The only way that you can show the full breadth of our humanity is to be present, to be represented and to be able to tell your own stories.

We interviewed some of the best and brightest black storytellers of our time.

Thes people are true talents and take their crafts to new heights.

Each of them come from vastly different fields of work.

But the one thing that bonds them together is their ability to tell compelling stories through their mediums.

Story has the power to imprint on our memory in a way that pretty much nothing else does.

When stories are left out, a section of humanity is left out.

When you hear someone story, you can connect with them on the way, and it makes it so much harder for you to enact violence on someone or to discriminate against someone when you know their story.

I've dedicated my life to storytelling.

It's one of the greatest ways to transform, like the hearts and minds of of individuals, to try to bring people together to try to make the world more loving place.

Photography has always been writing stories.

I see a story in front of me, and I'm trying to figure out how to capture it.

History tells us that our stories are not considered as valuable or worthwhile, and that if you want to be a true and successful storyteller, you have to tell the universal story, which really means the white story.

And I just refused to do that with the 16 19 project.

In my work in general, I really try to put the legacy of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the center.

How do we understand how we got here today if we don't understand the history and the architectures that built the society that we live in?

A lot of what drives me in my work is creating images of people of color, of Children, of color in ways that I never got to see them.

When I was growing up, I didn't have any books with people that looked like me.

So I'm really excited to kind of open up a many different aesthetics and styles, too.

Young readers When people listen to my music, I want them to take away that they're not isolated in their challenges.

Song Let Go speaks to how black men feel when confronted by the police.

Even when you're selfishly kind of creating your own therapy in your art, you're also doing that for other people.

And by doing that song, I was able to create even closure in places where I still held on the feelings because I placed it in a piece of art.

And I think for other people they can connect with the honesty there.

The challenge is being in the world where you don't see yourself.

I get une email from a black mother who has lost her son on.

She says to me that she's been looking for a way to reflect her loss for years.

And it wasn't till she saw my painting on the cover of Time magazine that she felt like she saw image that actually reflected her loss identifying stereotypes in black culture.

It's kind of easy for me to see.

We all see it because we don't like it.

Look, it sticks out.

It's not right.

E started my film career with the mindset that we would not further along these stereotypes and not depict thes images in our film.

So and do the right thing.

You don't see a kid with a basketball bouncing it down the middle of the road.

And so in many films that you see of mine, there is a sense of pride in culture with their loved.

The big stereotype we try to debunk was the fact that black fathers aren't involved in their kids lives.

That's definitely something that's persistent in the film industry.

You know, black men not being depicted as good dads or being president.

That was the big thing that we tried toe circumvent ability to see yourself represented means a lot, and people need to see themselves as a mirror in the work that they consume.

When people see us dresses kings, a lot of times they're like they're holding its materialism.

But you know, people don't see the work that goes into the idea of of us being materialistic as a culture is just insufficient.

Most people report that they do not know a trans person or they're not aware there no trans person.

So most of the information about who trained people are comes from what they watch on television and on film.

And if those representations are showing us as victims as devious people, CIS gender, people playing dress up, then they're gonna get misinterpretations of who we actually are.

When you have real trans people playing really fully fleshed out characters, it shows the humanity of who we truly are.

But I think for me, that's my goal in terms of how to look ahead at the types of stories that we're telling, and I think giving other people call the opportunity to share their worldview.

And their perspective is going to be so important in leveling that e think What's really exciting about making work for young readers is that the work gets to be wonderful and whimsical and kind of hopeful.

And I really want to make work that shows young people that there are so many options and opportunities for them.

E live where my palate is black, that the experiences that I see around me are black, that the voices that I hear the songs that I hear the footsteps, the laughter grown, the quarrels, the expletives, their black on try Thio, trapped them in a frame.

Our culture has brought so much in terms of creativity in terms of connection and innovation.

So it's like toe overlook that, and to devalue that is just is tragic.

And it lessens who we are as people asshole.

So you know we're here, and because we're here, we mattered.

So when I think about particularly the tradition of black journalists but black storytellers in general, it has been to push back against the narratives of white supremacy that said that we were in inferior and a lesser people.