Q&A with Adelia Davis
Interview took place on April 23, 2021, and is edited for length and clarity.
How did you become interested in the children’s literature space?
I’m religious and spiritual, and I really feel that God brought me into children's literature and teaching in some capacity. I went to the University of Michigan for undergrad and throughout my undergrad years I was pre-med. It was my first time being in a large class and being the only Black woman in my class. I experienced a lot of microaggressions. I'd be in small groups with other students who would literally ignore me, and respond to a White student saying the same thing I did. I carried a lot of weight with me. I would second guess myself a lot in my science classes, and I did well, but I had to study a lot. I remember I was studying with a White student, and I remember her saying something like, “Oh, I'm just going to study the night before the test and I'll do fine. Like, I know I'll get an A.” I remember just like having this passing thought, like, “Oh, of course she's going to get an A, she's white.” And then I think, wait a minute, why the heck would I think that? Do I really believe that? Where is that coming from? That started me on this journey of backtracking through my experiences and reflecting on my childhood. I'm from Detroit, which is a very Black city- about 80 percent. A lot of the schools I went to, even though they were private schools, had very large Black populations. I wasn’t actually in the minority until I went to high school. But still, we didn't learn about Black scientists. We didn't learn about Black mathematicians. We didn't learn about Black history outside of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and a page about slavery. And I just remember being so upset and thinking, why are people who look like me not reflected in curriculum? I know we’ve made contributions, why are we being erased? I started to look back at curriculum, books, and media at large, because that’s how kids become socialized. The way you conceptualize the world has a lot to do with the classrooms that you're learning in. Through reflecting on my own journey, I realized I wanted to make an impact by teaching kids who look like me.
What led you to your work in South Africa and what did you learn from your time there?
I was pre-med but I knew I wanted to take a year off before medical school. I knew I wanted to do a type of humanitarian project I had done a lot of study abroad programs in undergrad. I went to South Africa after my first year. I went to Brazil. I went to Uganda because I just wanted to learn about other places with large Black populations because I hadn't been taught about it. My university has a fellowship called the Wallenberg Fellowship, which is given to one graduating senior to design their own project and go anywhere in the world. I proposed a project where I would curate a collection of Black children's literature, not only by Black U.S. authors, but Black authors across the world, to then use it to do empowering literacy lessons in South Africa, and also to learn from schools there to see what their curriculum is like. I had an idea based on what I saw the first time I went there, but I wanted to see more. I wanted to incorporate creative activities because kids show a lot l through their artwork and acting things out. They might not directly say to you “I don't feel good about myself because I think being dark is bad”, but they’ll show you that through their art. For example, I'd give each child a mirror and ask them to draw a self-portrait. I'll never forget, there was a fourth grader who was coloring in her skin with the peach crayon and was adding blond hair and blue eyes. I came over and said, “Look in the mirror! You have beautiful, brown skin and beautiful brown eyes.” She just started sobbing, and sobbing, and just kept coloring with the peach like it was painful for her to reckon that she was brown. It broke my heart. I just kept doing that work there. I kept learning; the more I learn I would share with them, they would share with me. Now I do very similar programing with my organization, Story Shifters LLC, and I see myself doing this for the rest of my life to some capacity.
Can you tell us about your new book Nia’s Question and how your previous work led to you become an author?
In South Africa I was partnering with a library and I ended up teaching a lot of lessons there, doing the programing I originally wanted to do, but on a much grander scale and more seamlessly than I even imagined. I started ending the lessons with these five affirmations: I am smart, I am kind, I am beautiful, I am important. I can do anything. I was saying these affirmations at the end of every class, multiple times a day to empower the kids. I didn't even realize how I was empowering myself. I just realized I could really do anything. When it was time to leave South Africa, it was hard, kind of bittersweet. I knew I would be back and continue to have a partnership, but I didn't know when or what it would look like or how long it would take. I had a hard time getting back home, too- after three or four flights I almost missed the last leg of another flight. I had just made it to my seat and I was sobbing. Then I just felt like this flood of an idea come in my mind, and I don't know any other way to explain it than the Holy Spirit flooding me with this idea of for Nia’s Question, word-for-word. The purpose of the book is for Black children, especially little Black girls, to recognize that they are the leaders in figuring out life's tough questions. And the book begins with the little girl asking her dad a philosophical question that a lot of adults struggle with as well. Instead of her dad just giving her a direct answer, he encourages her to find the answer herself. She takes him up on that and goes on this journey by herself. That’s what I felt like. I may not have been given access to the curriculum that I'm now providing for kids, but I'm making things better for the next set of people. That's what I want kids to walk away from, a feeling of empowerment and a sense of peace and love that is ever present around them and within themselves.
What work do you hope to do in the future?
My goal right now is for my organization Story Shifters LLC to develop into youth centers. I don't know if the I'll plant the first youth center here in Chicago or in Detroit, but this youth center will be a place that is centered in books. I also want to have lots of afterschool programing for kids, mentorship, programing, literacy, empowerment, self-esteem, maybe a Montessori school for young kids to give them that strong foundation. One of many things I really appreciated about University of Michigan is all the resources they have there; textile rooms, sound rooms, computer labs all over the university's campus. I want that in my youth center. I also want the children to be connected to people in other places. For example, collaborating with a similar community in in Cape Town, and having some type of exchange program where kids can go back and forth. We're going to South Africa. We're going to Ghana. We're going to Brazil. We're taking the Black kids back and forth between these places, Chicago and Cape Town and Rio and Accra. Those are just a few things I have up my sleeve for what I want- a focus on global mindedness, Pan Africanism, building solidarity, empowering our young people because the world is rough. Every time I turn on the news, there seems to be another thing. I want the youth centers to be a safe haven for kids to grow and know that they have a future and their future is not dying at the hands of police brutality.