Thank God We Told the Same Stories

For years, whenever I discovered that someone else was writing about something I was already writing about, I had the same reaction.

Well, shit.

Now what?

It happened more than once.

My longtime collaborator Kevin Ramsey conceived Tap Rap, a short film rooted in the history and tradition of Black tap dance. It starred a young Savion Glover.

Then a Broadway musical arrived, exploring some of that same rich history and culture.

Well, shit.

Now what?

Years later, I began writing Bayard: The Musical, about the extraordinary life of Bayard Rustin. I started the piece in 2016 while I was a graduate student in NYU’s Musical Theatre Writing Program and completed the first full draft during the pandemic.

Then came the announcement of a major Netflix film about Bayard Rustin.

Well…

You get the picture.

And then there was Ella, First Lady of Song.

That experience was considerably more complicated.

My musical about Ella Fitzgerald had been produced and licensed since 2004. Then, in 2022, with two more productions already booked, someone connected to another Ella Fitzgerald project sent cease-and-desist letters.

This time, it wasn’t simply a matter of someone else telling a similar story.

Someone believed it was their story to tell—and tried to stop me from telling mine.

Suddenly, after nearly two decades of telling this story, I needed lawyers.

Fortunately, I found volunteer legal help through Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and I continued telling the story.

But each time something like this happened, somewhere in the back of my mind was the same question:

Is there still room for my version?

For years, I thought the answer had something to do with originality.

Who got there first?

Whose project was bigger?

Whose had more money behind it?

Who had the Broadway theater?

Who had the Netflix deal?

Who had the right to tell the story?

I don’t ask that question anymore.

Because I finally realized I had been asking the wrong question.

The question isn’t:

Why are we all telling the same stories?

The question is:

What happens if we stop?

We are living in a time when Black history is being challenged, distorted, removed, and erased.

Books disappear from shelves.

Lessons disappear from classrooms.

Stories that some people find uncomfortable are suddenly deemed unnecessary.

And somewhere along the way, I began to look back at all those moments in my own writing career differently.

Maybe we weren’t competing.

Maybe we were documenting.

Maybe the fact that more than one writer, filmmaker, composer, playwright, or artist felt compelled to tell the story wasn’t evidence that one of us should stop.

Maybe it was evidence that the story needed more voices.

After all, one Broadway musical cannot own the history of Black tap dance.

One film cannot own Bayard Rustin.

One musical cannot own Ella Fitzgerald.

One artist cannot become the sole custodian of Black history.

We come from a tradition of storytellers.

Of oral history.

Of griots.

The story is told.

And then it is told again.

Someone carries it to the next village.

Someone carries it to the next generation.

Someone remembers a detail another person forgot.

Someone sees the hero differently.

Someone asks a question no one thought to ask before.

The story changes because the storyteller changes.

And that is not redundancy.

That is how history survives.

I understand that now in a way I didn’t before.

So if you are a writer, an artist, a filmmaker, a composer, or simply someone carrying a story inside you, and you discover that someone else is telling a story similar to yours, particularly a story rooted in Black history, don’t automatically put down your pen.

Don’t assume the opportunity has passed.

Don’t assume the story has already been told.

It hasn’t.

Not through your lens.

Tell it.

Write it.

Sing it.

Film it.

Put it onstage.

Pass it on.

Because the danger was never that too many of us would tell our stories.

The danger was that someday, too few of us would.

I used to worry that we were all telling the same stories.

Now, as I watch people trying to erase Black history, I understand.

Thank God we did.