BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OPEN MIKE EVENT GIVES ALL A PLACE TO SPEAK -------------------------------------------------- Alameda Journal January 24, 2006 By KARA ANDRADE On Friday night at the Esperanza Community Center, Nina Nero, 22, a mother of two children who has been accepted to UC Davis, steps up to the microphone, unfazed by the 40 people in front of her. She's confident, even though she hasn't been to one of these Boys and Girls Club open mike events. She doesn't know what to expect from the diverse group ranging in age from 3 to 60 -- some wearing hoodies, baggy pants, others with silver Raiders boots or Muslim hijabs. The event is called "Living King's Dream," and it's the third open mike coordinated by Alamedan Reggie James. Nero, who's in her last semester at College of Alameda, shares a poem about when she turned 22. The poem is called, "If Only I Had Listened to Mama." "Mama used to say a hard head is a soft behind, but what did
"To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave." - Frederick Douglass