A couple years went by. The kids were growing older, smarter, and boastful. “We can’t be beat, Mr. Fleming,” Isaac said. “We too sick wit it,” Keanen agreed. I told them to calm down because they had competed only twice and had some growing to do. But that’s not what they wanted to hear. Concerned that going undefeated would make them less teachable, I decided to orchestrate a lesson in humility.
“I tell you what,” I said. “Since y’all think you’re invincible, the next tournament we enter will be a high school tournament.” They looked at each other and laughed as if there was not a trace of fear in their hearts. “They gon’ get this work, too,” Keanen said as they giggled and dapped each other. “Okay,” I said, “we’ll see.”
I was ready to teach my kids a lesson. But I ran into a problem. I called the National Speech & Debate Association headquarters and learned that middle schoolers are not allowed in high school tournaments. The competition was only a couple weeks away and my students had already started to prepare. We’d put in weeks of practice and I did not want to confess that we had wasted our time. I called the headquarters again, hoping to get someone else. But the same representative answered the phone and reinforced the bad news.
That’s when I had an idea. Teams register for tournaments using their school name. They sign up, pay the fee, and show up to the competition. The only way we would get flagged is if the school name indicated that we were not a high school. But our school was Ron Clark Academy, plain and simple. So I went to the national debate league website and clicked on the tournament. I completed the online registration form, entered our payment information, pressed submit, and crossed my fingers. The registration went through. I refreshed the browser and looked up the roster for the high school tournament. I scrolled through the hundreds of school names and there we were, Ron Clark Academy. I clicked on it and the names of all our debaters were listed. Middle school or not, we were off to the statewide varsity tournament.
My students got on my nerves during our ride to Johns Creek, Georgia. When I was an athlete, I always put on headphones, sat still, and meditated before a big game. It was considered bad luck to joke around and be unfocused. It gave the impression of overconfidence and underestimating the opponent. As I drove my Honda with the kids in the back seat, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Isaac, Keanen, and Logan tickling each other and playing games on their phones.
“Y’all need to stop playing and review those cases,” I said.
“We’re good, Mr. Fleming,” Isaac responded.
“I was not asking a question,” I said. “That was a directive.”
They sighed and put away their phones and pulled out their computers to review files of arguments and evidence. I kept watching them in the rearview mirror, thinking to myself, Just wait. Y’all gon’ learn today.
We finally arrived at Johns Creek High School. Walking toward the entrance, I was flanked by kids who were barely five feet tall. They were munchkins compared to high school debaters nearly twice as big and up to five years their senior. As we entered, everyone stared as if they knew these couldn’t be varsity debaters. These environments are not easy to walk into. The situation reminded me of my discomfort as a novice debater at my first tournament at Binghamton University.
We found the pairings posted on the wall. The first round was about to begin. I opened my arms and pulled them into a tight huddle. I looked each one in the eyes and said, “It does not matter what happens today, I am so proud of each of you.” I did not want them to take it too hard when we lost. After all, this was meant to be a learning experience. I wanted them to understand that there’s always someone willing to outwork you. That is why we must stay humble.
Coaches were not allowed in the competition rooms and were confined to a designated lounge for the entire day. If there were spare minutes between rounds, we could check with our team to see how they were doing. It was midday and I had not heard anything. The reporting on the tabulation site was slow. The kids were not checking their phones. I was anxious because I wanted to know what was going on. I figured they might be taking it hard, and I wanted to at least be there to comfort them. Desperate to fill time, I was planning the coming week’s lessons when another coach blurted something that commanded everyone’s attention.
“Have y’all seen those Ron Clark Academy kids?” she said. I turned around with a grin. I figured she was bringing the news that I had expected. I was certain they were getting their asses kicked and learning a good lesson. But that was not the case.
“They are whooping everybody!” she said. “Whose kids are those?”
I could not even raise my hand. I was stunned. My first thought was Wait, what? My second thought was Nooooo, that’s not what was supposed to happen!
By the end of that tournament, we had not lost a single round. As a middle school team, we went undefeated at a high school competition. Before we left for the day, a woman approached my kids and said, “I want to meet your teacher.” They brought her to me as I was gathering our bags and computers and trophies.
“Hi, Mr. Fleming,” she said, stretching forth her hand. She introduced herself as a representative of the Harvard Debate Council at Harvard College. I greeted her and she praised our first-place finish. She went on at length how impressed she was by the students. I was still shaken by it all. What we had just done was still setting in. I thanked her for her kind remarks and assured her that I would keep in touch. She assured the same.
“There’s something I think you would be perfect for,” she said.
The woman was as pleasant as she could be. But the kids were tired. I was tired. And we were just ready to go home. I pulled myself together to listen politely.
“What would that be?” I asked. And her next words changed my life forever.
She said to me, “I think you should teach at Harvard.”
My mind was trying to process her words, because I could not have heard her correctly. She could not have been talking about the Harvard. All I could say was “Wait, what?” with my mouth halfway open. She told me that she would be putting in a recommendation for me to join the Harvard Debate Council summer faculty. “Be on the lookout,” she said. “You’ll hear from us soon.”
The kids slept the entire hour drive back home. I couldn’t listen to music. I couldn’t call anyone and say, “Oh my God, you’ll never guess what just happened.” I drove in silence, trying to convince myself that it was all real: the undefeated record, the prospect of teaching at Harvard. I added it to my list of life’s ironies. I was at a tournament for which we were not technically qualified, coaching for a school where I was not technically qualified to teach, where I was recruited because I taught debate, a sport I failed at in college. During those college days, I’d dreamed of going places that seemed utterly beyond my reach. And as we rode home that night, my mind traveled back to that grimy college apartment and the crimson HARVARD pennant that once hung over the floor pallet where I slept. It hovered over me every night like a dreamcatcher. I once feared that neither my GPA nor my financial status would ever get me to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Now it seemed I needed neither. Because I was not going there to study. I was going there to teach.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SCHOLARSHIP MEETS CULTURE
For most of the year, the oldest part of Harvard Yard has a kind of Yankee simplicity, crisscrossed by utilitarian footpaths, shaded by large deciduous trees, and without decoration. Only in the summer are the brightly colored chairs delivered, ready for rearrangement by anyone who chooses to use them. The chairs move about the Yard all summer, like grazing animals in shades of periwinkle and lime. On an especially hot and motionless mid-July afternoon, I reclined in one of them, thankful for any puff of breeze that stirred the humid air. Not much is happening academically at that time of year. But flocks of tourists roam the paths in sunglasses and straw hats, eager to locate the statue of John Harvard and snap selfies while petting his lucky foot.
I was scanning the fi
ne old buildings that surround the Yard, taking in architectural details no doubt chiseled by my ancestors. Looking at the paths radiating in all directions, I wondered which were most often trod by W. E. B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, or Alain Locke. Then my gaze fell to my own feet, indenting the Ivy League grass where I never, ever expected to tread. I was wearing wheat Timberlands. Yes, Timberland boots in late July. At Harvard. Without apology. The Timbs reminded me of where I’d started and the countless missteps I’d made on my journey to that place. Regardless of my zigzag path, the fact was that I was there now. And I figured that the reason had to be much bigger than just me.
Founded in 1892, the Harvard Debate Council is one of the oldest campus organizations at Harvard College. Each summer, hundreds of high school debaters from all around the world converge on campus for the council’s annual summer residential program. The days at the debate residency were long for instructors and students. Instructors lectured and the students debated for twelve hours, six days a week, for two weeks. Classes started at 7 a.m. and ended around 9 p.m. We had a two-hour break for lunch and I was spending mine basking in the Yard.
It was the last day of the residency. I would leave for Atlanta the next day. I was running out of time to say what I needed to say, and unexpressed thoughts were gnawing at my conscience like termites. I was about to wrap up my first term as a summer instructor, and I was afraid it would be my last. I was getting ready to screw it all up by being the angry Black man.
It was possible that I was in over my head and had no right to question anything. My being there was itself a miracle, a dream come true. The other staff were highly acclaimed debate instructors and professors—some had been teaching and coaching for longer than I’d been alive, and many had been debate champions in their day. At a staff dinner just a few days earlier, I had listened as they deftly swirled cabernet sauvignon in stemmed glasses and swapped stories about their decorated careers. My middle school debaters had won one high school tournament. But if I told that story, they might laugh and metaphorically pinch my cheeks, as if to say, That’s so cute. What my students had accomplished felt like nothing compared to the instructors’ many national championships. Silenced by insecurity, I focused on swirling my wine like everyone else, hoping to blend in and prove to them, and myself, that I belonged. Until I over-swirled and splashed wine on my clothes, leading to my early departure from the dinner.
Now, sitting in the Yard, I typed variations of the same message to the head of the Harvard Debate Council. But I kept deleting it. I decided it was a bad idea and shoved my phone back in my pocket. But groups of white students and Asian students kept strolling past, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the Black students who deserved to be here, too. I knew the ones I had trained back in Atlanta, the ones who had whipped all the high school teams, could hold their own at this debate residency. But I also knew that their families could not afford the tuition. Such is the story of American inequality. Too often, Black youth, no matter how gifted or talented, miss out on opportunities because their family’s earning power is less than their white classmates’. Lack of access, not lack of ability, often keeps Black people from accomplishing what they could in a more equitable world. This truth beat inside me like a drum that would not be ignored. I reached back into my pocket and wrote a text message to my boss asking if we could meet. I inhaled a breath of courage. And I finally pressed send.
Later that day, I arrived at the administrative office at the Hilles building in the Radcliffe Quadrangle. I was afraid to knock on the door even though they were expecting me. Nervous or not, I gave the door a rap.
My boss welcomed me to a round table where he and two other important administrators were already seated. There was a chair waiting, which in my worst imagining looked perfect for an interrogation or an execution. But I sat down and we exchanged pleasantries before the two men and the woman looked at me expectantly. I had asked for the meeting but did not know where to start. For a minute, I panicked. They had no idea that a reformed dope peddler had infiltrated their Ivy League inner sanctum. The nerve I had to barge in, pumping my fist and yelling, “Black power!” It was as if they had generously opened the door to let me in, then I ran back to the porch and yelled toward Dae Dae ’n’ them, “Come on, y’all! There’s room for all of our Black asses!”
I snapped out of it and realized that gratitude is always a good starting point. “Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me,” I said. “I cannot express how honored I am to be here.”
Teaching at the summer residency had been a revelation: it was my first exposure to international debate competition and I had been delighted to work with hundreds of students from more than twenty-five countries. But the experience had left me intensely frustrated. Because almost none of those students looked like me.
“I don’t mean to offend anyone,” I continued. “But I think something needs to be done about the lack of African American representation here at the residency.”
I continued at length about the need for diversity and the importance of representation as my supervisors listened without interruption or inquiry. I emptied my soul onto the table and then exhaled, having said everything I came to say. I had thrown an unexpected punch and braced myself for their reaction. But there was none. No nodding or smiling, no flash of denial.
The three of them exchanged looks, then turned toward me. Dr. Tripp Rebrovick, Harvard’s director of debate and my boss, leaned in. My body tensed because I was sure he would strike back. But his response stunned me. “You’re absolutely right,” Dr. Rebrovick said.
A weight lifted from my shoulders but slammed back down with his next words.
“We agree with you,” he said. “So what would you propose we do?”
Oh shit, I thought. I came with a problem but no solutions. My boss tossed the ball back to me, and now I was in the surreal position of being poised to tell Harvard how to fix something broken. I’ll come up with a plan, I told them.
I spent the next several weeks envisioning a program that would recruit Black students in Atlanta, turn them into superior debaters, and bring them to the summer residency on full scholarship. My bosses loved the idea, but parts of my plan struck them as overly ambitious.
The first was my recruitment strategy. Atlanta is a big city with established debate leagues, and my boss asked if I intended to recruit Black students from their ranks. I said no. I planned to seek out Black students from under-resourced schools who had probably never even heard of academic debate. There was a valid concern as to how those students could possibly compete against some of the world’s top young debaters—kids who came from elite public and private schools and were battle-hardened competitors. I assured my boss that the young people I chose would be ready by next summer. I would level the playing field by schooling them in philosophy, political science, rhetoric, and other disciplines rarely available in high school. I was confident that in less than one year, I could train them to be superior. This part I was sure of. But the rest of it, not so much.
In the summer of 2017, I established the Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project, or the Harvard Diversity Project for short. I designed a blueprint for the organization, developed a strategic plan, and presented it to my administrators at Harvard. They accepted my proposal and adopted the Harvard Diversity Project as a campus organization—but under several conditions:
I would have to build the organization.
I would have to staff the organization.
I would have to run the organization.
And because campus organizations are independently funded, I would have to raise the money to sustain the organization.
None of this intimidated me, though all of it should have. I had established a debate program in Lynchburg as an undergrad. But it was more like a Saturday club, open to whoever showed up, with almost no overhead. When we needed refreshments—or even blazers—all it took was a car wash and a few friends with checkbooks. But this next venture
was a different beast: an official project backed by the Dean of Students Office at Harvard College, a world-famous institution that takes the use of its name very seriously. There was far more at stake than I could even understand. Naivete was my friend; only someone who knew so little could be so bold. They even recommended that I raise the money before publicly launching the initiative. But I was relentless. “Yes, sir,” I said in response to Dr. Rebrovick’s concerns. “I understand.” And I promised to make it happen.
I had no idea what such an endeavor would entail. Suddenly I was the founder of a startup, an executive director, a chief marketing officer, a chief philanthropic officer—and a staff of one—needing to turn students into debaters while raising hundreds of thousands of dollars immediately.
Dr. Rebrovick gave me his trust, along with a small seed grant from the college to begin my capital campaign. I went back home and launched a citywide campaign inviting high school students to apply for a program that would eventually take them to summer school at Harvard University. And the next ten months were the most frightening ride of my life.
On Sunday, January 14, 2018, a group of eager applicants arrived at the Harvard Debate Council’s new satellite campus in Atlanta. A local college had donated a wing in their building for our central office and classrooms. Hundreds of high school students from around Metro Atlanta applied, but we invited only twenty-five of them to interview for a spot in the inaugural cohort. They had been told nothing about the interview process. The email was clear about just two points: dress professionally and show up on time. At 11:30 a.m., twenty-five anxious teens entered an art gallery full of adults—my friends, local corporate and community leaders—ready to shake their sweaty hands. The interviews began at that moment, though the kids had no idea. They were so fidgety and high-strung that they mistook the adults for greeters opposed to interviewers.
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