intro

dr. freeman hrabowski spoke to me today. he told me to tell stories.

tell 'em like you were from the deep south, like you marched with dr. king, like your momma was a house slave who quoted zora neal hurston even after her dementia kicked in. tell stories because people don't listen to theories. and don't try and choke back your tears while i'm up here speaking. are you touched by how i'm talkin'? or are you just bursting at the seams because you're sittin' in the far back row, watchin' yo' dreams and you just don't know how you'll get there?

an excerpt from a journal entry i wrote back on july thirteenth. i unexpectedly had the opportunity to hear dr. freeman hrabowski speak at a summit on education reform. you might as well say i had the opportunity to look into my future. i sat in the very last row, in the seat closest to the exit, and i was waiting for an intermission of some sorts so that i could slip out unnoticed, until dr. hrabowski walked onto the stage, that is, and yelled (yes, yelled) into the microphone "now, i can tell by y'alls faces that y'all weren't expecting a black man to walk on stage after that intro now were you?!"

all of a sudden i had some time.

i couldn't tell you exactly what he said about education reform, and i couldn't recount his beliefs about the "achievement gap" and how or even if he wanted to close it, fill it, or build a bridge over it. what i did remember was everything he said about his childhood in the deep south and the stories he told about his students back in baltimore. i didn't just remember what he said, but i remember how he said it, and most importantly, i remembered how it made me feel. maya angelou taught me that that's the key measure of a powerful interaction - if you remember how it made you feel. he made me wish that i was born in alabama, that i knew dr. king well enough to call him martin, that i had the thickest southern drawl this side of the miss'ippi, that my surname was so seemingly contradictory to the color of my skin that every introduction would be a chance to make a grand entrance. above all else, he made me want to do what he was doing up at that podium - making some unsuspecting soul sitting in the back row stop watching the clock and stressing about getting to her second job on time simply because she was captivated by the way he spoke and the stories he was telling. he made me want to say things that made people remember how to feel.