Black History Month Series: Living Legends
I was sixteen years old when my parents divorced. My mother packed up her four children and we moved to Dayton, Ohio. It was my Sophmore year in high school. I was thrust into a new environment. I was worried about my mom and my siblings. I was heartbroken that my seemingly perfect life wasn’t so perfect anymore. But, most of all I was ANGRY at my father. One man stepped in and filled the immense void that was left when my father fell from the pedestal of my heart. This month I honor my spiritual father, Bishop Truman L. Martin. He took us out to MCL, inspected our report…
Black History Month Series: Living Legends
I met Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil at one of the most challenging times in my career. She was called in as a diversity consultant to help us in the aftermath of a series of racial incidents on campus. I’ll never forget picking her up from the airport in my red Ford F-150 truck. She and I shared a laugh about this bougie black woman driving a pick up truck (there is a sentimental story attached to my truck that I’ll share at a later time). I am eternally grateful for that first visit. She came in and cast a vision that compelled our diversity team to dig deeper and examine…
Black History Month Series: Living Legends
As a Diversity Professional, February was always an incredibly busy month. So much so that when I transitioned out of positions where programming for this month was included in my job description, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was refreshing to not worry about creating educational programming for other people. It was beginning to feel like a repetitive, white-washed chore that was designed to PROVE to majority culture that black people contributed to American history. EXHAUSTING!! These days I intentionally seek to educate myself about the history of the people who originated from Africa and “settled” (please notice the subtext in using that term) in these United States. There…
