“Two women in hijabs and abayas approach us. One of the women asks, ‘How long will this be going on?’ ‘It’s the community that’s doing this,’ Zenzele answers. ‘So, I guess, as long as the community keeps coming. This is all different people. There’s no one group organizing it.’ The draped women speak to one another in a language that sounds like the wind over the surface of water before they smile at us, nod, and walk on.”
Enjoy this audio recording of “Sit-In” by Arleta Little from Vol. 33:1 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here.
Arleta Little is a writer and culture worker. Her work has been published in We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World; Blues Vision: African American Writing From Minnesota; The Saint Paul Almanac; Black Literacy Matters; This was 2020; and more. Her essay, Life and Death in the North Star State, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Little serves as the Executive Director for the Loft Literary Center. She lives in Minneapolis, MN.