Inspiring People: A Hundred Years From Now
What Do You Want To Be Remembered For?
Dana asks "A Hundred Years From Now... What Do You Want To Be Remembered For?"
Here is what the Inspiring People she spoke to had to say...
MAHEN BONETTI - Founder and Executive Director of The African Film Festival
That, because of what we did a hundred years earlier, we have created not only cinema but a whole cultural appreciation within ourselves for our culture and our art. And,
our artists can make a living from that.
Click here to read the complete interview with Mahen Bonetti...
KARYN PARSONS - Writer, Producer, Actor
Well I'd like to think that I have a few more lives ahead of me. Hmm...I feel vain even going there...
I would love to see Sweet Blackberry in some way help unify people.
There is such a separation that I think we feel sometimes will allow us to hold onto something. But I would really like to see the day when people don't think that Black history is for Black people and it just becomes history. I would love to see the day when we don't wait for Black history month to talk about the accomplishments of Black people.
I would like for us to get to a point t where we ALL realize that we ALL put this country together, big time!
I would love it if Sweet Blackberry were able to usher in a new day and a new way of thinking...
I also wouldn't mind being remembered as a Pulitzer Prize winning author...
Sounds really good doesn't it?
Click here to read the complete interview with Karyn Parsons...
JOHN LEHR - Television Writer, Producer, Performer and Geico Caveman
Oh God.
God, I don't think anybody is going to remember me a hundred years from now. I am O.K. with that. I am not really too concerned with being remembered a hundred years from now. Maybe Jules, my daughter, will... no she'll be gone... Yeah... .Hmmm...
I'll be a blip. I'll be nothin'. I'll have turned into a bunch of atoms that will have been reformed into a plastic vase that will be sitting on somebody's table somewhere...
I'm O.K. with that.
Click here to read the complete interview with John Lehr...
JAMIE HECTOR - HBO series THE WIRE's Marlo Stanfield
I would like to be remembered as a person that made the world a better place and just made the non-believers -
BELIEVE.
Click here to read the complete interview with Jamie Hector...
ELISABETH WITHERS-MENDES - Tony Award Nominated Star of The Color Purple
I want people to say that she was a real genuine spirit. I want them to say that they gained something from me. I want to be remembered as someone who came from a "nowhere" town called Joliet and ended up on Broadway stage starring in a featured role like this and yet I still maintained values and dignity.
That is what I want to be remembered for,
being honest and true to every role that I play and every song that I sung...
Click here to read the complete interview with Elisabeth Withers-Mendes...
KATYA GRINEVA - Russian Born Classical Pianist
I want to be remembered for being able to touch people's lives -
with a full heart.
Click here to read the complete interview with Katya Grineva...
DAVID PALADINO - Ovation Award Winning Playwright and Actor
Wow. Basically as a guy who made a difference. I could say "the most famous this" or "the most exquisite that" but I like the simplicity of
"That guy changed some lives. He helped some people. He made a difference."
The simplicity of -
That guy made a difference.
Click here to read the complete interview with David Palladino...
MARYDALE DEBOR - Innovator of Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, Foundation Executive Director
That I gave a damn. That's all. If they could just put that on my tombstone -
"She gave a damn"--
that would do it for me.
Click here to read the complete interview with Marydale DeBor...
DAN ZANES - Singer, Song Writer and Recording Artist
I think that it would be nice to be remembered for some good music.
And, I don't like to say it too much but, it would also be nice to be caught up with someone that would help me to figure out how to do some good things along the way in these nutty times that we live in. There are a number of people that have always managed to do that.
I would like to be amongst that crowd.
Click here to read the complete interview with Dan Zanes...
CHAD COLEMAN - HBO series THE WIRE's Dennis "Cutty" Wise
I don't want to be remembered for anything. I want to be alive. I want to be a hundred and forty years old and have another interview with you!
(Laughs)
Eternal life! Right now!
Do you know that the only reason why we think that we are supposed to die is because somebody told us that? We read all of this stuff about life expectancy that tells us "Well life expectancy for man is…" And then we start saying stuff like "Boy he lived to eighty. That's a good life."
That is a limiting thought!
Nobody told me that I can't live to be a hundred and seventy five years old so --
that is what I am going for!
Click here to read the complete interview with Chad Coleman...
JIMMY SANTIAGO-BACA - Celebrated Poet
With that you've got me speechless.
It would be kind of cool if a man or a woman would sit down a hundred years from now and say:
"There was this guy named Mr. Baca who taught your great grandma how to read and write and that's why your father became a Noble Peace Prize winner."
Something like that would be so cool for me because nobody in my family could read or write - nobody, none of them. I am the only one. Nobody in my family could read or write. Not my brothers or my sisters - nobody.
So, a hundred years from now if a great grandfather would sit down and say to his grand kids that there was this man named Mr. Baca who used to go door to door to teach people how to read and write....
Click here to read the complete interview with Jimmy Santiago-Baca...
SARA MILES - Author, Journalist, Founder of Saint Gregory's Food Pantry
I would like someone to pick up something that I wrote and say:
"This makes me understand the way that it was. This makes me understand another human being in another time."
I would like my words to be able to continue to speak to people when -
I can't speak in my own voice anymore.
Click here to read the complete interview with Sara Miles...
Thanks to everyone!
