Tell ‘Em The Truth: Brianna Johnson’s (XXXVI) Mixtape Wins Wesleyan University Hamilton Prize

7/9/2020

Brianna Johnson (XXXVI) wins the Wesleyan University Hamilton Prize for her mixtape, receiving a four-year scholarship to attend Wesleyan this fall.

Brianna Johnson (XXXVI/Berkeley Carroll ‘20, Wesleyan) is leaving her hometown of Carnarsie, Brooklyn to study sociology and education at Wesleyan. She earned a full-tuition scholarship to the university after winning the top accolade in its Hamilton Prize for Creativity with her mixtape, Tell ‘Em The Truth. The Hamilton Prize is awarded to students whose creative written works best reflect the originality, artistry, and dynamism of Hamilton: An American Musical. Chairing the selection committee is the musical’s creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda and its director Thomas Kail. This is not the first award for writing that Brianna has won - she is also a Scholastic Writing Awards gold medalist - and it probably won’t be the last.

Along with being a writer, Brianna Johnson is a fearless leader. In her sophomore year at Berkeley Carroll, she took on leadership roles that aligned with her commitment to justice and equality. She was co-leader of the People of Color affinity group, a member of the Diversity Awareness Initiative for Students (DAIS), and facilitated BC Talks, a series of speaker events that incorporates social justice into the school’s curriculum. As a member of the Equity Council in her junior year, Brianna scheduled and led programs to educate the student body on the experiences of students of color at predominantly white institutions. In her artist statement to Wesleyan University, she recalls her own challenges. “I felt unsettled by my Blackness. I was often the only Black person in my classes and began to question whether I deserved to be in my school or not.” The last few weeks have emphasized the importance of sharing these stories to raise awareness and create change. Her commitment to social justice is evident in her service to her community and in her creative work.

Brianna wrote the songs in Tell ‘Em The Truth after the murder of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and too many others. “I was scared for my life, the lives of my family, and my community,” she says. “My own America wanted to eradicate me, dehumanize me, make me feel like I was nothing. And that’s exactly how I felt. I was a blank corpse with no identity, no face and in America, no voice. I wanted to change that and so I traded in my anger and disappointment for a pen and paper. I transcribed my emotions into lyrics.” Lin-Manuel Miranda says while reading Brianna’s work, he was “struck by the honesty, perspective and structure already present in what she’s creating.”

The following are excerpts from Tell ‘Em The Truth.

“Dreams to Reality”

Verse 1

August 28th, 1963

‘Bout a quarter million people crowded around to see

Dr. Martin Luther King give his speech

Four little words

“I have a dream”

By 1964 racism was chastised

But it takes years to erase the hatred it left behind

Been 54 years since he said “I have a dream”

Time to turn that dream into reality

Refrain

Why can’t we live peacefully?

Why can’t we be one?

One day without a causality

It’s easier said than done

One day black and white will sing

As one voice under the sun

Turn the dream into reality

And we shall overcome

“These Chains”

Verse 3

This one’s for all my black people out there

Whose voices cry out but feel like nobody hears

Who felt it when Garner said “I can’t breathe”

Who is tired of them blaming us, the victim

When our blood is in the streets

To all the mothers whose son became statistic

To when you felt like change was highly unrealistic

To all the kids whose dad was shot in their face

To all the men at risk just because of their race

I just want to tell you I’m here

I can feel your pain, your anger and your fear

But I want to encourage you to be strong

Keep on voicing your point

Even though they say you’re wrong

We’ve been waiting for justice for so long

Sometimes we wonder how far the world’s gone

It all seems downhill from here

And every time they kill another it feels so unreal

Bridge
But we’re standing up

We’re standing strong

We’re unafraid

This is our song

We’re black and proud

We say it loud

All lives matter?

We shut that down

Because when you turn on that TV

It’s another black brother dead that you see…

“Damages of Duality”

Verse 2

Look at the black girl in a white world

Once confident but now so unsure

Their views of her were her poison

Their opinions, her demise

While in the real world around her

Blackness was starting to die

Looking for an escape

Who can she run to

Nowhere to hide

When a gun is pointing at you

Run through the school doors

With tears in her eyes

Black and white tv screens show

The violence outside

Black lives matter

But what about blue

They scream all lives matter but forgot about you

She could not take it

Her blackness was distilled

She never knew blackness could get you killed

Scared for her life

After the fourth of july

4 black men gunned down

Now she’s traumatized

She hates her skin color

They spit on her face

Their imposed views converging with

Her blackness misplaced

She was the revelation of the other world

Peculiar sensation

Her identity wasn't hers

Two Briannas

One white and one brown

Code switching between them

When different people came around

But at the end of the day only one would stand ground

Would it be white or brown

That was dependent on the town

As of right now

She will never know

Warring ideals of her dark brown soul

The question hangs from the trees like a thick noosed rope

To be white or Negro?

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