Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old poet who captured hearts at the inauguration of US President Joe Biden, says she was followed home by a security guard who demanded to know where she lived because she "looked suspicious".
She says the incident shows the "reality of black girls" in America, where you're an icon one day and a threat the next.
"A security guard tailed me on my walk home tonight. He demanded if I lived there because 'you look suspicious'," Gorman wrote on Twitter on Friday.
"I showed my keys & buzzed myself into my building. He left, no apology.
"This is the reality of black girls: One day you're called an icon, the next day, a threat."
Gorman, America's youngest inaugural poet, lives in Los Angeles but did not specify where the encounter took place.
The post was met with thousands of messages of support on Twitter and Instagram.
She followed up her post with a second comment that said: "In a sense, he was right".
"I AM A THREAT: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance," she said.
"Anyone who speaks the truth and walks with hope is an obvious and fatal danger to the powers that be. A threat and proud."
Gorman became an instant sensation pm January 20 when she recited her poem, The Hill We Climb, at Biden's swearing-in.
Australian Associated Press
