Misty Copeland

anymore.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, it was a combination of feelings.

I think in particular, you know, with Raven Wilkinson's story and finding out about her, yeah, there was this sense of regret that maybe had I known of her story sooner, I would just have a different sense of myself.

But I guess I'm just not someone that kind of like wallows in that space that I feel the anger and then it's like, how can I use this and channel it to do something?

And so, yeah, it went from anger to curiosity.

of, you know, well, how can I find out about more and how can I share those stories?

You know, there's a Black dance community.

There's a, you know, a strong Black ballet dance community.

And it's, you know, the Virginia Johnsons and the

The Alicia Graf Max and Lauren Anderson and Desmond Richardson.

There are people that I have been able to call on throughout my career, even just to fill in the gaps of like people who have come before me that have kind of made me feel more whole and

And, you know, I think something that I've been so drawn to about ballet is that I could be a part of something that's bigger than me and that I could be a part of this legacy.

But then to find out that there's a black ballet history is like, you know, even more so, you know, feeling like I'm healing and becoming this even more of a whole person experience.

And it's just been so important that I'm finding ways to document our history as black dancers through my books.

I mean, that's really at the core of so many of my books and the stories that I'm telling is that I'm finding ways to create our own history books and that the next generation can pick it up and learn something about themselves and their history.

Yes.

Yeah.

My mom loves dance and not on a professional level by any means, but, you know, she did ballet and tap and jazz growing up.

And then she was a professional cheerleader for the Kansas City Chiefs football team.