Reach - Then Teach

[2-11-2024] Good morning, good people. Let me show you something ... I am a missionary on a journey to powerful purpose ... with a charge to help others get there, too. That pathway is paved with ministry, entrepreneurship, stewardship, litercy, numeracy, language, self-expression, self-identity, and analysis / synthesis. This journey has given birth to a dream ... that I will use #StandupStorytel...

Dear Hannah - In January 2024, your school (Dunleith Elementary School) won our school district's Reading Bowl for perhaps the first time ever. That's a great story ... but it is part of a bigger story ... one that I do not know how to tell completely. So, I will tell you what I can. Let me show you something ...

Dear Hannah, My name is Derrick. My name means "leader of my people". I am the brother from another planet. My ways are strange - even to strange people. I know why the caged bird sings. And still I rise. I like to gather "my people" for small-group fellowship that facilitates hope, healing, and change. Nothing gathers and connects us like playing games. Nothing divides and alienates us like playi...

In June 2023, The Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) published my oral history ( https://bit.ly/CHMOH_DB_YT ) for my contributions to the computing world as an Internet strategist for The Universal Black Pages (an Internet directory of African-related content), and as the founding director of KnowledgeBase’s Project CHIP (which refurbished and redistributed 1500+ computers to Georgia fami...

In June 2023, The Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) published my oral history ( https://bit.ly/CHMOH_DB_YT ) for my contributions to the computing world as an Internet strategist for The Universal Black Pages (an Internet directory of African-related content), and as the founding director of KnowledgeBase’s Project CHIP (which refurbished and redistributed 1500+ computers to Georgia fami...

In June 2023, The Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) published my oral history ( https://bit.ly/CHMOH_DB_YT ) for my contributions to the computing world as an Internet strategist for The Universal Black Pages (an Internet directory of African-related content), and as the founding director of KnowledgeBase’s Project CHIP (which refurbished and redistributed 1500+ computers to Georgia fami...

In June 2023, The Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) published my oral history ( https://bit.ly/CHMOH_DB_YT ) for my contributions to the computing world as an Internet strategist for The Universal Black Pages (an Internet directory of African-related content), and as the founding director of KnowledgeBase’s Project CHIP (which refurbished and redistributed 1500+ computers to Georgia fami...

In June 2023, The Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA) published my oral history ( https://bit.ly/CHMOH_DB_YT ) for my contributions to the computing world as an Internet strategist for The Universal Black Pages (an Internet directory of African-related content), and as the founding director of KnowledgeBase’s Project CHIP (which refurbished and redistributed 1500+ computers to Georgia fami...

Today, I will share a story that articulates a concrete strategy to create sustainable change through *persistent* efforts to connect (with like-minded people), collect (information), protect (spirit, energy, and identity), and project (collaborate in consistent, meaningful ways).

On 2-4-2021, I hosted and moderated a conversation. The participants in this conversation were all connected to the history and legacy of the Lemon Street Schools. The Lemon Street Schools were segregated schools for Cobb County Blacks. When integration closed the schools and absorbed them into the Marietta City School district, a lot of people were hurt. A lot of their legacy was suppressed, igno...

Harriet Tubman conducted 13 rescue missions on the Underground Railroad over a 10-year period. Those long journeys to freedom resulted in lots of hungry people. Tubman was a professional cook - which provided her mission's startup capital, and creativity under pressure. She once stopped at a market to buy 2 chickens, and almost came face-to-face with a former overseer ... so she dropped one of the...

[1-16-2017] Being part of a church has helped me to grow - both in my walk with God, and in my understanding of life and people. Church helped me to wake up, grow up, speak up, and wise up. The experience has not always been "pretty" - but has taught me key lessons ... Your gifts can become weapons (against you and others) without the BALANCE of healing and accepting, affirming, accountable, autho...

[3-3-2017] A long time ago (1997) in Petersburg, VA (where my wife Keisha was born and raised), Tim and Daphne Maxwell Reid launched New Millennium Studios - a 15,000-square-foot full-service movie production studio on 60 acres of land ... land with a rich Civil War history. It was the only full-service movie production studio in the state of Virginia. Tim Reid (a native of Norfolk, VA) may be bes...

[2-26-2017] Charles Darrow lost his job as a heater salesman at the beginning of The Great Depression in 1929. He then created, patented, copyrighted, and licensed Monopoly between 1933 and 1935 - but Monopoly was based on versions of real estate trading games whose patents date back to 1904. Why did Darrow's version flourish - making him the first millionaire game designer? Well, two lessons come...

[3-5-2017] A long time ago, a movie called "The Matrix" captured our attention. The movie conveyed that reality was not "real" - but simulated and imagined. It made lots of "real" money, though. A few years after, author Sophia Stewart sued the key players behind "The Matrix" for copyright infringement. She also sued the key players behind "The Terminator". She alleged that both movies were based...

[3-17-2017] American history has not been kind to Paul Robeson. Robeson was a complex individual. Even complex individuals can be erased - one dimension at a time. As an actor and singer, he was erased - even as one of the most powerful and popular performers in the world. As a football player, he was erased - even as a Rutgers University All-American. As a civil rights activist, he was erased ("b...

[2-4-2018] I was able to attend Brother Darryl Robinson's homegoing yesterday. I drove down with Willie Frasier. We met during the 1985 Clemson Career Workshop, too, and have been friends ever since. He shared some great memories of "Cheese" during our ride. He was Cheese's roommate for a while. I never knew, but was not surprised ... not in the least. Yesterday was amazing in more ways than I can...

[1-28-2018] I met Darryl "Cheese" Robinson when I was 15 years old. He was my hall counselor during the Clemson Career Workshop in 1985. He may have been the head counselor - then again, maybe not. But if he wasn't - it sure seemed like he was. His room door was always open, and he was always in there speaking into someone. Older students. Younger students. It did not matter - he was dropping know...

I am a "Standup Storyteller". I am comfortable standing up and speaking my truth. Here's today's truth - I have blind spots. Help me to see them today by listening. I have a special set of skills ... acquired over a long career ... that make me attractive as a workhorse problem solving employee ... but not necessarily as a leader. Let me say that this lack of validation follows a pattern in my lif...

I don't know a lot about the Tuskegee Airmen. Don't know a lot of details, but now here's what I do know. I know that they were a group of courageous men of color ... who sought to break barriers in a profession ... that constructed a lot of them ... to make sure that pilots were of a certain hue, if you understand what I'm saying. And to overcome those barriers, they had to defeat barriers about...

Once upon a time, the President gave a group of African-American community leaders a seat at the table. The leaders brought their own menu. It took a long time to make the meeting a reality - lots of letters & telegrams, and several more civil rights crises (like the desegregation of Little Rock, AR schools) for 29-year-old Southern Christian Leadership Conference leader Martin Luther King, Jr...

(Marietta, GA) Lemon Street High School's Mr. Lewis Clyde Scott taught many students ... several of whom became teachers. He has transferred his wealth (his knowledge) in ways that have personally inspired me ... without my ever having met him. I have met many of his students. Their lives and stories have told me the kind of teacher and influence he is. On 2-10-2022, I presented some of them to th...

The "SeeSayShow" is a short "class monologue" that shares stories powered by "real-world" LEarning. I teach my classes in a building that used to be an annex to the former segregated high school for Cobb County Blacks. Today's episode shares a story about the first Black city councilman in our city (a graduate of the segregated high school), and how a lawsuit helped to facilitate his election. I a...

Dear Hannah - Truth without grace is mean. Grace without truth is meaningless. Purpose describes what we want & need to do. Ambition describes who & what we want to be. Purpose is more important than ambition. However, humans are imperfect, conflicting blends of purpose and ambition. Who & what we think we are - and who & what we want to be - sometimes hinders what we want & ne...

MLK's letter writing practice was strategic. It probably helped him remember who he was meeting, who they were, and what their encounters and meetings produced. These letters were probably his KnowledgeBase, and helped him to make moves.