By Rakeah Glass
Special to the AFRO
Hill Harper’s most influential role to date is, perhaps, that of mentor. The talented stage and television actor first tackled this role in his first book, Letters to a Young Brother in which he addressed the issues that plague many of today’s fatherless young black men. Now, two years later, he has picked up where he left off, in Letters to a Young Sister: DeFINE Your Destiny. This time, however, he has solicited the assistance of accomplished African-American women such as Michelle Obama, Nikki Giovanni, and Angela Bassett among others to help him tackle issues that young women struggle with such as low self-esteem.
“The self-esteem/self-worth piece is what I deal with first in all my works because I believe if you don’t then talking about any future based-activities like education, financial literacy, HIV/AIDS, [and] teen pregnancy, [will] fall on deaf ears,” said Harper.
After the publication of his first book, Harper was approached by a number of young women who questioned him about their self-worth after reading his encouraging words to young men.
“I wanted to write a book that was for young sisters; a hug on paper [and] that’s why the FINE of my subtitle DeFINE Your Destiny is in caps and it stands for fantastic, interesting, necessary, and exceptional. And, I want young women to know that they are.”
Harper believes if African-American girls realize their value, this will inevitably lead to “encouraging them to dream bigger and bigger and bigger and not see their dreams as something they have to limit because their opportunities may have been limited.”
In his book, he also warns against dream killers and suggests writing prescriptions for success as opposed to a lottery mentality when it comes to one’s future. “I break down success, achievement, happiness, dreams, [and] goals into very accessible ways of approaching their life…there is nothing nothing you can ever think of or dream of that is not possible,” he asserts.
In addition to motivating young people to realize their potential and attain their dreams, Harper is also helping friend and presidential hopeful, Senator Barack Obama, to realize his. Harper is on Sen. Obama’s National Finance Campaign and is one of the senator’s surrogate speakers. In these roles, Harper travels the country fundraising for the campaign as well as encouraging people to register to vote and to get out and vote. “I did 18 different trips during the primary cycle and will do another huge number of trips for the general election,” he says.
This fall is shaping up to be a busy one for Harper as he will be gearing up for the fifth season of CSI: NY in September as well as preparing for the release of his latest movie, Mama I Wanna Sing, alongside singer Ciara and actress Lynn Whitfield, which is slated for release in October. Harper, also, hinted that another book is in the works but remained tightlipped on the details, except to say that this will be a non-fiction piece for adults.