On prepping for the inauguration: "When I first wrote the poem, I was thinking that in the week leading up to the inauguration I would be rehearsing every day. But everything was moving so quickly, I actually didn't get to really sit down with the text until the night before. Most of my preparation was stepping into the emotionality of the poem, getting my body and my psyche ready for that moment. There was a lot of the night-before performing in the mirror."
On what unity means to her: "To me, unity without a sense of justice, equality and fairness is just toxic mob mentality. Unity that actually moves us toward the future means that we accept our differences—we embrace them and we lean into that diversity. It's not linking arms without questioning what we're linking arms for. It's unity with purpose."
On being a symbol of hope: "When you're first rocketed into a type of visibility, you're trying to represent your best self without having the best resources. For Black women, there's also the politics of respectability — despite our best attempts, we are criticized for never being put-together enough; but when we do, we're too showy. We're always walking this really tentative line of who we are and what the public sees us as. I'm handling it day by day. I'm learning that 'No' is a complete sentence. And I am reminding myself that this isn't a competition. It's me following the trajectory of the life I was meant to lead."