The moment that stayed with me
There are moments that stay with you.
For me, one of those moments happened during a university trip to Detroit. We visited a museum, and for the first time, I saw exhibits that didn't just talk about Black history. They showed it.
The ships.
The conditions.
The reality.
It wasn't abstract anymore.
It was real.
And it stayed with me.
But what stayed with me most wasn't just the pain. It was the presence.
I remember seeing a chessboard.
The pieces were Black figures. Regal. Detailed. Powerful.
Not distorted.
Not erased.
Not reduced.
Just present.
I remember standing there thinking:
I've never seen this before.
Why haven't I seen this before?
At the time, I was a student. It wasn't something I could afford, and life moved on.
But that moment didn't.
It stayed with me, quietly, in the background.
There's something powerful about seeing yourself represented. Not as an afterthought, but as the standard.
As the king.
As the queen.
Tall. Strong. Regal.
That kind of representation doesn't just sit on a shelf.
It does something to you.
It makes you think.
It makes you question.
It makes you curious.
“You don’t know where you’re going unless you know where you come from.”
Because once you see it, the next question becomes:
Who were these people?
Where do we come from?
What is our lineage?
What stories haven't we been told?
At the time, I didn't fully understand how much that moment would shape me.
I just knew it mattered.
Years later, I found myself chasing that same feeling again.
Not for me this time.
But for my children.
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