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Our guest on this episode is a professional trainer and executive coach, Jeff Black, owner of Black Sheep Communications. Jeff talks about his childhood experience of attending one of the first integrated schools in Clarendon County, South Carolina. He also shares how women need to raise their hands and voices in an assertive way that assures they get heard. 

Main Ideas

Meet Miss Annie Gibson, a woman on a mission who changes the course of American History

• In 1949, Miss Gibson and 20 others drafted a petition for separate but equal schooling provisions as what was available in the white schools.
• Jeff meets Miss Gibson, who reveals to him why she participated in the petitioning. She would later lose her job for not removing her name from the document.
• The group chose Topeka, KS later in 1954 for Brown v. Board due to their fear of violence in South Carolina.
• They were not overwhelmed by the mountain ahead; they kept their eyes on the path underfoot.

The impact Miss Gibson had on Jeff’s life

• People touch our lives in ways we could never imagine in the moment.
• She is a constant reminder to take action because it’s right and it’s good.
• Miss Gibson’s work paved the way for the first integrated first-grade class in SC, which Jeff was a part of.

Jeff turns inspiration into Action

• Jeff creates Promise For Peace, an invitation for law enforcement officers to re-dedicate themselves to acting in peace and make a pledge against unlawful violence.
• Action to change injustice starts in our own communities.

What Could Make Inclusion More Actionable?

• Primarily, it is the men who volunteer to speak in meetings, training sessions, and decision-making. We need more women’s hands to rise up in order to guarantee more diversity at the leadership table.
• We need to invite women to be loud, wrong and hurt.
• Leaders: you need to tell more stories. At the end of the week, people don’t care about the data. But they will remember a story, especially a vulnerable one.

KEY Thoughts

4’05” — The running joke was that Jeff Black was a white student in this class.

8’30” — “Honey, if we’d have thought that, we’d have never had the courage. We weren’t trying to change America. We were just trying to change our community.”

16’14” — “Start small. Small impact equals big things. Like Annie Gibson did.”

21’00” — “We need to encourage women to have a voice, not just a seat. Because we fought too hard for just a seat.”

Find Jeff on LinkedIn.

Go to blacksheepunleashed.com to learn more!