One morning, I woke up to “go home ni**er” written on the bathroom mirror. The next morning someone spread cotton balls across the lawn and entrance of the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center. Later that day, a professor asked students what city and high school we came from. When I said I had graduated from Saint Louis Public Schools, he paused and said, “Wow, we should all give you a round of applause – you must be the best of the worst.”
These incidents motivated me to start iGUIDE, an organization dedicated to increasing the retention and graduation rate of first-generation college students from inner cities. Read more here.