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Author Talk: Misty Copeland, The Wind at My Back

In Conversation with Phylicia Rashad and Melonie D. Parker

The MLK Library is excited to host a conversation with trailblazing and award-winning performing arts and tech leaders Misty Copeland, Melonie D. Parker, and Dean Phylicia Rashad.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library is excited to host a conversation with trailblazing and award-winning leaders in the performing arts, entertainment, and tech, featuring ballerina and New York Times Best-selling author Misty Copeland, with her latest book The Wind at My Back; Melonie D. Parker, Chief Diversity Officer at Google; and Phylicia Rashad, renowned actress and Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. This conversation will explore the importance of mentorship as you build your career no matter what field you choose, as well as what it means to use your experiences and platform to bring about change for future generations. Learn more from these esteemed speakers, and have a chance to buy Misty's newest book. Register to reserve your seat.

For reasonable accommodations, please get in touch with the Center for Accessibility at 202-727-2142 or DCPLaccess@dc.gov. Please allow at least seven (7) days' notice for ASL or tactile interpretation.

About Misty Copeland

Misty Copeland is a Principal Dancer with American Ballet Theatre, the first Black woman to be promoted to the position in the company's 75-year history in 2015. She has performed some of the most iconic classical ballet roles, including Odette/Odile in Swan Lake; Juliet in Romeo & Juliet; Giselle; Manon; Coppelia; Kitri in Don Quixote; and Firebird, to name a few.

She is the New York Times bestselling author of several books, including Life In Motion, Ballerina Body, Black Ballerinas, The Wind At My Back, and picture books titled Bunheads and Firebird.

Misty is an avid philanthropist and in 2022, she launched The Misty Copeland Foundation, with its first signature program BE BOLD, which aims to bring greater diversity, equity and inclusion to dance, especially ballet.

Misty's production company, Life In Motion Productions, is focused on offering representative stories of a wide range of artists. Her first independently produced project, Flower, is a silent arts activism film using dance to help raise awareness about intergenerational equity and the homelessness crisis. 

 Misty has been awarded Glamour Women of the Year, Time 100 and Black Girls Rock! awards. In 2021, Misty received the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest honor.

About Melonie D. Parker 

As Vice President and Chief Diversity Office at Google, Melonie D. Parker is responsible for leading strategies, practices and approaches for a more equitable, inclusive and accessible company where everyone belongs. She is an innovative C-suite thought leader and DEI strategist who is passionate about people and organizations that make substantive and sustainable impact. As the driver of Google’s racial equity commitments, Parker works with academic institutions that build pathways to tech and also partners with institutions and organizations to spearhead trailblazing research. 

Prior to Google, Parker served as the Vice President of Human Resources & Communication at Sandia National Laboratories, the first Black woman to have the role, and as Human Resources Director at Lockheed Martin where she graduated from its Executive Assessment and Development program—a rare achievement for women of color and human resources professionals. 

Named to Savoy Magazine’s 2023 Most Influential Executives in Diversity & Inclusion, recognized by the Hampton University Alumni Association, and presented with a Sisters with Superpowers award presented by Rolling Out UrbanStyle Weekly, Parker holds a B.A. in Mass Communications from Hampton University and an M.A. in Human Resources from Villanova University.

About Phylicia Rashad

An accomplished actor and stage director, Phylicia Rashad became a household name when she portrayed Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show, a character whose enduring appeal has earned her numerous honors and awards. She has appeared in NBC’s This Is Us, in the popular Fox TV series Empire, and in Tarrell Alvin McCraney's Peabody Award-winning series David Makes Man, on the OWN Network.

While television was a catalyst in the rise of Ms. Rashad's career, she has also been a force on the stage, appearing both on and Off Broadway, often in projects that showcase her musical talent such as Jelly's Last Jam, Into the Woods, Dreamgirls and The Wiz.

In 2016, Ms. Rashad was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame and received the 2016 Lucille

Lortel Award for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Play for her performance as Shelah in Tarell

Alvin McCraney's Head of Passes at the Public Theater. Ms. Rashad performed the role of the Duchess of Gloucester in Richard II, the 2020 Shakespeare on the Radio collaboration between The Public Theater and the New York public radio station, WNYC.

On Broadway, Ms. Rashad has performed in Dominique Morriseau’s Skeleton Crew ( Tony and Drama Desk Awards), August Osage County, Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (a role that she reprised on the London stage), August Wilson’s Gem of The Ocean (Tony Award nomination) and in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline at Lincoln Center.

Ms. Rashad received both the Drama Desk and the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her riveting performance as Lena Younger in the 2004 Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in The Sun.

Among Ms. Rashad’s film credits are Creed and Creed II, Just Wright, Tyler Perry's Good Deeds, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf, and the 2020 release, A Fall From Grace. Recent film projects include Black Box, Soul, and the Netflix holiday musical, Jingle Jangle.

Ms. Rashad made her critically acclaimed directorial debut at the Seattle Repertory Theater with August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean. She has also directed Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st Street, The Roommate, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (2014 NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director), Immediate Family, Fences, A Raisin in the Sun, and Four Little Girls.

Respected in the academic world, Ms. Rashad was appointed Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University in May of 2021. She has conducted Master Classes at many colleges, universities, and arts organizations, including Howard University, New York University, Carnegie Mellon, The Black Arts Institute of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, and the prestigious Ten Chimneys Foundation. Ms. Rashad is also the first recipient of the Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre at Fordham University.

Ms. Rashad’s commitment to excellence in the performing arts has been recognized by the numerous colleges and universities that have presented her with Honorary Doctorates.

Ms. Rashad has also received countless esteemed awards, including the BET Honors Theatrical Arts Award, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's Spirit of Shakespeare Award, and the Inaugural Legacy Award of the Ruben Santiago Hudson Fine Arts Learning Center.

She also serves on several important boards, including Brainerd Institute Heritage (steering the restoration of Kumler Hall at the historic site of Brainerd Institute in Chester, South Carolina) and DADA, the Debbie Allen Dance Academy.

Since 2017, Ms. Rashad has been the Brand Ambassador of the National Trust for Historic Preservation African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Phylicia Rashad graduated Magna Cum Laude from Howard University and is the mother of two adult children.

About the Book

From celebrated ballerina and New York Times bestselling author Misty Copeland, a heartfelt memoir about her friendship with trailblazer Raven Wilkinson which captures the importance of mentorship, shared history, and honoring the past to ensure a stronger future.

Misty Copeland made history as the first African-American principal ballerina at the American Ballet Theatre. Her talent, passion, and perseverance enabled her to make strides no one had accomplished before. But as she will tell you, achievement never happens in a void. Behind her, supporting her rise was her mentor Raven Wilkinson. Raven had been virtually alone in her quest to breach the all-white ballet world when she fought to be taken seriously as a Black ballerina in the 1950s and 60s. A trailblazer in the world of ballet decades before Misty’s time, Raven faced overt and casual racism, hostile crowds, and death threats for having the audacity to dance ballet.

The Wind at My Back tells the story of two unapologetically Black ballerinas, their friendship, and how they changed each other—and the dance world—forever. Misty Copeland shares her own struggles with racism and exclusion in her pursuit of this dream career and honors the women like Raven who paved the way for her but whose contributions have gone unheralded. She celebrates the connection she made with her mentor, the only teacher who could truly understand the obstacles she faced, beyond the technical or artistic demands.

A beautiful and wise memoir of intergenerational friendship and the impressive journeys of two remarkable women, The Wind at My Back captures the importance of mentorship, of shared history, and of respecting the past to ensure a stronger future.

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