Anthony Sparks Black history, to me, means my Mississippi mother was right after all. She often told me that “Any room you walk into, assume you belong there.”Ironically, I’m not sure my mother– a domestic, sharecropper, and factory worker for much of her life– ever fully realized that feeling for herself.
However, she certainly believed that I, as a Black man raised in urban spaces, had a right to exist, matter, and thrive. She wanted me to know in that unshakeable place that I belonged in any room I entered.
I thank her for the gift of that feeling. It is one I seek to pass onto my own children.I’m also quite sure that Vice-President Kamala Harris’ parents raised her to believe that she belonged to any room that she entered.
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