If you’ve heard me talk about the genesis of the #1619project then you know I first came across the date 1619 in a one-semester high school Black studies class. That teacher, Mr. Ray Dial, sent me my class project from nearly 30 years ago and it blew my mind in so many ways.

One, I have to shout out educators in general, and Black educators in particular, because he kept this for all of these years. Think of all the students he’s had, all the lives he’s touched, and he still had the work of a nerdy sophomore whose world he had changed.

But reading the different pieces of the final project, I was just amazed at how what I learned in that class, the arguments I was beginning to formulate, the reading I was starting to do, the connections I was just beginning to make, wld be echoed all throughout the #1619Project

I wrote a call for African-American studies to be taught K-12 and on the very next page, I had an article by Lerone Bennett that begins with the White Lion in 1619. And now we have an entire curriculum built around the year 1619 as foundational to the American story. Just damn

This, more than anything, speaks to the power of education when we aren’t afraid to teach children the truth, when we invest in them, when we create curricula that reflects and empowers them, and also, the power of workspaces that actually allow people the space to be themselves.

Mr. Dial always referred to his students as Dr. I can still hear his voice in my head when he called on me in class: Dr. Hannah. He was the only Black male teacher I ever had and one of a handful of Black teachers in my high school and his presence meant everything to me.

This is the man who gave me Cheikh Anta Diop’s African Origins of Civilization to read as a 10th grader! Learning Black history saved my life and transformed my future.