The Motor Signal Reading Series jolts the poetry reading out of its conventional form. Motor Signal invites local poets to read their work, but it goes beyond a typical poetry reading by involving the audience in an activity of literary co-creation. Kick off our SIXTH season of Motor Signal on February 21, with Oneita Jackson and Ber-Henda Williams!

Dayton, Ohio, native and Howard University graduate Oneita Jackson spent her summers in New York City and lived in Washington, D.C., 14 years before moving to Detroit in 2001 to take a job as a copy editor at the Free Press, where she would eventually write the controversial and award-winning, observations-based O Street column.  

The World’s Proudest English Major escaped from journalism in 2012 and went on new adventures, becoming what she would call the “baddest little” everything:  cab driver and professional fixer, restaurant hostess, satirist; her books “Nappy-Headed Negro Syndrome” and “Letters from Mrs. Grundy”—nonfiction satires about identity, judgment, and assumptions (unconscious bias) and bad customer service—are endorsed by international bestseller and Dayton Literary Peace Prize and TED Prize recipient Dave Eggers.

Ber-Henda Williams lives according to her name’s Germanic-Greek origin, “The Bear Hearted Protector” of multiculturalism, art and womanhood. She focuses her energy as a femolutionary, poet, teacher, author, television and film producer, youth advocate and public speaker. A Wayne State University graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and minor in International Marketing, Ber-Henda Williams lives her life in color.