For most folk traditions, there are no training schools, no professional degrees offered, and few books written with which you can hone your craft. Instead, we learn from our elders, our mentors, our mothers. That’s the case for storytelling, the art of passing on oral traditions like folktales and family history from one generation to the next.

For Deborah Pierce-Fakunle and Jada Anderson—storytellers at the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival—it’s also a responsibility. Both women are proud African-diasporic griots (pronounced “gree-oh”), historians and storytellers tasked with taking community traditions from the past and carrying them to the future through stories, dance, and music. This tradition allows for transmission through kinship—though not necessarily blood relations.

In the griot tradition, terms of respect are earned with age and experience, and are used as endearments between mentors and mentees. As a younger “mama” or “baba” or an elder “mother,” a griot is honored and given a sacred job.

“It’s my responsibility for young people to have more than I and see more than I,” explained Pierce-Fakunle, who is affectionately known as “Dr. Mama Deborah.”

Pierce-Fakunle is co-director of the Growing Griots Literacy Learning Program, the youth-focused component of the Griots’ Circle of Maryland. Founded in 1997, the program helps Baltimore youth blossom into storytellers through cultural enrichment sessions, story healing circles, leadership and skill development, and literacy training.

It was through Growing Griots that Pierce-Fakunle first took Anderson, her “baby,” under her wing. She noticed Anderson, then in middle school, and her brothers in church and picked up on Anderson’s seriousness about learning. She approached Anderson’s mother with a definitive “I need her in my program!”

“Storytelling opened up so many opportunities for me that I wouldn’t have thought were possible,” Anderson expressed. At only thirteen years old, she had her television debut, going under the bright lights to tell the story of groundbreaking educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune for a local Baltimore Black History Month segment. She told this same story on the National Mall at the Festival. 

Storytelling has also helped Anderson discover her passion for children’s education, and she now uses storytelling to grow relationships with her Sunday school and Vacation Bible School students. As a mentor herself now, Anderson shares knowledge and resources with the young people she works with, assisting them with materials like the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and personal statements for college applications.

Though Anderson feels she’s just starting her journey, Pierce-Fakunle sees the next generation in her. When I asked Pierce-Fakunle about how her relationship with Anderson has grown and changed, she beamed and replied, “Once a growing griot, always a growing griot.”

Pierce-Fakunle’s own storytelling journey began when her son, David, was taken under the wing of Mother Mary Carter Smith. Smith was an educator dedicated to the craft of storytelling and one of the founders of the National Association of Black Storytellers. When young David needed to get to meetings and trainings around town, Pierce-Fakunle would accompany him, absorbing the training herself. Through the influence of Smith and others, Pierce-Fakunle raised David and her daughter Mary to understand how naming their struggles and telling their stories would have a profound impact on their communities.

Dr. David Fakunle also works as a storyteller now, incorporating elements of African drumming, singing, and theater in his practice. As the co-founder and CEO of DiscoverME/RecoverME, an organization that uses African oral tradition and storytelling for healing and growth, he gives groups like veterans and survivors of violence a space to talk and reclaim agency over their own stories. At the Festival, he joined Anderson on stage to explore the power of storytelling through interactive workshops.

For Anderson, enabling others to tell their story is the most powerful work a storyteller can undertake. She quoted Bethune’s reflections on her work as an educator: “I taught them not only how to read and how to write, but I taught them about dignity. I taught them about being proud of who they are.”

For Pierce-Fakunle, that means encouraging people to read, journal, and write. “Talk to someone, and tell them the stories you’ve read,” she said. “Don’t just memorize things; know them and tell them in unique ways to you! If you can’t find a group or a church home, put your story on social media! All viral media is a form of storytelling.”

By knowing and retelling our stories, our histories, we empower ourselves and the generations that follow. So, as Anderson asked at the Festival, quoting Bethune, “What will you do with your learning?”

Krystin Anderson was a program intern for the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. She is a graduate of the University of Florida, where she focused on cultural anthropology, ethnomusicology, and the African diaspora, and a proud griot representing the Caribbean, especially her home island of Jamaica.