When I visited 826LA, I was so happy to be in such a pleasant airy room, that was so well put together. And my eye went right to three large round vessels holding yellow pencils, on a shelf, above the hosts for the evening. For the occasion I had worn my magic necklace. My magic necklace was given to me by Peter Cannelos, who is the Washington Bureau Chief of the Boston Globe. Peter was the life partner of a magnificent war journalist named Elizabeth Neuffer. And the necklace had belonged to Elizabeth. He gave it to me when she died. Elizabeth was someone I had given an award years ago—the Courage in Journalism Award. She had survived near rapes, car bombs, shoot outs—all of it. She was a war correspondent, not to dodge bullets, but because she was fascinated with how countries and especially families managed to put themselves back together after the trauma and destruction of war. Elizabeth was an enormously generous person. After September 11, she was eager to go to Afghanistan. Before leaving she went to Bloomingdale’s in New York to get lots of samples of perfumes to take to the people she interviewed. But to me, the most important gift that Elizabeth would take when she went into war zones, were pencils and pens. She took them so that she could hand them out to the children she met. She would hand a child in a war torn country a pen or a pencil and say—the pen is mightier than the sword. The pen is mightier than the sword. Elizabeth went to Iraq at the point that most of us thought the war was over—and ironically, having gone at what we originally thought was the end of the war, she was killed in a car accident. Her driver was speeding. The driver lived but the accident killed Elizabeth and her translator. I wear the magic necklace to remind myself on a regular basis of Elizabeth who had courage—Elizabeth who could sleep anywhere and eat anything. She loved people and their stories. She was in love with life. To me Elizabeth was living a very important question, and living it with the right answer. The question is best articulated in that magnificent line in that beautiful poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay: “The Conscientious Objector.” “Am I a spy in the land of the living that I should deliver men to death?” (The answer in the poem is “no”, and it’s a question that we should ask ourselves.

There are many kinds of swords being wielded around the world. Some swords kill people, some kill ideas, some kill hope, some make it impossible for people to experience the sheer joy of being human. Some swords divide us, and keep us from understanding, that after all, we really are all in this life, together. Now is such an important time, to feel the might, the real might of the determined pen, the committed pencil, the pen that is carried by those who are wide awake, and committed to paying attention. The activities of 826 LA are very important. Those of us who can help others wield the pen should do so. Helping others to stay awake, to pay attention, to read the world, to name the world and to make meaning of this world, might even make our own pens more purposeful.

Anna Deavere Smith, playwright, actress, winner of the 1996 MacArthur Foundation and NYU professor is best known for her award-winning plays Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles which address issues of race and community in America by depicting multiple characters with diverse points of view.