PARENTING CLASS

Kimberly Elise is one of Black America's gifted and giving actors in her generation.  A fragile beauty herself her character and the characters she plays tell segments of American life for Black women in the most compelling and vulnerable of ways. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 

I first saw Kimberly Elise in the movie SET IT OFF. It was a brutal story of four Black women struggling to survive who for an assortment of reasons decide to rob a bank. A series of events reel out of control for each woman in such a way I felt it deserved to be seen by my young children. It was 1994 or '95. I took them to the movies, and we sat enthralled, and I with tears here and there throughout the movie saw parallels connected to my children's immediate and future lives. After the movie we had a memorable and intense discussion about all the things that stemmed from the stories.

It is important to take your children to hear the storytellers of every medium. A parent cannot be or do everything for their child as the structure and assumptions of the nuclear family suggest. - Gregory E. Woods,  Keeper of Stories 8/16/12

Kimberly Elise's maternal descent is of the Songhai people.