KERRY WASHINGTON & JOY BRYANT GIVE BACK TO THEIR HOMETOWN, THE BRONX!

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Hollywood ladies, Kerry Washington and Joy Bryant team up to give back to their community of The Bronx in NYC through the Uptown Girl Power Benefit, which will raise funds for mural art projects that portray positive images for young women and girls. People don’t be fooled by the rocks that they got…they still come back to the block. ESSENCE.com caught up with the ladies to talk about her affinity for hip-hop, why women of color always have to fight harder, and what the B-X has to offer. Yes, it’s not always about the BK.
ESSENCE.COM: So, Uptown Girl, is this your first trip back to the Boogie Down?
KERRY WASHINGTON: Well, this is my first official event with Uptown Girls but I’ve been friends with [environmental community leader] Majora [Carter] and Joy [Bryant] for many years, so it’s nice to be working together. I’m just really proud to be from the Bronx, and I always tell folks I’m the twin sister of hip-hop because we were both born in 1977.

ESSENCE.COM: We love that you’re a hip-hop baby! Why did you choose to become involved with UG?
WASHINGTON: When you look at the statistics young women of color are up against, so many odds, including a lack of health education or growing up in poverty. We’re up against a lot and those of us who have had enough velocity and have been lucky enough to move beyond those statistics should not be thought of as the exception. Joy and I don’t want to be the exception, and we’re not when you look at amazing women like Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor! We want our successes to become the norm.
ESSENCE.COM: We know that young women in the Bronx and other urban communities face teen pregnancy, high dropout rates and issues of domestic abuse. How did you subside all of that and how do you teach these girls to do the same?
BRYANT: It helped that I had my grandmother. I grew up not very far from where the event will be taking place, but my grandmother always stressed to me that, regardless of the fact that I was a poor, Black child from the Bronx, I was never to use that as an excuse for me not to dream big and go out and get the things that I really wanted in life. In order for me to change the circumstance of which I was born into, I had to do well in school because that was the thing that was going to liberate me. That’s how I was able to get in the A Better Chance program, which led me to get a scholarship to the Westminster school, graduated, went to Yale for two years and here I am. It all goes back to having that positive influence in your life.

As Bronx girl myself, it’s frustrating seeing all these young women in the hood with no direction and negative images…it’s beautiful and refreshing to hear someone who’s made it out successful, come back and help.
READ MORE OF THE INTERVIEW AND THEIR EFFORTS AT ESSENCE.COM

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