From Dropout to Doctorate: Breaking the Chains of Educational Injustice

In this affecting memoir, activist Lester (I See You) traces his own educational path—from disengaged high school student who almost didn’t graduate to PhD—against the backdrop of an American educational system that systematically excludes Black people. The author grew up in an unstable home with an abusive father; after his parents separated when he was five, he was raised in poverty by his single mom. Convinced that school “wasn’t for me... I had been socially programmed to believe that my education was not worth it,” he joined a gang as a teen and struggled in school before graduating as a fifth-year senior. After dropping out of college, he joined a church whose communal support buoyed him. He eventually returned to school and earned his undergraduate degree and PhD. The author uses his story to carefully dissect how Black kids “start from behind” in a school system rife with poverty, discrimination, and racial profiling, and where unaddressed generational trauma limits their sense of safety and educational potential. He finds a partial antidote in supportive communities—like churches—where a sense of belonging fuels students’ desire to succeed. The author’s message is potent and timely, even if the memoir and social analysis sections sometimes mesh haphazardly. Still, this is a vital call to reform a broken system. (Sept.)