A Lesson On Youth Leadership and Collective Courage

Today, I’m shining a light on my father’s journey as a young leader.

In the late 1960s, while still in middle school, he served in a New Orleans chapter of the NAACP Youth Council. Around 1968, the council launched an initiative focused on summer employment for Black students. The goal was simple and radical for its time: challenge discriminatory hiring practices head-on.

They applied for jobs at businesses that only hired white applicants. Managers assumed my father was white, so he was hired. That hiring decision created a paper trail. It allowed legal action to be taken against businesses that refused to hire the other Black students, opening access to jobs and income for families who needed it most.

My father’s courage, and the courage of so many young people like him, continues to inspire me. Their lives remind us that the fight for equality is collective work. Progress happens because people show up together.

I honor them today, and all those who paved the way.

If you’d like to learn more about my family’s history of activism, the oldest continuously active NAACP chapter in the South, and leadership lessons rooted in social justice, join me at my Level Up Leadership Lab: New Orleans Leadership Retreat.