I attended the Teachers in the Movement Institute at the University of Virginia in Summer 2019 to learn more about ways to connect historical content to both the community and the lived experiences of students.

Place, space, and memory. Those are the words that stayed in my mind during my Teachers in the Movement Institute experience. As a diversity practitioner, I recognize how these concepts impact my work.

As a child, many of my fondest memories are connected to water. I have cheeky pictures that my family always seem to pull out of nowhere, that show me smiling in the bathtub with my beloved toy of choice.

In June 2019, I was honored to participate in a summer institute that examined the role that teachers played inside and outside of the Civil Rights Movement.

In just the past several weeks, school systems across the United States have, at last, taken the steps to elevate critical lessons from African-American history for our nation’s students.

In the past couple decades, Maggie Walker has made a name for itself as one of the best college preparatory programs in the country. From there, I would go on to the University of Virginia with approximately thirty of my 174 classmates.

In the days leading up to August 11 and 12, 2017, when white nationalists and white supremacists converged on Charlottesville, Virginia for the Unite the Right Rally, I was interviewing former civil rights era teachers in my hometown.

I am far (very far) from being a parent, but I can imagine that parents frequently grapple with how much exposure their children should have to emotionally intensive stories and events.