With every move, he had to be incredibly strategic. To get the bill passed to build the museum, it would take Congressman Lewis 25 long years of working both sides of the aisle to sway a majority vote in both houses of Congress. This is a monument that began with the determination of this one man, and now, there it stands. Looking at the Congressman’s prize jewel, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), I think of not only its magnificence, but also what it means for a Black man to be a real “G” in America. So when I think about Congressman John Lewis and what it must have taken to convince the nation that it needed to build the world’s grandest tribute to African American history, art, and culture, I know there must have been thousands of pitch meetings, heated dialogs, and strategic negotiations, but also there had to be thousands of relationship-building moments. Sometimes you need other people to complete the mission and it’s more a matter of learning to convert people who doubt your ideas into people who are excited about helping to make them a reality. Unlike Training Day, in real life it’s not always just a simple matter of checking your opponents with a clever line of scripted dialog. Often their journeys are lined with doubters who simply can’t see the visions of those who think hundreds of steps ahead of everyone else.
He was warning his opponents that they were no match for his power.īut in real life, people who change the world face waves of opponents – human, emotional, financial, etc. In Denzel’s case, he was letting it be known that he was thinking way ahead of anyone who dared to come up against him. At some point, we all want to shout those words at somebody…at those who underestimate us, or think they can shut down our ideas. Their actions shout, “I’m playing Chess, not checkers!” When Denzel’s character first yelled these words in Training Day, it became one of his most quotable lines, perhaps because it’s so relatable. There are some real G’s making moves in Black Culture.
“The Real G’s in Black Art History and Culture: And a Word to The Met Museum” by Debra Hand
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