All of the people I've had brushes with in life, but was too young or too distracted to appreciate: Nikki Giovanni (Who was a classmate of my father in Knoxville); Roberta Flack (she sang with my father during a sad-time road trip. Took photo wearing her rainbow-sequinned beret and sitting in her lap), Max Roach (He performed at The Warehouse off of New York Avenue in D.C., where I, a homeless child, giggled at his name and grooved to his drums), President William J. Clinton, Toni Morrison (Whose eyes locked with mine after readings of "Paradise" at Salisbury State University and "Love" at historic church in D.C.); Bebe Moore Campbell (R.I.P.)(I escorted her during a visit to DelState. She signed my well-worn copy of "Your Blues Ain't Like Mine and posed for photo); and last, but not least, Dr. Dorothy Haight, a Civil Rights leader whom The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called friend, and who signed my copy of her book "Open Wide the Freedom Gates" with this precious and prophetic message: "Share your experience and your story."