A Word From Our Founder

For me, the answer is both personal and professional. But it starts with the personal.

If you were ever looking for me as a child, you'd find me lost in a book or in a story I was writing, or making up dance routines with my sister and cousins. I come from a family of creatives, and I learned early that some things can only be expressed through art.

Those creative spaces became even more important over time. Growing up as Nigerian and African American, I sometimes felt torn between the two identities. Books, writing, and the arts helped me define who I was.

I was born in the Bronx, the birthplace of hip-hop, before moving to Detroit, where Motown became the soundtrack to my early years. Art was always around me: in the painted houses of the Heidelberg Project on Detroit's east side and in the newest Jamaican dances on the streets of Queens, long before they reached music videos. As I moved between the two cities, I learned firsthand that art doesn't live only in museums or on formal stages. It belongs to people and communities.

I went on to teach literacy in elementary and middle schools in Newark, Detroit, and Harlem. Throughout the school day, my students doodled, sang, and even danced while reading in the library. It would have been easy to label this as "disruptive," but I knew better. They were making space for creative expression no matter what. This led me to bring more art into our learning, from trips to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem to inviting local theater artists into our classroom.

I know how critical the arts are to young people. I've lived it. That knowledge became the foundation of LitiArts.

Literacy has always been more than reading and writing. It is deeply connected to the arts, to who young people are, and to how they express themselves. Yet too often, they are asked to leave their languages, cultures, identities, and ways of knowing behind in the name of academic success.

Access to arts education remains unequal, and more and more, books and stories are being removed from library shelves. I believe young people deserve spaces that see them fully and honor the knowledge and creativity they already carry. Those spaces should exist right in their own neighborhoods.

Literacy and the arts have given me so much. LitiArts is my way of passing on what I was given.

I'm so glad you're here. This community is yours, too, and I hope you'll journey with us as we grow.

With gratitude,

Lakeya Afolalu, Ph.D.

Founder & Executive Director, LitiArts