See a photo of Karen, a link to her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Q&A with Karen Gilliam, PhD (Question 5):

Q: Given that some of your story work is with individuals, and given that Sankofa Symbolism embraces redefinition, to what extent do you support the concept: Change the story, and you can change your life.”

I absolutely believe in this statement. As human beings we have freedom of choice. We are not robots. Even as we are presented with certain circumstances, we still have the choice of how we react and respond and what story we tell. It is the latter - the story - that occurs first and where we don’t stop to question.

One symbol frequently associated with the first interpretation of the term Sankofa is the Sankofa bird [Editor’s note: Pictured here], which is also referred to as the bird of passage. This mythic bird is a bird that is looking behind it. This represents the fact that although the bird is constantly moving forward, it continually looks behind it - to its past, with an egg (symbolizing the future) in its mouth. Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, who is the past president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, having retired in 1977 after 40 years of dedicated service, once visited our church and shared this message: “If you don’t know where you come from, you won’t know when something is trying to take you back.” So while you don’t want to hold the egg too tight or risk breaking it; don’t hold it too loosely either.

Sankofa can be translated in various ways:

• No matter how far away one travels, s/he must always return home.
• It is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot.
• To move forward, you must reclaim the past.
• We should reach back and gather the best of what our past has to teach us, so that we can achieve our full potential as we move forward. Whatever we have lost, forgotten, forgone, or been stripped of, can be reclaimed, revived, preserved and perpetuated.
• In the past, you find the future and understand the present. And, in doing so, we can change the story and change our life.