Small Talk

'It’s really important that we honor and have pride in our history but also that we allow allies to join us and show their humanity.'

Dawn Porter (via the Internet), filmmaker, screening of her documentary Spies of Mississippi about the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, February 20 Tweet This

'You don’t read a poem. It reads you.'

Frank Bidart, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Longwood Authors Series, February 2019 Tweet This

'Race is a biological nothing. It’s a social construct. But it’s a sociological everything in this country.'

Lawrence Ross, author of Blackballed: The Black & White of Race on America’s Campuses, campus lecture, February 2019 Tweet This

'By honing our mountaintop imaginations, we can begin to see and think independently and to teach our children to be independent thinkers as well.'

Sydney Trent, social issues editor at the Washington Post, Martin Luther King Jr. Week keynote address, January 2019 Tweet This

'I was inspired by my 11th-grade math analysis teacher. It wasn’t bells and whistles. She did her job well, I respected it and I worked hard.'

Brandon Taylor ’07, instructor of mathematics at the Roanoke Valley Governor’s School for Science and Technology, November 2018 Tweet This

'We have to have faith in ourselves to have the ability to change things for the better, even if it’s just one person at a time.'

 

Ellen Oh, author of the Prophecy and Spirit Hunters books, Summer Literacy Institute, July 2018 Tweet This