Standing up to racism by finding your voice
For Black History Month, we're exploring history and identity through the lens of joy. Black joy is the ability to love and celebrate black people and culture, despite the world dictating otherwise. Black joy is liberation.
» READ MORE: Donna Frisby-Greenwood
I was a high school student and about 15 years old when I cofounded our NAACP Youth Council in Willingboro, where I grew up.
We organized a trip to march on Washington to make Dr. King's birthday a national holiday. I remember getting students my age, and we were able to organize two busloads to go to Washington and march.
It was Jan. 15, 1981. I remember thousands of buses and people. It was amazing. I remember being very excited and our parents and teachers teaching us the freedom songs on the way down. The energy was amazing. I remember Gil Scott-Heron, Diana Ross, Jesse Jackson, and Stevie Wonder were all there.
Due to the work that Coretta Scott King and Stevie Wonder had done to bring attention to it, the holiday actually came into existence. I was too young to vote. But I actually saw the result of my direct action. That, for me, was very powerful, and it's something that stayed with me for a very long time. Seeing the power of action at such a young age led me to my career in civic life.
Around that time, I was finding my own voice and realizing, for the first time, that racism existed. I had an incident with my school counselor. I went to the counselor to start to talk about my college options, what I should be doing, and what schools I should be setting my sights on. I was an excellent student academically and was an active student.
I went to see this counselor, and she said, "Kids like you should be thinking about community college."
I said, "What do you mean? Have you not seen my record? I'm not considering community college, and neither are my parents."
She really stood her ground and felt very strongly that I shouldn't worry about a four-year college. My parents came up to the school and met with the vice principal. As a result of my parents' continuing to pressure the school and me asking other students to complain about the counselor, the next year, we were able to get the first African American counselor in that high school. Again, I saw the result of standing up and speaking out.
The march was my first moment of being really proud and joyful about what we could accomplish if we stand up and speak out and come together -- not just African Americans, but people of all races. If people of like minds come together, you can actually make a difference.
Those early experiences said to me that if I can make a difference, other young people can, too, if given the information and resources. It led me to do this broader work for all children and youth.
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