If the world can accept Amanda Gorman, then the world can accept me - The Dallas Morning News

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After watching Amanda Gorman recite her poem “The Hill We Climb” at Joe Biden’s inauguration, Robyn Harris woke up one morning with an idea. The director of news and information for Dallas ISD envisioned a video of a Black girl dressed as Gorman, reciting lines of her poem and explaining what the poem and the inauguration mean to students like her.

Harris went to work scouting for the right student, and she soon found Kyla Combs, a fifth grader and former MLK Jr. Oratory semifinalist. With her experience public speaking, Combs recites lines of the poem clearly and with poise. She stands up straight in the video and smiles into the camera.

But in her commentary about the poem, Combs brought something special. She expressed a refreshing directness, clarity and humanity that has been lacking in adult debates about race and politics.

The following is a transcript of the video, including both the lines of Gorman’s poem and Combs’ commentary. Harris and Combs’ mother granted The Dallas Morning News permission to publish the transcript of the video, which can be found at dallasisd.org.

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When day comes, we asked ourselves, where can we find light in this never ending shade?

The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.

We braved the belly of the beast.

We’ve learned that quiet Isn’t always peace.

To see someone becoming president, I think it was very powerful and it was very inspiring.

It’s like you could hope and dream for something like that to happen to yourself. Especially now that we have an African-American vice president. It really tells you that it’s possible, like anything is possible.

Amanda Gorman, the third paragraph, how she was raised, she was descended from slaves.

And raised by a single mother, can dream of becoming president.

She knows where she comes from. And most people are ashamed to say that they’re black or African-American, but she wasn’t.

If the world can accept somebody like Amanda Gorman to be on the Capitol and Kamala Harris, then they can accept somebody like me, all the way from Charles Rice Learning Center.

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.

We are striving to forge a union with purpose.

We can celebrate how far we’ve come. We can celebrate our color. We don’t have to pretend that we’re the same. We’re not the same, but we don’t deserve to be treated like we’re different.

We all came from the same place and God birthed this all. We are all God’s children. And I don’t think God would appreciate all his children being disrespectful to one another.

Our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.

When day comes, we step out of the shade, of flame and unafraid,

The new dawn balloons as we free it.

For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Kyla Combs is a fifth grader at Charles Rice Learning Center in Dallas.

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