INSPIRATIONS

I wouldn't have entered education without some inspiration. On this page I've put together some examples of what inspires me to teach. Admittingly, they are random, but they all serve as various artworks on my totum pole of life.

In 1918, Eugene Debs was jailed for ten years (he was commuted by President Harding in 1921) based on the Espinage Act for speaking out against American involvement in World War I. How many people do we know hold their breath and jump off a cliff into the unknown? Debs did, and was willing to go to prison for the right to speak freely. He's an inspiration of mine.

In 2008 I had the pleasure to briefly work for then-Senator Hillary Clinton during her run for the presidency. Throughout my career in politics I have generally worked for turning out the vote for Democrats, but rarely one particular candidate. I never believed in one enough to put all my eggs in that basket. The Clinton campaign changed all that for me.

Finally, Dr. Martin Luther King's speech on behalf of the Memphis Sanitation Workers the night before he was assassinated is source of inspiration to me because Dr. King knew the risks of taking a stand yet did so without hesitation over and over again for years. I have only included the last few minutes of the "To the Mountaintop" speech, but I highly recommend watching the entire fourteen minutes. Knowing that death awaited him (tragically the next day), King pressed on for the rights of the working people and for the civil rights of all.