Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture, hosted by me, Alexandra Miller. Strictly Facts teaches the history, politics, and activism of the Caribbean and connects these themes to contemporary music and popular culture. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture. I'm your host, Alexandria, and in honor of Women's History Month, today's episode is a personal reflection, one that began with a simple challenge, me deciding to come up with a list of women to highlight for Women's History Month, but it then opened me up to much larger questions about memory, recognition, and the intellectual legacies of Caribbean women. In preparation for Women's History Month, I found myself searching for something very specific. Quotes by Caribbean women, not summaries, not general ideas, not women contributed to. I was looking for their words in their own words. And what I realized again and again is that those words are often harder to find than they should be. Now this isn't because Caribbean women haven't been thinkers, leaders, artists, organizers, or visionaries. We know they have. Our history is filled with women who shape communities, movements, and cultural life across the region and the diaspora. But when it comes to easily accessible quotes, the kinds of words we put on posters, in presentations, or share online, there's a noticeable imbalance. We can quickly recall quotes by Marcus Garvey, CLR James, Franz Fanon, for example. But when we ask, what did Caribbean women say? What words did they leave us? The archive feels thinner than it should, and that absence tells us something very important. It tells us whose voices were recorded, whose speeches were transcribed, whose writings were published, and whose intellectual labor was treated as worthy of preservation. But then I started thinking a little bit differently, because if you grew up in the Caribbean or in a Caribbean household, you know a few things for sure. One of those being our foremothers have always been speaking, sometimes leaving us lessons and teachings to carry forward. Not always in books, but we learned their wisdom through proverbs, through sayings, warnings, advice, stories told in kitchens, panivaranda in markets and churches, some of my favorites being every mikomika muckle, who don't hear must feel, one one coco full basket. These are intellectual traditions, these are philosophies of survival, of patience, discipline, and community. And yet, we don't really know where a lot of these stem from. But because women's intellectual work in the Caribbean and often throughout the world has been collective, oral, and intergenerational, not necessarily individual, it hasn't necessarily been credited. So today we still want to, and I think really I aim to collect that wisdom just in a few new places we have them, right? Today we have books and blogs, social media captions, song lyrics, which you know are some of my favorites, interviews and podcasts. Sometimes we share a quote because it resonates, because it feels true, because it sounds so powerful. But here is the question I start asking myself. What are the Caribbean credos you live by? And if you do know, who originally said them? Do we know? Because once we start paying attention, we notice something else. Many of the quotes that circulate widely today oftentimes come from men. For example, I think a lot of people know widely the Marcus Garvey's famous quote: a people without a knowledge of their past, history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots. Or there's another point about the power dynamics like nationality within our communities that shape the quotes that get remembered. For example, Audrey Lorde, born to Bayesian and Grenadian parents, many of us in the US or global north are aware of her work and oftentimes quote her work saying, when I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. And even here, there's an important question and certain messages that emerge. Who said it? Are they Caribbean born, Caribbean descended? Where in the diaspora did they grow up? Where did their work have an impact? Because intellectual influence in the Caribbean has always moved around and across borders. But the larger question still remains. When we think about the words shaping our lives, who are they coming from? And if women's voices are harder to find, what does that mean for how we imagine authority, wisdom, and leadership? Because quotes aren't just words, they become mantras, teaching tools, guiding principles, the language we use to understand ourselves. If women's voices are missing from that landscape, then their intellectual authority becomes invisible. And that is where I want us to all together collectively make a shift, because there is one source you might not think of when you're thinking of Caribbean intellectual voices. This podcast. Every episode of Strictly Facts features scholars, writers, artists, educators, community thinkers, many of them women, and within these conversations that are so powerful evolve words about history, identity, migration, gender, culture, memory, resistance, the list can go on. In other words, this podcast is becoming a living archive of Caribbean intellectual thought. And that archive belongs to you and I, the listeners, the educators, the students, community members who carry these ideas forward. If you've ever heard something on this podcast that stayed with you, a phrase, a concept, a way of thinking, that is a quote worth preserving. And we want you to use them. You can visit our website to learn how to properly cite quotes from the podcast so that the scholars and guests whose ideas shape these conversations received the recognition they deserve. Because citation is care, citation is visibility, and citation is how we build intellectual lineage. So this Women's History Month, I want you to think about legacy a little bit differently. Not just who were the great women, but what words did they leave us, what ideas guide our lives, and whose voices are shaping our thinking today. Because lessons we carry forward become the future archive. And I want to invite you into this work. This month and honestly every day, I want to hear from you. What quote by a Caribbean woman do you live by? It could be a scholar, a writer, a musician, a grandmother, a teacher, a community elder, or even a guest from this podcast. Share it with us on social media, tag us, and tell us who said it and what it means to you. We'll be uplifting and sharing the work of important women throughout the month so we can collectively celebrate the intellectual and cultural contributions of Caribbean women. Because honoring women's history isn't just about remembering the past, it's about amplifying their words in the present and making sure their voices shape the future. Thank you so much for being part of our growing archive, this community, and the work of remembering and recognizing Caribbean women this month and always. Until next time, I'm Alexandra Miller, Lickle Moore. Thanks for tuning in to Strictly Facts. Visit StrictlyFactsPodcast.com for more information from each episode. Follow us at StrictlyFacts Pod on Instagram and Facebook and at StrictlyFacts PD on Twitter.