‘Little Black Boy, You Were Worth it,’ Jumaane Williams Tells His Past Self

This is a time and a place of contradictions. One where even as the Federal government drives us to despair, local leadership can invite inspiration. And this sense of contradiction carries across the five boroughs. This is a city of enormous wealth and enduring poverty. Of the greed of some and the generosity of many. Of darkness and of light. And I’ve seen the darkness, of course. Yet I look out on New York today, and I see so much light. These contradictions mean we can at once love our city as it is and challenge its flaws, not as a reason for pessimism, but a call for activism. Whether you arrived in our city generations ago, or five years ago, or five minutes ago, the reason so many New Yorkers have too little are not because of the people who have even less, or who have been here for less time. Not because of the people pushed to the bottom, but the systems entrenched at the top. My Grenadian mother arrived as a teenager. She hoped that half a century later, her son would speak from these steps. But she could have. Because here in New York City, we choose to celebrate possibility and work to make reality. I wish I could go back and tell my younger self that. Instead, I’ll say it to my daughters today, to the children of the Perez Alnaude family, to everyone who may question their own worth like I did, or whether it’s worth fighting for the city with all its contradictions and problems and possibilities. And I got to take a second to say something to so many young people who are out there. And I’m going to say it to one person who has waited 49 years to hear it. Little Black boy, you are worth it. And you always were.