“It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized being told I was “pretty for a black girl” wasn’t a compliment the way I thought it was when I was growing up… why can’t I just be pretty? You don’t realize until you get out of that environment [what kind of] impact it can have on you.”

Nkili Gause is a scholar hailing from Loris, South Carolina, and is currently a legislative assistant for Rep. Clyburn on Capitol Hill. Listen to her conversation with Daniel James II about her hometown's chicken bog specialty, her path to the Hill, her work on appropriations and policy development, her education aspirations, representation on the Hill, her perspective as a staffer on 1/6, and her response to people who ask about 'black on black crime.'