“I seek to reweave the frayed remnants of family, community, and spiritual values rent asunder in the name of progress. That much racial, social, and scientific progress has taken place over my lifetime is evident. Millions of Black children and poor children of all races have moved into the American mainstream and are better off materially. But something important has been lost as we have thrown away or traded so much of our Black spiritual heritage for a false sense of economic security and inclusion. We are at risk of letting our children drown in the bathwater of American materialism, greed, and violence. We must regain our moral bearings and roots and help America recover hers before millions more children– Black, Brown, and White, poor, middle-class, and rich – self-destruct or grow up thinking life is about acquiring rather than sharing, selfishness rather than sacrifice, and material rather than spiritual wealth.”
~ Marian Wright Edelman, Founder of The Children’s Defense Fund
In my last post, I focused on being who I needed when I was younger. This post will focus on being more like who I had when I was younger.
My life is filled with examples of love, kindness, and grace. So many people have helped me become the man I am today. They’ve sacrificed so much and given me tremendous gifts. Outside of my family, no one else shaped my childhood like Ms. Anderson. In many ways, this post is a letter of appreciation to her and her impact on my life.
My parents felt uncomfortable sending us to our neighborhood schools when we lived in East Thomas. My mother and her siblings attended Wilkerson Middle School and Parker High School. While those schools were pillars in the community during her day, Birmingham City Schools underwent a turbulent time during the 90s and early 2000s. The school district had lost thousands of students, some due to white flight, but others due to deteriorating schools that were underfunded and significantly under capacity. This led them to make the difficult decision of sending us to a private Christian school in Bessemer, Alabama, called God’s Church Christian Academy.
As I reflect on God’s Church Christian Academy (GCCA), I can’t help but ask the question, “Was it a better school than Carrie A. Tuggle Elementary would have been for me or Wilkerson Middle for my sister?” If I’m honest, the answer to that question is probably not, but it’s complicated. GCCA wasn’t a wealthy school, nor a segregation academy (schools started after the 1954 Brown v Board ruling meant to curb integration); it was an all-Black school founded to provide hope and second chances. GCCA was in an older building and housed students from Kindergarten to twelfth grade. It was a large red brick building with a basketball court across the street and always seemed full of life and energy. Its original purpose was either a large church or a small school, but my memory fails me to recall its original design. I had many experiences there. I will share a few enjoyable memories, but here are a few, shall I say, traumatic ones that shaped my childhood at this school.
The first time I experienced having to hide my young black body for fear of gunshots that rang out from a car firing at students on the basketball court. The terror of looking for my sister as she romand aimlessly as bullets rang out, not sure what to do. I also remember the first time we were gathered in an assembly to hear that four fellow students were killed in a horrific train accident. Why did we attend a school with just as many, if not more, challenges than our neighborhood schools? We ended up there because my parents had a good relationship with the school leaders, and my sister and I always seemed to get access to the best teachers and resources.
One of those teachers was Ms. Sandra Anderson.
Ms. Anderson was my teacher for both second and third grade. In second grade, I was a rambunctious student. Filled with energy, I enjoyed wrestling with my teacher for my classmates’ attention. One day, we were doing one of our reading assignments, where everyone had the same book, and the teacher assigned you a passage to read aloud when it was your time. Well, I had gotten good at gaming these assignments. I had a phenomenal memory that enabled me to recall information almost verbatim after hearing it. So, I would have a classmate read my part of the assigned reading and repeat whatever they said. Ms. Anderson caught on to this game and, like any good teacher, decided to call on me out of order. I protested that it wasn’t my time, and when that didn’t work, I promptly began acting a fool. She would have none of it. She called me out and said, “You can’t read. There is nothing funny about being unable to read, but I will teach you.”
That began a journey that changed the course of my life.
Ms. Anderson didn’t just teach me to read; she instilled in me a love for learning. She invited me and my sister to her house after school and worked with us relentlessly. Teaching me how to read and my sister how to praise dance. She created a space where a young black boy from Birmingham, Alabama, could be honest about his struggles, fears, and inadequacies. She nurtured my giftedness and gave me a necessary skill I lacked.
Reading.
I excelled so much under her leadership that I became a mini extension of her in the classroom. After finishing my work, I would assist other students, patiently asking them the questions she would ask me. I was being discipled, and I didn’t know it. She started holding me to a higher standard than other students. You know, back in those days (in the oldest voice I can muster), they believed in corporal punishment at school (it was a black Christian school). I can vividly remember times when my actions were far below Ms. Anderson’s expectations, and that led to a thorough wearing out of my backside. Her discipline didn’t drive me away but taught me to respect her more; it also drove home the pain of what happens when you live beneath your potential and act out as a leader. She knew her discipline would set an example for the rest of the class and the rest of my life.
Jesus' final words to his disciples in Matthew 28:18-20 are, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (ESV). She demonstrated God's love for me in how she cared for me. She was patient, kind, loving, gracious, and determined. She knew that life for a black boy who turns into a black man who can't read is a treacherous existence. She also knew that an undisciplined leader is no leader at all. She implanted in me that servant leadership is the only way to be a transformative leader.
Famous Super Bowl-winning coach Vince Lombardi once said, “Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.”1 I will add to that that leaders are mentored. They are shaped by the hands of others. Another well-known football coach, Tony Dungy, wrote a book that has shaped me as a leader, The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People and Teams that Win Consistently. In it, he adds his thoughts to this concept of mentored and mentoring leadership: “Conventional wisdom says that leaders are born, but I don’t believe that’s true. From what I’ve seen, positive, life-changing leadership is an acquired trait, learned from interaction with others who know how to lead and lead well. Leadership is not an innate, mystical gift; rather, it is a learned ability to influence the attitudes and behavior of others. As such, we can all learn—and then teach others—how to understand and apply the principles of successful leadership.”2
She was preparing me as a leader and a learner.
To send people out into the world without the skill of reading is one of the greatest betrayals an education system can perpetrate on a student. She knew that I needed more than a likable personality. I needed the love of a skillful teacher who was present enough to see me and my struggles and patient enough to teach me through my uncouth behavior. I needed my passion directed with compassion and grace.
She sparred me from a violent existence.
I was a loving kid who became an angry kid around the time my parents separated. Several things contributed to my anger as a child. I will list two and save the third for a later post. Primarily, it was my parents' acrimonious marriage that finally deteriorated when I was in middle school. However, leaving God's Church Christian Academy and moving to Hoover during my fourth-grade year to attend Hoover City Schools is a close second. So much of the love that Ms. Anderson invested in me was stolen by experiences in those schools. Honestly, some were taken, and others were surrendered or sacrificed on the altar of acceptance.
During my fourth-grade year, I had a teacher who seemed to my nine-year-old mind to be the antithesis of Ms. Anderson. I’ll spare you the details of my experience, but it culminated in me disengaging from school. So much so that by the end of my fourth-grade year, my mother met with the school because they either wanted to make me repeat the fourth grade or put me in special education classes (I have good friends who have taught special education, and I am in no way disparaging students who need these services. Unfortunately, too many students of color and poor students have been tracked into special education classes for reasons other than their actual need for these classes). My mother vigorously protested their attempts, and school leadership said they would need to test me in order to make a final decision. In her southern black mama confidence, she said, “Then you’re just going to have to test him.”
I ACED their test.
Results: Gifted
As you can imagine, excuses and apologies followed, and I attended a young authors camp that year as their vain attempt to help me re-engage with school. I loved the camp and hated interacting with the other students. Legitimately, I needed additional help with my writing. I had just learned to read a couple of years before, and I needed help with my spelling, a skill still being cultivated. I’m still not the best speller in the world. It’s mostly anxiety now, from times teachers like my fourth-grade teacher decided to publicly shame and embarrass me rather than patiently sit with me. When I have to write on a board in public, I have to fight hard not to turn into that scarred crying boy standing in front of his class as his teacher mocks him.
I digress.
“To Be Young, Gifted, and Black.”
Ms. Anderson was a shero in my life. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since I left her class, but I honor her everywhere I go. I tell my team about her during our staff meetings and encourage them to show the same love and tenacity that she shared with me. To not overlook student’s needs or say, “That’s someone else’s job.” Was Ms. Anderson perfect? To me? ABSOLUTELY! In actuality? No. She was a mother raising her own kids. She lived in a part of town that was unfamiliar to me and different than what I would have anticipated, but she was something better than perfect. She was the hands, feet, heart, and mouth of Jesus to me. Her hands skillfully guided mine as I practiced writing and spelling. Her feet carried me to her home, where I felt safe and cared for. Her heart was open towards me and filled with compassion. Her mouth spoke grace and truth, sternness and encouragement.
It wasn't until high school that my giftedness began to be fully realized. Even though my results returned gifted, I didn't receive the support I needed. Last year, I interviewed Sheila Wise Rowe about her book Young, Gifted, and Black: A Journey of Lament and Celebration. Her book is an enchiridion for understanding the complex journies of this often overlooked and unseen demographic. It is also a book of healing, speaking to the broken areas of us who feel both seen and unseen. Many young, gifted, and black individuals have a high capacity to achieve. However, their giftedness often makes them feel directionless because our broader culture still hasn't figured out how to care for young, gifted, and black individuals without isolating them or pushing them to fit into a "just-do-one-thing ideology" that doesn't work well for us.
Now I get the opportunity to put into practice the skills and lessons Ms. Anderson taught me. I am privileged to lead an organization serving students and their families, showing up in their lives at pivotal points to build transformative relationships. I started a podcast called My Black Book Journal to interview Black authors and creatives to better understand what the Black-American experience can teach us about life, love, and leadership. I also write regularly on this blog, helping people think about living with a Kingdom mindset by acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with their God. So much of what I do is rooted in the love of Ms. Anderson. It is me living out the reality of being who I had when I was younger.
Who are the people who helped to shape you that you have emulated in your adult years? How about you take some time and text them, write them a letter, or call them to say thank you?
Building A Village is a series of posts about the challenges and rewards of pursuing a better today and a brighter tomorrow. Each post will be filled with stories of my experience and my thoughts on how we can see transformation in life and community. To become a paid subscriber, please click the link below.
https://lausanne.org/content/lga/2020-03/transcendent-culture-servant-leadership Quoted in (M. Hackman and C. Johnson, Leadership: A Communication Perspective (Long Grove: Waveland Press, 2009), 73.)
Dungy, Tony, The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People and Teams That Win Consistently (Tyndale House, 2010, XV).