the good fortune of my paternal grandparents, all of whom I knew. Is there anybody, either in that community or someone else that you think about in this work now that you are at one of the highest levels that one can achieve within the institutional approach to philanthropy? Is there anyone that you're honoring or thinking about when you do the work of philanthropy? I'm definitely thinking about my maternal grandmother, Winona Bond Logan, um, who was a social worker, um, and who always taught me to be a helpful person. I mean, that was really be helpful. How can you be helpful? How can you be helpful to other people? How can you put your hand on someone's shoulder and look them in the eye and be kind and helpful? So there was always that sense of responsibility. She was also extremely stylish. So I remember seeing her go, uh, you know, to do her social work, work in her, in her work suit and thinking like, oh, look at that. Um, and then certainly from my father, Clifford Alexander, who passed, it will soon be four years ago. Um, he was the, the greatest influence on my sense of duty in the world, of my sense of possibility, of what it meant to be a race person. Um, so all of the people I came from were serious race people. I mean, these were folks who, and now we're going into great aunts, great uncles in the Harlem community were, you know, doctors and artists and building managers and political organizers who were doing what they did on behalf of giving black people a better chance in a society that still was not fully, uh, accepting how we could fully contribute to it. Um, so that was just the only way I saw people being. Um, but to my father, he was one of his favorite adjectives to describe people. He was a righteous man. Uh, he was a speak truth to power man. Uh, and he was someone who pushed the boulder up the hill. Um, and who, uh, relished that actually, um, and who believed, uh, that there could be more and who did so joyfully, um, and who had a tremendous sense of responsibility, certainly to black people, but to people in general. Um, he was, uh, did a lot of different work for the government and land. Then President Carter was in office, he was the first black secretary of the Army. And I remember asking him, "So, you know, sassy 13-year-old, how are you going to do this job, Dad?" And I remember him saying, "Probably girl, you know, the Army is where a whole lot of people work." Now mind you, this was Carter, so we had the benefit of relative peace time. This is where a whole lot of people work and we're a whole lot of us work. And I want this workplace to be a more fair place for women and people of color because so many of us are there. And I want the conditions of their work to be more fair. That was very interesting to me because he certainly was being a famous first at that time, but the practicality with which he said, "What is it that is within your scope?" So I was an educator for many years, could be the scope of the classroom, that you can do to help people and power themselves and feel their might and possibility for all of us. Are you a race person? 100%. What does it mean to be a race person as a president of a foundation like this? Well, here's the thing that I think is beautiful. I think being a race person and caring that consciousness, which I'll say more about in a minute, is actually good for everyone. I remember when sometimes people would say, "Oh, Barack Obama, the first black president, what is he doing for black people?" And he would say, "Healthcare." You think black people don't need that? Greater employment opportunity. You think black people don't need that? What I think coming out of the tremendous field of African-American studies, which is the department that I chaired at Yale, which is the institutional work I was committed to for a very long time, is our history shows us that America is a work in progress. Our history shows us extraordinary, extraordinary innovation and brilliance always against the odds. Our history shows us that you can walk on the straight path and see something different. Imagine something different around the corner. Our history teaches us to ask who's not in the room as well as who's in the room. You miss a tremendous amount if you only look around the table where you sit. And so I think that that critical thinking and that mindset enables me to apply it to all other ways of thinking about belonging and empowerment in our culture. And also, I think that coming out of the strength and depth of our culture gives me strong ground to stand on and be excited about everybody else's culture. So again, I am an educator and I only think of our culture as something to share and teach and something to also learn more about others. So I think that with that kind of widened aperture and that sense of inclusiveness, it actually is for the benefit of, and I mean it when I say literally, everyone who wants to learn. What is it that you think that Black philanthropy, what you've experienced in your own communities growing up and to date, that can actually teach the larger sector of philanthropy if you think that Black philanthropy as a cultural phenomenon can teach the larger sector anything at all? I'm not sure. I think there is a static thing called Black philanthropy actually. I mean, I think it's a lot of different things and to quote my favorite poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, Black poetry is poetry that a Black person writes. I mean, it's also a thing. I mean, there is a field of African American poetry, but it is also the wide variety of how we might from our professional backgrounds, from our personal backgrounds. And again, I'm thinking, I always think of writers. So August Wilson, the African American experience is as wide open as God's closet. So we bring all of that to what we do. But I do think one thing that is in common that maybe would characterize something called Black philanthropy is an understanding from our communities of what it means to actually really need each other. For us to really need each other and extended families for us really to work with resources that are often insufficient and figure out how to make stone soup, right? I mean, I think that sense of what those of us who are in the church tradition have done to build churches, to support community members is extraordinary and a well-known aspect of the African American tradition, the ways that we set up HBCUs when we were not permitted to study elsewhere because it was important to educate each other is something that I think is particular to the African American experience in a very tangible kind of way. You know, my just my great grandparents were my grandfather was from Tuskegee Institute. That's where his family was, his family helped build that institution. So that is, this is someone I knew. So that idea that we have to build our own institution so that we can have the power of education, it shows you how precious it is, it is so very, very, very precious. If you think about the traditions in under-resourced communities of taking in or being helpful to a cousin, a niece, a nephew, I remember there was a story, a great aunt who I did not know, but a story she passed before I was born that was always told about her great aunt Carrie, she lived in Durham, North Carolina and she had a child who was not her birth child, a child named Bernard, Bernard, not Bernard, Bernard, and the story of Bernard was that like Bernard would walk back and forth past the house just like it was a stray boy walking past the house on one day on the porch Aunt Carrie said, "A little boy would you like a piece of cake?" And then as the story went and then he just stayed, you know. So I mean, that's, I'm a poet, you know, so I like these stories, but I think that sense of, you know, can you be helpful to a young person? That not everyone we know has been to college or done certain kinds of jobs, that there's a greater obligation to share what we know as well as our resources in order to collectively be stronger, because we understand that we have to be collectively as strong as we can be for the many, many, many challenges that are upon us. So I think that very, you know, grassrootsy felt understanding of what it means to extend yourself and be helpful is something from the African-American tradition that probably most black people in philanthropic positions bring with them. Is there a definition that you could give to what black philanthropy actually is? Is it just loving? Is it just us being there for one another? For me, if I can say what my own sense is, I think of black philanthropy as black people's participation in philanthropy. Yes. Yes. Well, plain and simple, so that, you know, to go back to Glenn Lindbrook's, black philanthropy is black people who work in philanthropy. But what I think is really interesting that I think we're still learning because we are relatively new to this profession. Right. I mean, there are some, if you look back, you know, famously to, and here I'm going back to Franklin Thomas at the Ford Foundation or, you know, some other places that have been led by black people. But there's still not a lot of us. Right. So I am really curious and interested to know, and this is kind of what your work is, right? Like, you know, we come from different work experiences. I mean, what I think is exciting about philanthropy is it's not just one field where everybody who works in it came up through it. That's right. Mostly, I think at its best, people come with the experience and knowledge of other fields. So I think how a Darren Walker, you know, my great mentor and friend with his legal training and then with his community experience at the Abyssinian redevelopment corporation, what tools does he bring to doing philanthropy? For myself as a poet, as an educator, you know, what do I bring to philanthropy? Or if you think about, you know, Tanya Allen or so many of my Angelique powers, so many of my terrific, terrific colleagues, we, none of us are the same as far as what we come from. So I think actually there's some very interesting work to be done, thinking about what we bring as black people to this field. One of our groups that our listeners fall into is this sense of being the only part of what you've already addressed, is that there's not a lot of black people in this space. And for many of our colleagues, and I can think of many experiences either that I've had or that they've had where it can be isolating or it can be hostile, it can be brutal, it can be lonely. And I'm thinking of one of our colleagues, Jason Torell, who's the President of the Doppest Foundation out of Atlanta, he's one of our earliest episodes, who said that when he saw the President position available for the Doppest Foundation, it's like, I'm black, I have locks, they would never. And now at 34, I think probably 35 now, he's been the President. you might have thought I'm young. I mean, actually, that's amazing. So young, locks black. And for those reasons, he said, I'm, they would never hire me. I could think of other colleagues in this space on this podcast, who said they would never hire a black man, Darren Gus. So I wonder for you, what does it mean for you as one of the few black women in this space of leading, you're not leading a small family foundation with the family office. You're, you're the mega's. What has it been for you to be in this position as a black poet, black artist? The society has not yet welcomed us fully. The society writ large is suspicious of us. The society right now is actively disempowering us, actively dehumanizing us. So I think what we've always known is that it is an uphill climb and unlikely to be wherever the there is. But I think what happens when you get there, at least in my experience, is in some ways not different, only in scale at how I have thought of everything along the way, which is always open the door, always bring people in, always never, never, never feel exceptional. You know, there's a lot of brilliant and very, very special people out there. But there is sometimes luck or opportunity or quirks of fate that put us into certain positions where we are visible and able to do more. But that doesn't mean there's no such thing as the best. Right? I mean, there is each of us striving to always learn and grow and be strong and excellent. But you know, there are many, many, many people. And that's why I want to keep empowering them through our grantmaking work and through the inclusivity. I mean, you know, we really, we have an extraordinarily diverse workforce here. We have an extraordinarily diverse board. That has been mindful every nanosecond of, you know, all of the extraordinary people who can bring so much to the table. And, you know, some of whom might not have been given that second look, although actually, I would say with everyone I've hired, it only took a look seriously. I mean, you know, I don't just say these are people who I want to work with who can really help us do this work at the very, very, very, very highest level. So we're making up for so much lost time. But the advantage of that is that there is tremendous talent bounty out there in order to be able to do extraordinary things. And that is a superpower of a certain kind of understanding. So I think, you know, just to, I mean, I'll quote my dad again, you know, do your work fast and deliberately because you might not be able to do it forever. That's right. And, you know, he said that, I think, not necessarily knowing where we might find ourselves politically right now, but knowing that, you know, there is no Eden. And so you have to get as much as you can done with the time that you have. And then maybe you have a little extra for a rainy day when it gets more challenging. This question of where are the leaders? Where are the leaders? Where is the leadership? Has it been a question that I think many have heard colleagues, neighbors asking? And as an artist, I often think that the artists are one of the have a unique position opportunity to lead in this moment where they can say things. I can always pull my artist card. You can always pull your poet. I'm a support. Just on the truth. Yes. Yes. So I wonder for you in this work that you do and where you see the current state of what the world is right now. Where do you think the role of the artist is right now? Well, it, I mean, it couldn't be more important, you know, Tony Morrison when the times are the toughest is when the artist gets to work. And as, you know, Mellon is the largest national funder of arts and culture. And so I feel very, very, very privileged and excited to have a view into what folks are doing all over the country. And I think that what we need artists for is what we've always needed, needed artists for. What are we experiencing? Who are we? What is it to be human? What does the superpower of the imagination show us that is not right in front of us? How do we move beyond the literal and tangible to be able to understand the largest things that will enable us in the words of the spiritual and our tradition, how we can think about how I got over, right? I mean, that takes power and imagination and the ability to have faith in what is not right in front of us. And I think that are, you know, that not just black creative traditions, I think that artists are the ones who are showing us that I just saw at the LA County Museum of Art has a new, an amazing, amazing new part of the museum that I just visited. And there is an entire room that has an Iranian carpet that was made over decades. It's as big as this room and you can get really close to it. And it is so exquisite as to blow the mind. You know, you look at a square inch of it and think this beauty, this craft, this dedication, this faith that something would be made and that that something might last. And that something might be seen, you know, centuries ahead. It is astonishing. And I think it would be too hard to get through this life without awe. And that's what artists give us is awe. Often times in philanthropy, with whether it's an institution or whether it's a donor, there can be giving priorities, right? We're in the arts and culture game. We're in the healthcare game. We're in the education game. Yep. Given that life cannot be really sustained without awe, without artists, particularly in this moment, do you think that the larger sector of philanthropy that tends to say the arts and culture is the melon thing or not really into that kind of thing? Do you think that there ought to be a shift on how some institutions have typically said we don't do art and culture with our philanthropy? That might be an opportunity right now, an urgency right now to support artists. I have certainly always tried to bring in other folks into the mix. And of course, there are other people who are giving not at our scale. And, you know, we have a big staff of people who are, again, they are leaders from the arts world. We have research, a research staff, so we are very well equipped to do arts funding at the scale that we do. And we share everything that we know if it is useful to other funders. And I think that yes, it would be, and we've done things together like we've brought people into our huge, beautiful, literary fund. So the word is being supported at a level, $50 million for this initiative that it never has been in history. And there are other folks who are doing that with us. So that's really exciting. But we still live in a country where, you know, if you look at other comparable countries, our arts funding by the government is very, very small. And I do think that artists are sometimes taken for granted and not seen in the ancient and venerated way that they are in some other cultures, in some places where the greatest accomplishments of civilization sometimes are seen to be things that were made by artists. And some other places have figured that out. So yes, I wish there were resilience and zillions of more resources. But I also think it should be done in a very, very informed and knowing way. Because to my mind, and this is the part that feels tough sometimes, you know, there are a lot of definitions of excellence. But only with the most excellent art, are we going to experience the power of what it can do? So I think that, you know, funding with that kind of expertise and knowledge of who's really operating at the highest level, because that actually strategically can affect the largest number of people. I think also, you know, you talk about what we do or what others do. I think it's very, very, very important that folks understand that foundations have charters. They have histories. They have boards. They have leaders. And different ones will do different things at different scales. And so I always want to be careful, because I think, well, someone going to ask me to do medical research. I don't know how to do that. Sure. And we don't have the staff and the history to do that. So I think if we can do what we do well, then it will, you know, shine a really bright, bright, bright light for as many people as we can scale it up. So I'm a filmmaker. I work at the predominately in the enslaved narrative space. And we're doing films trying to transform how people think about the history of slavery, very proud of that work. Some of our colleagues who are shooting today have been a part of that work. And I have found it interesting that many of our largest donors who are very grateful for have been non-black donors. And oftentimes, some of the hardest asks have been from black donors who just haven't always seen supporting black artists as a real priority. What kind of role might black donors start thinking through as we're moving forward in this moment when black history is having a special sense of vulnerability right now and a need for support outside of the government. I wonder if you have any thoughts on black donor support of black artists right now. Let's talk about black studies and other kinds of studies in the academy. It is really important for all of us, no matter what we do. And here I'm talking as not as a donor, to fight for our history and to fight for our work. Because what I think it's important to realize is that there are not enough of us to be the cavalry. We all got to be the cavalry together, but black donors alone are not going to-- and arguably, I think, for non-black donors, this is American history. And we can go on forever trying to move around the fact that slavery and genocide are not at the heart of the founding of this nation, but they are. So I think that it actually behooves everybody to say, let's focus on an understanding of the complexity and actually tremendous evolutionary power of our history. It is absolutely extraordinary. But everybody's got to fight for it. I think that it can be-- if I'm understanding the gist of your question, it can be disappointing, perhaps, if there are black folks who you thought might participate who didn't. But I also know that we've got a lot of bases to cover. So I just focus on-- and by the way, I don't have-- may be surprising-- any kind of strategy for funding black art. I am funding the most mind-blowingly brilliant, inclusive, broad-minded, excellent cultural organizations in the United States. Fight me about it. Our grantees are incredible. And part of what makes them incredible is that they have an open aperture to understanding the variety of our modes of expression, of our power of expression, and of our history. And we have been very conscious about that kind of leadership and that we are trying to support institutions that are about opening the doors, hearing more voices, and some of which have been historically under-resourced. So it's a very joyful thing when there's a small, excellent organization, and as a black studies person and as a poet, small and under-resourced is my specialty. And so to see, wow, to be able to give terrific folks the resources to be able to really spread their wings and do their thing and finish things, that is exciting. But it's not a black strategy. Are there any presidential initiatives that you're particularly excited about these days? I refuse to choose. You knew I was going to say that. So I have three amazing presidential initiatives. And it has been wonderful since I came to Mellon to say, I want to shape some ideas and to kind of show what this grant making can be. And to be able to use-- I am an idea maker. I'm a thinker. And so I want to be able to do that. So our largest is our monuments project. It's the biggest investment that the foundation has ever made in telling American stories in public spaces. And I love that we've been able to get away from just monuments are single men on steel or stone horses about to go kill people or coming back from just killing people. The ways that we tell our stories can take so many different forms. So I love to talk about the IRACO book of names, which is a collection, all of the names of Japanese Americans who were interned in the United States, had never been gathered. And so those names have all been gathered onto a database and then put into a beautiful, calligraphed book. And the way you interact with the monument, the monument is the book, is you go. It's now traveling, but it was at the Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles. You go into a small room, half the size of this room. And you find-- there's a little ink stamp, and you find a name that doesn't have a stamp. And you put a stamp next to a name to bear witness to that person's life. And so I love to talk about that because-- and there is a frontispiece made of polished granite that is made from soil from all of the internment camps. So I just feel that in that, how powerful to think about memorialization that way and about the monumental. And when you go there, every time I've been there, I have seen a Japanese American family with an elder who was going to find their name. So then there is that. And then there are things at the scale of the Equal Justice Initiative Legacy Museum, and the way that the story of our history of lynching is told really interestingly, abstractly, in those large concrete slabs or marble slabs that hang with the names and counties where people were lynched. And the power of moving through that space, and the power of moving through. And again, looking at-- I've been there when elders find a name, find a county. For me, myself, we talked about my mother's side of the family and thinking, looking at the dates and thinking, that's why they left Selma. That's why they left so quickly. So there are so many ways to tell our stories and the beauty of these is that most of them are open to the public and some that you even encounter when you're out and about. And I think that the way that we mark our stories in our landscapes and tell the rich and powerful and beautiful and complicated story of the United States is kind of amazing. It gets me jazzed up every single day. My first initiative was to do the work that we do-- libraries, archives, arts, and culture, higher ed, in Puerto Rico. Highly, highly, highly underserved by philanthropy and an extraordinary, extraordinary place and culture that lives in a circulating diaspora and that has a very, very particular colonial structure within the United States and has produced some of our most extraordinary American culture on the island in Nueva York, in Chicago, in Philadelphia. So that has been very meaningful work because we're kind of there to stay and have made a difference over time. Our Imagining Freedom Initiative, which is looking at the scholarship around art and culture of people who are in one way or another inside or outside and meshed in and affected by the carceral system. And that work where one of the aims, truly stated-- we wrote it down-- is we want to combat dehumanization, the ways that people are mischaracterized, thrown away, out of sight, but what is their cultural expression? What is their learning? How do we expect that they're inside now, but they won't be inside forever? And that inside and outside have a constant relationship to each other. And we are all human. We are all human, to quote the great Brian Stevenson. I mentioned his space, Equal Justice Initiative. And none of us is the sum of the worst thing we ever did. And that that really, really animates that work. So I shall not choose-- I love them all. What do you want your legacy to be, Dr. Alexander? I do not think about legacy in that way. I am just trying to keep working with bigger and intent and rigorous strategy. So I think that that's the most important thing. I think that in all of our specific areas, if superb arts and culture have been made available to more people, if more people have been educated in critical thinking and are moving in the world as I have seen, I taught for 30 years in university. And I have seen what those folks are doing with their education. And most of them aren't even necessarily humanists. But they're doing all kinds of things, having read and understood. Gwendolyn Brooks, W-E-B-Doo Boys, you know, to go on and on and on through our tradition and how it can inform their intelligence, their creativity, and their sense of moving through obstacle. So I think that, you know, as with my former students being a part of legacy, although, again, they are themselves. I'm a mother of two sons, and I certainly am proud to be their mother, and I think knock wood, I've done a good job, but, you know, I don't consider them my legacy. I consider them two extraordinary human beings who I was privileged to be able to just like put the watering can on their little soil and watch them grow. So that's really how I think about about legacy. I would like someone to tell the story of transforming an organization, and at the same time that we made it stronger, more excellent, more strategic, more powerful. We also made it extremely more diverse and representative of the range of us, and that we also made it a better place to work. I mean, it's always a good place to work, but to have been really thoughtful about what does beloved community look like if you are the black feminist leader of a legacy organization. So be great for someone to see that. But, you know, I really, when I think about legacy, I don't really name it. I just want to, because it's going to take so many different forms with the work that people are doing out there, and with the leaders that are growing out there, and hopefully with my example of being someone who was able to stay a long course, and to do it being, you know, forthright, and for being absolutely uncompromising about truth and about inclusivity. And all the work that you've done in your tenure of being academic, both in the academy, and then also here as a poet and an artist and a leader, are there any lessons from any maybe failures, mistakes, um, bumbles that you have found especially important for you to think through next steps that might be especially meaningful for some of our listeners who are trying to think through their own career in this space? I do feel that as a black woman at this moment in history doing this job, if I had failed spectacularly, I would not have been given the job. So I wouldn't be answering that question, because we are still not afforded the normal human latitude of stumbling and falling. So that's just that, right? I think that two mistakes, you know, mistakes can sometimes be mitigated, so I do think we have to be meticulous. We have to be careful. We have, careful is a good thing. We have to be deliberate. We have to check our work. We have to have strong people around us. Mistakes can be very consequential. I always, you know, they didn't get Marcus Garvey on the work. They got him on mail fraud. You know, so I mean, you know, you've really not that don't be horrified. We are not any mail fraud. We know we don't make mistakes like that. But my point is, my point is that it is a tremendous responsibility to have a level of meticulousness with doing this work in this position as a black woman. That's just that's just a fact. But I do think two things. One, as an artist, I am dearly acquainted with failure. Because every day that you work, you fail at the page. You fail at the first pass of the sentence. You fail at the first draft of the poem. And you persevere to make it sing, to make it better. Yeah, it's great. You, I just talked with a young person today who was disappointed about getting a piece of writing rejected. And I used to when I was doing more of this, I used to go around with it when things were on paper with a big fat bulging folder of my rejections. And I used to say the rule is, and this is again, nothing electronic, the mail. You know, you get a rejection in the morning. You send it out somewhere else in the afternoon. It could be listening to a trusted person with whom you share your work. Or it could be learning to listen to yourself. Or it could be learning to listen to the great work that comes before that we measure ourselves against. I learned more from Wendell and Brooks and Tony Morrison and Robert Hayden than any workshop. So, so, you know, in order to improve, in order to get better, in order to get from the first draft to the hundredth draft. Yes. Yes. You know, we have to be open and evolving. I think that moving then out of the writer space into the everyday space and into my work in philanthropy, there are so many things that I have learned along the way. I mean, the learning curve, I've been in philanthropy for 10 years, starting with the two years when I was at the Ford Foundation. And I say even in that year, somehow I got another PhD because the learning curve was so steep. I did not know how to do it, but I had, it was within me. I had to pay attention. I had to learn. I had to to to evolve. So, I think the ability to evolve is the thing that I say to the United States of America. And that I say to each of us, trying to, you know, learn from all of the people and things and opportunities in this extraordinary world to bring out an even better version of what we have to contribute, evolve. We have to. Dr. Alexander, it pains me to say that we have come around the bend. What we are about community here, and I wanted to see for those who are listening right now, want to stay connected in your world, how can they connect with you? Well, we have an exceptionally amazing website. And when we put it together, I said I wanted it not only to be for grantees and grant seekers, but also for anyone with deep curiosity about art and culture and ideas and archives and the things that we fund. So, the depth of our website that you could spend days and days and days on it, learning about the really extraordinary work that our grantees are doing. And so, I hope that everyone will do that. Anything else that we as listeners and people in this community can do to support you. If every person tried to push their courage just a step more, that would be a great thing for all of us. And I also think that participating in culture doesn't mean just consuming it. So, let the work that you experience shape you and see where that takes you. Dr. Alexander, we are so grateful to have you on Black philanthropy, our stories today. So, our listeners, we are so grateful for you. Thank you for taking the time to be a part of this community. We never take your time for granted. Dr. Alexander, we are proud of you. We honor you. We celebrate you and your legacy that we call legacy. You can say it. And the Alexander family legacy. Thank you for being a part of this today. Thank you so much. Thank you. My pleasure. Beautiful.