By: Terry Allen
Big Mama would always be on that front porch stoop where she delivered to her audience—and she didn’t whisper truth, she declared it: “If you don’t carry your story, it won’t carry you.”
Right now, that message hits different.
We are living in a time where history is being challenged, trimmed, and too often dismissed. But Big Mama already gave us the play: we don’t wait for permission to remember—we build the spaces, the stories, and the institutions that make memory live.
That’s why this moment matters.
On Sunday afternoon, May 3rd at 3:30 p.m., inside Pan African Connection, we are not just hosting a speaker—we are hosting a movement. Anthony T. Browder is stepping into Dallas not just as an author, but as a cultural memory specialist—a man who has spent over four decades doing the work most people only talk about.
Fifty-four trips to Egypt since 1980.
Twenty-three archaeological missions since 2009.
The first African American to fund and lead an excavation in Egypt.
Director of the ASA Restoration Project, restoring the 25th Dynasty tomb of Karakhamun in Luxor.
That’s not theory—that’s legacy in motion.
His work makes one thing clear: we are not disconnected from history—we are descendants of the architects of civilization. Through his organization, IKG Cultural Resource Center, Browder has built platforms that teach, travel, and transform—turning knowledge into lived experience for generations.
And here’s the connection Lucille ” Big Mama” Allen wants us to see:
It’s not enough to celebrate knowledge—we must support where it lives.
That’s why this gathering, powered by City Men Cook, Pan African Connection Bookstore, and Texas Metro News, is bigger than a book talk. It’s about sustaining the ecosystem that keeps our stories alive.
Because if you want cultural memory to survive, you invest in it. You show up for it. You protect it.
Support Black bookstores.
Support Black platforms.
Support Black newspapers like Texas Metro News, where Cheryl Smith continues to place our truth on the front page—where it belongs.
And let’s be clear—this isn’t passive.
Browder is also a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., a brotherhood rooted in scholarship, leadership, and service. That lineage shows up in his work—structured, disciplined, and unapologetically focused on uplifting our people.
So here’s the charge:
Chocolate Secrets
3:30 PM — Sunday afternoon, May 3rd
Pan African Connection Bookstore
May 3 3:30 TO 5:30
Don’t just hear it—experience it.
Because Big Mama already told us:
“You cannot climb a smooth mountain.”
And reclaiming our history was never meant to be easy—
but it has always been necessary.
They cannot erase us—when we never stop telling us.
Terry Allen is an NABJ award-winning Journalist, DEI expert, PR professional, and – Vice President at FocusPR, founder of the charity City Men Cook, and Dallas Chapter President of NBPRS.org
