“Don’t get me wrong, people. I don’t want to mislead you into believing that the tables were always set for me. I clearly remember the morning when I walked to the other side of town to join the Boy Scouts and was told that I couldn’t register because Smokey the Bear wasn’t about to disgrace himself by shaking a Black boy’s hand, but I kept my dreams alive. I can still see the long, saddened face of a fifth grade teacher who told me that I couldn’t enter the city’s Science Fair Project because I didn’t have the substance to compete with my White brothers and sisters, but I kept my dreams alive. I can still hear the laughs and cackles of my high school counselors when I expressed an interest to enter the University of Alabama on a scholarship level, but I kept my dreams alive. And when I graduated from the University of Alabama—”