Amanda Gorman, whose reading of a poem about the country’s progress in race and equality during the inauguration of President Biden on a national stage, said on Friday she was followed by a security guard who questioned whether she was in her own building living.
Gorman, 22, who grew up near Westchester, wrote on Twitter late Friday that the guard ‘tailed’ her as she walked home, asking if she actually lived in her building. “You look suspicious,” the guard said, according to Gorman.
According to Gorman, she showed her keys to the guard and allowed her into the building. “He left, no excuse,” she wrote. “This is the reality of black girls: one day you are called an icon, the next day a threat.”
Gorman did not immediately post a message sent through her website to comment.
Gorman, who attended New Roads School in Santa Monica, became the first Los Angeles youth poet winner when she was 16 years old. She was recognized as a national youth poet winner three years later while studying at Harvard University.
The youngest poet to speak at a presidential inauguration, Gorman recited the poem ‘The Hill We Climb’ during Biden’s oath, just two weeks after a crowd of supporters of former President Trump trampled on the US Capitol in a violent attempt to stop Congress from certifying. Biden’s victory.
Gorman describes herself in the poem as “a skinny black girl who is descended from slaves and raised by a single mother”, yet one who “can dream of becoming president”.
She has two books – a poetry collection and a children’s book – that will be published by Penguin Random House in September, according to her website.