Amanda Gorman revealed she was racially profiled outside her own apartment after a security guard demanded to know where she lived.
The 22-year-old poet, who became a national sensation at the inauguration of President Joe Biden, shared how the guard followed her home and told her she “looked suspicious.”
“I showed my keys & buzzed myself into my building,” she said via Twitter Friday night.
“He left, no apology.”
“This is the reality of black girls: One day you’re called an icon, the next day, a threat,” she added.
“In a sense, he was right. I AM A THREAT: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance. Anyone who speaks the truth and walks with hope is an obvious and fatal danger to the powers that be.”
The nation’s youngest inaugural poet did not specify where the encounter occurred and has not responded to a message sent to her website.
Her tweet drew support from her followers, which garnered about 720,000 likes.
“I’m so sorry you went through this,” one Twitter use commented on her post.
“So proud of and in awe of you for being brave and speaking about it, but I absolutely wish you didn’t have to,” said another.
One even offered her to track the security guard down, to which she has not replied as well.
Gorman drew widespread acclaim when she recited, “The Hill We Climb” in front of the Capitol at President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
In her poem, she spoke of “striving to forge a union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.”