Little Paulette grew up in St. Louis, Missouri with her family. The Williams family lived in a big neighborhood in St. Louis. Her neighborhood had all different kinds of families. Big families, small families. And they all had different beliefs and backgrounds. She felt at home in her neighborhood surrounded by people that accepted her for who she was.

Paulette was a very smart little girl. She was so smart in fact, she was bused out of her neighborhood, to a school that had all of the things she needed to learn. The school she attended was one of the first to be desegregated, which means the school taught both Black and white students together.

Though she learned a lot at school, children would tease her because she looked the way she did. She would walk down the hallway and be called names and be told she didn’t belong. Paulette did her best to ignore the mean words. She would clutch her books, keep her head high, and walk. She learned that people could dislike you for the way you look, and she knew this was wrong. She knew she had to do something to make sure that no one felt the way she felt walking down that hallway. She couldn’t wait for the day to end so she could go home, and be with people who loved and cared for her.

When she would get home, her learning would continue. Her parents made sure that Paulette and her siblings were surrounded by books, music, and art. They took them to see shows, and invited some of their artist friends to their home to share stories.

While growing up in St. Louis, her house was a popular place for Black artists to visit. This was a time when it was dangerous for people of color to travel in certain parts of the country, so her parents would offer them a safe place to sleep and friendship. Paulette’s parents would house some of the time’s most creative and world changing Black artists, activists, and intellectuals. These artists would share their work and ideas and Paulette would get to listen in and learn all that she could from the folks that came through her front door.

Thinkers of the time such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Walter Francis White, who were the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also known as the NAACP.  She got to know other rebel women, like performer Josephine Baker, who changed the world with her dancing, travel, and activism.

When her parents’ friends would visit, she would sneak up the stairs, and peek through the posts to get a good look at who was visiting. She would watch them pace while talking, smile at their laughter and happy clinking of glasses. She would listen to them speak about new ideas about fairness and love.

Growing up around such a diverse group of artists and philosophers who all came together to form their own community where they could be accepted for who they truly were showed Paulette that she wasn’t limited to just her traditional family structure. She saw that she could build a family that extended past just her mother and father, one that included like minded thinkers who would love and support her throughout her life.

When artists, like jazz and blues musicians Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie played music, she came alive. She would bob her head up and down, finding the rhythm of the music. And, almost like magic, the music would travel down her arms, and into her hands and her fingertips. They would tap and follow the beat. Then, like a bolt of lightning, the music would shoot into her legs and cause them to shake and quake. Then down to her feet. Up and down they would march. She would swing her body around and around finding freedom within the music. This was the freedom she would keep with her for the rest of her life.

Jazz was a style of music that was about playing and following what you felt. The music seemed to match what Paulette felt on the inside. She liked the way the music notes danced across her skin and called for her body to move. She felt at home.

At the time Nashville, Chicago, and St. Louis had a jumping jazz scene and blues musicians passed through to play with the greats. Sometimes she couldn’t help herself. She climbed down from the stairs, and joined the party. Anyone watching could see how the music moved her, how she was called to the sounds.

With the horn loud in her ears, she started stomping to the ever changing beat. Her arms swaying back and forth to match the notes the cornet would play. Her head swayed and nodded to the tune’s melody.

One afternoon, when Dizzy Gillespie was back in town, he knocked on the Williams door. Paulette’s father opened the door, and called down for her. ‘Dizzy’s got something for you, girl!’ She was so excited she ran down the stairs to her living room.

On the floor sat an unopened case. She was curious about what it was and waited with her fists clenched.

With wide eyes and a big smile she watched as he opened the case. There in that case was a shiny cornet identical to the one that Dizzy played. She took it out of the case and held it in her hands. Pushing the valves  trying to find a comfortable place to hold it in her hands. She then brought the instrument to her lips, took a deep breath and blew into it. She felt the vibrations and power  and couldn’t contain herself.  It didn’t sound right at first, but after a couple of tries and a few tips from the jazz great himself, she finally got a good sound out of it. That afternoon she learned that things might not go right on the first or second try but if you keep with it, there is no limit to what you can do!

She would speak of this afternoon in the years to come, and remember what she felt holding onto that cornet. She would remember how good it felt for someone to believe in her and be proud of how she didn’t give up after the first sour note.

Her love for music would follow her for the rest of her life. As she grew into a young woman she would search for ways to use all of her talents to change the world.

In those books, there were not a lot of people that looked like her or shared her experiences. This made her feel lonely and unseen by the world. There was a hole there that she knew had to be filled. She would search far and wide for stories that matched the life she knew. Searched for characters that looked like her next door neighbor, or her mother, even her siblings. She could not find many.

After a time, she stopped searching. She realized that instead of searching stories like hers she could create her own. She knew that if the stories she cared most about weren’t already being told, she would have to tell them herself. She searched her heart and knew that writing stories for young girls of color was what she wanted most to do.  She wanted to write stories for girls like herself, and for girls who didn’t exist yet so there was something for them when they arrived.

Paulette would imagine the stories that she could tell. The characters she could create that looked like the world that she lived in. She could tell the stories of the women and people that made her who she was. The people in her neighborhood and the folks that passed through her living room. She would sit at her desk, tapping a pen and think of ways to show the beauty of her people and how to get those stories to the girls that looked like her. With a pen in her hand, she felt the most like herself, and like she was living the life she was supposed to.

As she followed the rhythm into her older years, the little girl with big dreams, became a woman with big ambitions. She followed her love for writing and storytelling to college and continued to turn herself into the person that she always knew she could be.

Through her writing, she would show a wide variety of experiences that people wouldn’t normally see. She showed the world that everyone had a story to tell and that by telling it, you could change the world around you. She began working to make sure that writers like her could get their works heard. She helped found organizations and began working to make sure that women and men writers were treated equally.

She remembered how so many of the amazing artists she’d met in her living room had used their amazing talents to create the world they wanted to see. She realized in order to make the change she wanted to see, she would have to use all of the talents she had.

She began to build her own artistry. Mixing together her love of writing, dance and music, she would create some of the world’s most important works of art. She would create stories about women that showed all sides of them. Not only did she write books, but she wrote stories that could be performed on stage. They would use their bodies and their voices to tell the stories she wrote.

Storytellers, poets, and even actors on great stages across the world would recite herher words while dancing to the music she had created she had created. They would stretch and spiral as the words came falling out of them. Paulette’s stories and performances changed how words on a page could be shown to an audience. She saw how people were happy to see what she had created and realized this was her own way of making sure the world saw how it was reflected from her own eyes. She began fighting to make sure everyone had the opportunities she did.

In this fight, she met and became friends with like minded individuals. She found her place with people that believed in what she was fighting for. As she began to explore new ideas, and thoughts through her work, and her time spent in college, something felt out of order. She became very sad and disconnected from the people she had friendships and relationships with. As she learned more about herself and the person she wanted to be, she left some of them behind. She realized sometimes you have to go the journey alone in order to be the true you, you need to be.

As time went on, and she left those friends behind she didn’t feel quite like herself. The name ‘Paulette’ didn’t seem to fit into the new woman  she was becoming. When she heard ‘Paulette,’ it reminded her of a person, and a time that no longer was. It didn’t feel right, part of her knew it never really had. Her sense of self was important to her. Truth and freedom were important to her, and she felt if she kept the name that made her feel less than herself, she would be living a lie. So, Paulette took matters into her own hands, and renamed herself.

She was reborn Ntozake Shange, a Zulu name. Ntozake, meaning “she who come with her own things,’’ and Shange meaning, “one who walks with lions.’’

After taking back her identity, her own sense of self, she felt free to explore. Shange took her love for music, dance, and poetry and wrote one of the greatest works to grace a stage. This poem was called, ‘for Colored Girls,’ which talked about the many experiences of Black women in America. The people she longed to read about when she began writing. This poem gave a voice to overlooked and mistreated people. It was on many stages, and won many awards. It still influences many writers and artists from around the world.

She became a well known activist who fought for the rights of people of color and all women. She believed everyone had the right to name themselves, and be who they wanted to be. She changed the world by being true to herself and her dreams.