I felt bad because my grandparents graduated from Bishop in 1930. And so they had degrees and I just felt bad, you know? I said, there's no way I shouldn't have my college degree. So I went back in 92 and completed it. So I got my bachelor's degree in history, and then I had the opportunity to be a fellow to study in The Gambia and also in Ghana, two different study abroad trips during my Master's program.

And it's very interesting because, as an African American, I don't think I ever connected the dots. I was so fixed on the plight of the African American, I never looked at slavery from the African perspective. What did their community look - what would our community look like today if somebody came in and took all of the able-bodied men and all the strong women and just left the grandparents and small kids to survive in a community. What would our communities look like? And so it's an interesting dynamic to then change your focus from just you, you, you to like there were bigger impacts as well. So that was one of the things that came out of my trip. It changed a lot of my perspective about being an African American and what that really means.

You know, and there are people that say, I don't call myself African American because I've never been to Africa. And I'm like, I get that. But African is the adjective, American is the noun. So we're all Americans, but we are influenced by, you know, where we came from.

When I was in Africa the first time this lady was making hot water cornbread and some vegetables. And I'm going like, that's how my grandmother makes hot water cornbread. It's those things that you see every day, but you don't know that that came from Africa. You don't know the connections until you actually go there. And then you start saying, okay, now I get it.