Ghetto Life 101 changed my life. I started working on this radio documentary 25 years ago — I gave tape recorders to two kids growing up in the Ida B. Wells Homes in Chicago, one of the most notorious public housing projects in America, and asked them to document a week in their lives. LeAlan […]
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This picture was worth all the words I had — it rendered me speechless. It’s an image of six Black women, smiling and hugging, taken by Ryan Lash at the TED2015 conference. There we were — LaToya, Somi, Aomawa, Camille, Danielle and myself — in all […]
Yo-yo master BLACK, who gave a rousing demonstration of his skills at TED2013 along with a moving talk about how the yo-yo helped him transcend low self-esteem, writes to tell us that he’s finally fulfilled a dream that he shared onstage: Earlier this month, he performed at a one-day Cirque du Soleil event. “Finally, I performed […]
Yo-yo champion BLACK does, in fact, wear a special costume — all black, with a red sash. But he has not always been a superhero. In his very sweet talk from TED2013, BLACK reveals that as a young teenager he struggled with feelings of worthlessness — and that it was dedicating himself to the yo-yo […]
Yo-yo world champion BLACK admits that the first time he picked up his instrument of choice, at age 14, he couldn’t figure out the simplest of tricks. But after a week of practice, he started to understand its movement and dynamics. In today’s talk, given at TED2013, BLACK remembers, “I thought, ‘The yo-yo is something […]
“When I was 14 years old, I had low self-esteem,” yo-yo champion BLACK begins his talk during session 4 of TED2013. “Then one day, I bought a yo-yo.” The first trick he tried — well, it didn’t work. But after a week of practice, he started to get somewhere. He remembers, “I thought, ‘The yo-yo […]
From all the breathless hype that surrounds the topic, you’d be forgiven for thinking that disruptive innovation was a common force throughout the world. Reality proves otherwise. In this session, we brought together a collection of individuals who have some right to the title of disruptor. Their work pushes at the boundaries of what’s expected […]