From “Dropout to Doctorate: Breaking the Chains of Educational Injustice” By Terrence Lester, PhD
These challenges were not unique to Atlanta. Similar community challenges were evident in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, and other cities where pervasive poverty and limited upward economic mobility create structural roadblocks to social, personal, and educational pursuits. This was especially true for those of us who aspired to break free but lacked the necessary support and connections. As a child, grappling with these complex realities that were largely out of my control was overwhelming. Hearing adults discuss scarce resources, under-funded schools, overcrowded classrooms, and low college attendance rates among Black people made it difficult to dream of a future beyond my immediate surroundings. In many ways, it felt like what my friends and I would call “the trap.”
Every day, as my mom drove us to school, I couldn’t help but notice how our family wasn’t together. I was always acutely aware of our family separation and struggle. Witnessing my mother juggle multiple jobs caused me to be aware of how hard she was working to keep up with everything and how that meant that she would have to devote a lot of her time to work. This, coupled with the social climate, made me realize my own racial identity at a very young age – and made me realize that to be Black meant that you had to journey through a different set of social rules, which often meant that you were doing all you could to survive while navigating a world that viewed you as a social threat.
It was hard to understand the world that I was inheriting and what that meant for me in every social environment I was exposed to, whether it was the community, school, church (the times I went with my mother), or other environments. I began to understand, though, that the environment around me seemed set in place to stifle dreams, bar the pathway to academic achievement, and make it harder for a child to have any aspirations beyond surroundings that contained these types of social conditions. This impacted and affected my self-esteem and confidence, making it challenging to envision a future where I could succeed or be anything more than what I saw in my environment. Emotionally, I felt a sense of hopelessness and frustration in my understanding of the world at such a young age.