June 3, 2026 • 17 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Ian Rowe grew up in a Jamaican immigrant family that believed deeply in education, hard work, and the promise of America. So when his Queens junior high school rapidly became all black after white families pulled their children out, his parents assumed the better opportunity lay elsewhere.
But twelve-year-old Ian disagreed, and refused to accept the idea that a school automatically became worse simply because the white students had left. For our series with Philanthropy Roundtable, Ian shares the story of his radical decision that shaped and transformed his life for the better.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people up next to story from our True Diversity series
sponsored by the Great Folks at the Philanthropy Roundtable, America's
leading advocate.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
For you to support the causes you believe in.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Today we meet a partner of their campaign, Ian Rowe,
founder of Vertex Partnership Academies. Let's get into the story.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Take it away, Ian, My parents are from Jamaica, West Indies.
They met in the mid nineteen sixties in England and
my mom took a liking to this guy, Vincent. My
mom's name is Yula, and he was working on a
(01:00):
sugar plantation. He was an accountant there. He's very smart,
and they started dating when they were both very young.
She was eighteen, he was just a couple of years older.
And you know, this was in Jamaica. So he used
to pick her up for their dates on horseback. So
(01:24):
they had these magical dates and they fell in love
with each other. And at the time, Jamaica was still
in English Commonwealth, and so my dad felt that he
had reached kind of the apex of what he could
learn in Jamaica, so he had an opportunity to go
to England to finish his schooling. So he went to
(01:45):
England and after being there a few months, he missed
his buds and so they called each other buds. And
at the time, the British government required that if you
wanted to marry a young woman under twenty one, you
had to write a letter to the young woman's parents
(02:07):
asking for her hand in marriage. And so my you know,
Vincent wrote the letter of a lifetime asking for her
hand in marriage. It was much consternation in the cid
Wright household because she was nineteen at the time where
she got to leave to go meet this man all
(02:29):
the way at England. And after much disservant her parents
decided yes. And so my mom, at nineteen years old
in the mid nineteen fifties, you know, a young black
woman took a boat all by herself about a five
thousand mile journey to England to meet up with my
(02:50):
dad and they got married. About a year later they
had my brother, and then seven years later they had me.
So both my brother and I were born inning in London,
and that's why we were born there.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
They ultimately came to the United States, my dad became
one of the early black engineers at IBM, and my
mom started working for Manufacturers Hanover, which some of your
listeners may not know, but.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It was a big bank at the time.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
It ultimately, Manufacturers Hanover better known as Manny Hannie became
Chemical Bank, which then became Chase, which is now JP
Morgan Chase.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So that's how our journey started.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
That's why I was born in London because it was
a dream and in some ways, for my mom, that
moment when her parents said yes to this huge decision,
I think, and I'll talk a little bit about my
own sort of coming of agency moment, I think that's
(03:51):
what she experienced, this moment where she felt she had
a lot of skin in the game. She played a
role in her own destiny, and she was advocating to
her parents to be able to go to England at
nineteen all by herself, something that wasn't done, but she
knew that it was right. And it's a lesson I
(04:13):
learned from my mom and my dad as well. Every
young person is going to face multiple moments in their
life when the future is unknown, where you're facing a
huge decision that you don't know the outcome, and yet
after you've mold the decision, after you've mold all the factors.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Then you commit. You commit.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
That's a part of agency that you take ownership of
decisions in such a way that you know you are
leading a self determined life. You're responsible for your behavior,
for your attitude. That's ultimately what agency is all about.
And I think my mom having that first big yes
(05:00):
many years ago, initiated a cascade of decisions that she
and then she and my dad made which essentially and
ultimately in order to the benefit of them as well
as their own family. My parents were married, so forty
eight years. When my parents first came to the United States,
(05:29):
it was nineteen sixty eight nine k sixty nine, obviously
a very tumultuous time in our nation's history, a lot
of racial tension, there were riots in the streets. But
they were very cognizant of what was going on in
the country. They were raised in a predominantly black country,
so the role of race was far diminished. I remember
(05:53):
my dad always used to say, you know what he
was in Jamaica, he was a man. He was a
man in Jamaica. I'm a man. It wasn't until the
goat the United States that he learned he was a
black man, and that had meaning to him because in Jamaica,
your skin color wasn't the first thing that defined you,
(06:15):
would define you as much more your actions, your attitude,
your ambition.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
But in the United States he felt that, based on these.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
External forces, you were a black man first, and he
fought against that, you know, only said.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well, that's crazy, you know.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Yet they also recognized that the country was changing, you know,
the Civil Rights at had just been signed, the voting
rights at signed, you know, opportunity was opening up. So
in some ways they weren't running from Jamaica. They were
running to the United States in search.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Of a better life.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And so they still they need, certainly this idea that
your effort and your character and what you did matters
far more than the singular characteristics.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
When we come back more of Ian Rose's story, our
True Diversity series with the Philanthropy Roundtable here on Our
American Stories lie Habib here again. Our American Stories tries
to tell the stories of America's past and present to Americans,
(07:36):
and we want to hear your stories too. There's some
of our favorites send them to us. Go to Ouramerican
Stories dot com and click the your stories tab. Again,
Please go to Auramericanstories dot com and click the your
stories tab. And we returned to our American Stories and
(08:12):
with Ian Rose story as a part of our True
Diversity series with Philanthropy Roundtable. When we last left off,
Ian was telling us about a pivotal moment in his
mother's life, that being when she decided to move to
England as a teenager to marry his father. Let's continue
with the story here again is Ian Row.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
No matter what chaos may have been happening in the world,
my parents were there. We first came to Brooklyn on
Wyona Street, and you know.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
We had a very humble home. We were in our
two family house.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And what was interesting about that time was my parents, frankly,
were not that happy with what they saw how young
black men were operating their lives. They thought they were
two loose and they were concerned, especially given the larger
(09:14):
context of.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
All the issues facing the nation.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And so in Brooklyn when we first got there, I
was kind of on lockdown. All of my education kindergarten
through twelfth grade was in public education, so Ky to
twelve public schools, but from kindergarten. You know, I went
to school in the morning, came home immediately, did my homework,
We had dinner as a family, went to bed, woke up,
(09:40):
went to school, came home directly, did my homework, had dinner,
went to bed early. And so my experience growing up
were very contained.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It was very contained.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
My parents placed a huge value on being together as
a family, placed the huge value on say, placed the
huge value on education.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I did love school. Well, let's put this way.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I both loved school and knew that I didn't have
any other option but to love school.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
You know, my parents, they placed a very high premium
on education.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
You know, they came to the United States during an
era of severe racial tension, and they knew that if
you were going to succeed in this country, the opportunities
were there, but you have to be prepared once those
opportunities come your way.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And so that was really my early life.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
My parents would do anything for us if they thought
it would mean a better life and capitalizing on what
they believed in America had to offer. And so in
nineteen seventy three, after we had been in Brooklyn for
few years, my parents moved on up that if you
(11:06):
remember the Jefferson's comedy to Come, we moved on to Queens.
We moved to a small town, Laurelton, Queens, into a
community that had been predominantly white Italian Jewish, but was
slowly becoming more racially integrated as more black people in
particular were moving into Laurelton. And unfortunately, that slow integration
(11:30):
led to a lot of racial tension in Laurelton and
my junior high school, Junior High School two thirty one
had become the epicenter, and the school board decided to
solve this problem by saying, you know what, we're basically
just going to putt We're going to create a new
(11:51):
school an annex in Rosedale, Queens, which was another town
a few miles over, in a more permanently predominantly white
part of town. And essentially what happened was all of
the white parents that were going to my Junior High
School two thirty one in Laurelton decided to take their
(12:14):
kids out and send their kids to this annex Junior
High School in Rosedale, Leading Junior High School two thirty
one as a segregated virtually all black school and my
parents on the assumption that where the white kids go,
that's where the better education will be.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
You know, that's what my Jamaican parents would come to
this country in search of the American dream. That's what
they presumed.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
And so therefore they said to me they were going
to take me out of two thirty one and send
me to this other school. And I'll always remember Sunday night,
before were the transfer papers were supposed to be submitted,
(13:04):
I begged my parents. You know, my parents would crawl
through broken glass for me and my brother. You know,
they felt they would be good by us. And so
there are a lot of things that they decided that
I may not have understood in the moment. But if
I gave my parents the supreme benefit of the doubt
in every decision, but something about this decision didn't feel right.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
I loved my school, I loved my teachers.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
And even this very idea just because now all the
white kids are gone, somehow it has to be worse.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Why why? Why?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Just because now that everyone's black, that just inherently means
that it's bad. And so something welled up in me,
particularly that Sunday night, that never had welld up before,
and I begged my parents. I cried, I faded, Please
let me stay. Please let me stay. You know, I'll
work hard, I'll I'll do more chores, whatever it is,
(14:00):
I'll do it. I commit, you know, I will, I'll
work really art. Please let me stay. And ultimately my
parents relented. You know, I look back now and I
wonder if in that moment, you know, because my dad
was in his regular recliner in the living room and
my mom was on the couch in the same positions
(14:23):
that we always had big conversations as the family. But
I always wonder, in that moment, even for my mom,
did she think back to the moment when she was
in Jamaica as a nineteen year old girl with this
letter in the hands of her parents, making this huge decision,
(14:45):
and she's asking them to go. I want to go.
If it'll be it'll work out. I love him, I'm
ready to go, and they said yes. I always wonder
if that experience parallels to when I was begging for
the opportunity now at twelve years old, to stay in
my junior high school.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
And you know, I like to think yes.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I like to think yes because I feel like that
was her first coming of agency moment where she felt
she knew that she could play a role in her
own destiny. And I felt, at twelve years old, after
my parents said yes, that I had skin in the
game now in a way that I never had before.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I wouldn't have said it then, but I certainly feel
it now.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
That was the first moment that I experienced agency, that
I was a force in my own future, that I
had the ability to shape my destiny. And really that
was a turning point in my life. And I'm convinced
that every big decision I've made going forward, particularly as
(15:51):
it relates to anything related to my leadership in schools,
is asking the basic question, why should it matter what
the demographic makeup is of a particular institution?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Who cared?
Speaker 3 (16:04):
What matters is the expectation or asking young people to do?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
What is the metric for excellent? Are we holding everyone
to high standards? That's what matters. And I'm convinced that
the reason I.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Run schools today is connected back to that moment when
I beg my parents saying, who cares that all the
white kids are gone?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I mean, I had friends who were white, and so it.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Wasn't so much that it was this presumption that just
being all black meant.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
It had to be less than.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
And I never want anyone anyways, any background, to feel
just because they're kids of a certain background in their
school or.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Institution, somehow it is less than. So that's part of
my story back then that I think has a huge
impact on me today.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
And a terrific job on the editing, production and storytelling
by our own Monta Montgomery, and a special thanks to
Ian Rowe, founder of Vertex Partnership Academies, and also a
special thanks to our sponsor at.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
The Philanthropy Roundtable.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Their True Diversity Initiative encourages Americans to embrace all the
qualities that make us unique individuals, because there's so much
more to each of our stories than what's defined by
a group, identity or other superficial traits. And my goodness,
what a story he told about the segregation of the schools,
even in Queens, white parents pulling out and his parents
(17:38):
wanting him to follow those white kids, and him having
his coming of agency moment where he said no. A
terrific story about so many things, including taking control of
your own life. Here on our American stories,
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people up next to story from our True Diversity series
sponsored by the Great Folks at the Philanthropy Roundtable, America's
leading advocate.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
For you to support the causes you believe in.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Today we meet a partner of their campaign, Ian Rowe,
founder of Vertex Partnership Academies. Let's get into the story.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Take it away, Ian, My parents are from Jamaica, West Indies.
They met in the mid nineteen sixties in England and
my mom took a liking to this guy, Vincent. My
mom's name is Yula, and he was working on a
(01:00):
sugar plantation. He was an accountant there. He's very smart,
and they started dating when they were both very young.
She was eighteen, he was just a couple of years older.
And you know, this was in Jamaica. So he used
to pick her up for their dates on horseback. So
(01:24):
they had these magical dates and they fell in love
with each other. And at the time, Jamaica was still
in English Commonwealth, and so my dad felt that he
had reached kind of the apex of what he could
learn in Jamaica, so he had an opportunity to go
to England to finish his schooling. So he went to
(01:45):
England and after being there a few months, he missed
his buds and so they called each other buds. And
at the time, the British government required that if you
wanted to marry a young woman under twenty one, you
had to write a letter to the young woman's parents
(02:07):
asking for her hand in marriage. And so my you know,
Vincent wrote the letter of a lifetime asking for her
hand in marriage. It was much consternation in the cid
Wright household because she was nineteen at the time where
she got to leave to go meet this man all
(02:29):
the way at England. And after much disservant her parents
decided yes. And so my mom, at nineteen years old
in the mid nineteen fifties, you know, a young black
woman took a boat all by herself about a five
thousand mile journey to England to meet up with my
(02:50):
dad and they got married. About a year later they
had my brother, and then seven years later they had me.
So both my brother and I were born inning in London,
and that's why we were born there.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
They ultimately came to the United States, my dad became
one of the early black engineers at IBM, and my
mom started working for Manufacturers Hanover, which some of your
listeners may not know, but.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It was a big bank at the time.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
It ultimately, Manufacturers Hanover better known as Manny Hannie became
Chemical Bank, which then became Chase, which is now JP
Morgan Chase.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So that's how our journey started.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
That's why I was born in London because it was
a dream and in some ways, for my mom, that
moment when her parents said yes to this huge decision,
I think, and I'll talk a little bit about my
own sort of coming of agency moment, I think that's
(03:51):
what she experienced, this moment where she felt she had
a lot of skin in the game. She played a
role in her own destiny, and she was advocating to
her parents to be able to go to England at
nineteen all by herself, something that wasn't done, but she
knew that it was right. And it's a lesson I
(04:13):
learned from my mom and my dad as well. Every
young person is going to face multiple moments in their
life when the future is unknown, where you're facing a
huge decision that you don't know the outcome, and yet
after you've mold the decision, after you've mold all the factors.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Then you commit. You commit.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
That's a part of agency that you take ownership of
decisions in such a way that you know you are
leading a self determined life. You're responsible for your behavior,
for your attitude. That's ultimately what agency is all about.
And I think my mom having that first big yes
(05:00):
many years ago, initiated a cascade of decisions that she
and then she and my dad made which essentially and
ultimately in order to the benefit of them as well
as their own family. My parents were married, so forty
eight years. When my parents first came to the United States,
(05:29):
it was nineteen sixty eight nine k sixty nine, obviously
a very tumultuous time in our nation's history, a lot
of racial tension, there were riots in the streets. But
they were very cognizant of what was going on in
the country. They were raised in a predominantly black country,
so the role of race was far diminished. I remember
(05:53):
my dad always used to say, you know what he
was in Jamaica, he was a man. He was a
man in Jamaica. I'm a man. It wasn't until the
goat the United States that he learned he was a
black man, and that had meaning to him because in Jamaica,
your skin color wasn't the first thing that defined you,
(06:15):
would define you as much more your actions, your attitude,
your ambition.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
But in the United States he felt that, based on these.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
External forces, you were a black man first, and he
fought against that, you know, only said.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well, that's crazy, you know.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Yet they also recognized that the country was changing, you know,
the Civil Rights at had just been signed, the voting
rights at signed, you know, opportunity was opening up. So
in some ways they weren't running from Jamaica. They were
running to the United States in search.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Of a better life.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And so they still they need, certainly this idea that
your effort and your character and what you did matters
far more than the singular characteristics.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
When we come back more of Ian Rose's story, our
True Diversity series with the Philanthropy Roundtable here on Our
American Stories lie Habib here again. Our American Stories tries
to tell the stories of America's past and present to Americans,
(07:36):
and we want to hear your stories too. There's some
of our favorites send them to us. Go to Ouramerican
Stories dot com and click the your stories tab. Again,
Please go to Auramericanstories dot com and click the your
stories tab. And we returned to our American Stories and
(08:12):
with Ian Rose story as a part of our True
Diversity series with Philanthropy Roundtable. When we last left off,
Ian was telling us about a pivotal moment in his
mother's life, that being when she decided to move to
England as a teenager to marry his father. Let's continue
with the story here again is Ian Row.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
No matter what chaos may have been happening in the world,
my parents were there. We first came to Brooklyn on
Wyona Street, and you know.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
We had a very humble home. We were in our
two family house.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And what was interesting about that time was my parents, frankly,
were not that happy with what they saw how young
black men were operating their lives. They thought they were
two loose and they were concerned, especially given the larger
(09:14):
context of.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
All the issues facing the nation.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And so in Brooklyn when we first got there, I
was kind of on lockdown. All of my education kindergarten
through twelfth grade was in public education, so Ky to
twelve public schools, but from kindergarten. You know, I went
to school in the morning, came home immediately, did my homework,
We had dinner as a family, went to bed, woke up,
(09:40):
went to school, came home directly, did my homework, had dinner,
went to bed early. And so my experience growing up
were very contained.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It was very contained.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
My parents placed a huge value on being together as
a family, placed the huge value on say, placed the
huge value on education.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I did love school. Well, let's put this way.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I both loved school and knew that I didn't have
any other option but to love school.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
You know, my parents, they placed a very high premium
on education.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
You know, they came to the United States during an
era of severe racial tension, and they knew that if
you were going to succeed in this country, the opportunities
were there, but you have to be prepared once those
opportunities come your way.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And so that was really my early life.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
My parents would do anything for us if they thought
it would mean a better life and capitalizing on what
they believed in America had to offer. And so in
nineteen seventy three, after we had been in Brooklyn for
few years, my parents moved on up that if you
(11:06):
remember the Jefferson's comedy to Come, we moved on to Queens.
We moved to a small town, Laurelton, Queens, into a
community that had been predominantly white Italian Jewish, but was
slowly becoming more racially integrated as more black people in
particular were moving into Laurelton. And unfortunately, that slow integration
(11:30):
led to a lot of racial tension in Laurelton and
my junior high school, Junior High School two thirty one
had become the epicenter, and the school board decided to
solve this problem by saying, you know what, we're basically
just going to putt We're going to create a new
(11:51):
school an annex in Rosedale, Queens, which was another town
a few miles over, in a more permanently predominantly white
part of town. And essentially what happened was all of
the white parents that were going to my Junior High
School two thirty one in Laurelton decided to take their
(12:14):
kids out and send their kids to this annex Junior
High School in Rosedale, Leading Junior High School two thirty
one as a segregated virtually all black school and my
parents on the assumption that where the white kids go,
that's where the better education will be.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
You know, that's what my Jamaican parents would come to
this country in search of the American dream. That's what
they presumed.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
And so therefore they said to me they were going
to take me out of two thirty one and send
me to this other school. And I'll always remember Sunday night,
before were the transfer papers were supposed to be submitted,
(13:04):
I begged my parents. You know, my parents would crawl
through broken glass for me and my brother. You know,
they felt they would be good by us. And so
there are a lot of things that they decided that
I may not have understood in the moment. But if
I gave my parents the supreme benefit of the doubt
in every decision, but something about this decision didn't feel right.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
I loved my school, I loved my teachers.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
And even this very idea just because now all the
white kids are gone, somehow it has to be worse.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Why why? Why?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Just because now that everyone's black, that just inherently means
that it's bad. And so something welled up in me,
particularly that Sunday night, that never had welld up before,
and I begged my parents. I cried, I faded, Please
let me stay. Please let me stay. You know, I'll
work hard, I'll I'll do more chores, whatever it is,
(14:00):
I'll do it. I commit, you know, I will, I'll
work really art. Please let me stay. And ultimately my
parents relented. You know, I look back now and I
wonder if in that moment, you know, because my dad
was in his regular recliner in the living room and
my mom was on the couch in the same positions
(14:23):
that we always had big conversations as the family. But
I always wonder, in that moment, even for my mom,
did she think back to the moment when she was
in Jamaica as a nineteen year old girl with this
letter in the hands of her parents, making this huge decision,
(14:45):
and she's asking them to go. I want to go.
If it'll be it'll work out. I love him, I'm
ready to go, and they said yes. I always wonder
if that experience parallels to when I was begging for
the opportunity now at twelve years old, to stay in
my junior high school.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
And you know, I like to think yes.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I like to think yes because I feel like that
was her first coming of agency moment where she felt
she knew that she could play a role in her
own destiny. And I felt, at twelve years old, after
my parents said yes, that I had skin in the
game now in a way that I never had before.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I wouldn't have said it then, but I certainly feel
it now.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
That was the first moment that I experienced agency, that
I was a force in my own future, that I
had the ability to shape my destiny. And really that
was a turning point in my life. And I'm convinced
that every big decision I've made going forward, particularly as
(15:51):
it relates to anything related to my leadership in schools,
is asking the basic question, why should it matter what
the demographic makeup is of a particular institution?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Who cared?
Speaker 3 (16:04):
What matters is the expectation or asking young people to do?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
What is the metric for excellent? Are we holding everyone
to high standards? That's what matters. And I'm convinced that
the reason I.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Run schools today is connected back to that moment when
I beg my parents saying, who cares that all the
white kids are gone?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I mean, I had friends who were white, and so it.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Wasn't so much that it was this presumption that just
being all black meant.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
It had to be less than.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
And I never want anyone anyways, any background, to feel
just because they're kids of a certain background in their
school or.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Institution, somehow it is less than. So that's part of
my story back then that I think has a huge
impact on me today.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
And a terrific job on the editing, production and storytelling
by our own Monta Montgomery, and a special thanks to
Ian Rowe, founder of Vertex Partnership Academies, and also a
special thanks to our sponsor at.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
The Philanthropy Roundtable.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Their True Diversity Initiative encourages Americans to embrace all the
qualities that make us unique individuals, because there's so much
more to each of our stories than what's defined by
a group, identity or other superficial traits. And my goodness,
what a story he told about the segregation of the schools,
even in Queens, white parents pulling out and his parents
(17:38):
wanting him to follow those white kids, and him having
his coming of agency moment where he said no. A
terrific story about so many things, including taking control of
your own life. Here on our American stories,
Host
Lee Habeeb
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