“Resilience is in your blood.”
Tonia Deese, a Charlotte-based licensed clinical social worker and owner of Full Circle Wellness, PLLC, shared this sentiment at the opening of the #TeachingInColor Summit on April 25.
As a member of the Waccamaw Siouan tribe, Deese alluded to the “Seven Generations” concept, a belief shared throughout the Indigenous community. “We are connected to the seven generations of people who came before us,” she explained. “And, right now, we are responsible for the seven generations who come behind us.”
Deese further emphasized that our ancestors’ wounds and pains are carried amongst their descendants, but so is their strength and resilience. Deese described the existence of each individual in the room as evidence of the resilience from those who came before.
“Resilience is in your blood,” she affirmed.
Ultimately, Deese paralleled the seven generations principle to the Summit’s theme, “Sankofa: Looking Back to the Future.”
Sankofa is an Adinkra symbol depicted as a bird with its body facing forward and head turned backward, often with an egg positioned on its back. Derived from the Akan language of Ghana, the symbol is associated with the Akan proverb, “So wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenki,” commonly translated to, “It is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot,” or “Looking to the past to inform the future.”
With both the Seven Generations and Sankofa in mind, Deese’s grounding activity concluded with a guided breathing exercise while reminding attendees that “we carry the lessons of the past to advocate for the next generation.”
Hosted by the Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED), #TeachingInColor welcomed educators from across the state to West Charlotte High School. The profound beat and rhythm of the Charlotte African Drum and Dance Collective set the tempo for the day of learning, discussion, and networking.
Ahead of the panels and presentations that were offered, local spoken word artist Frank Expression captivated the audience through poetry, concluding with the following lines:
This is the moment
That someone from a not too distant future
May come back and fetch
Make sure it is here for them to find
Connection the local to the global
Breakout sessions covered a myriad of topics including literacy, protection for immigrant students and families, and affirming identity, in addition to a research symposium.
This fifth year of the summit was centered on “Honoring the legacy of educators of color from the past while harnessing the power of today to envision a bold new vision for tomorrow.” Directly correlated with that focus was a presentation by Dr. Akosua Lesesne, an educational design leader and creator of the Black Teaching Tradition: Teacher Development Framework for Pedagogical Genius (BTT)®.
Teaching In Color Summit 2026. Courtesy of Kelsey Lam of KLamPhotography
In the four-time Academy Award winning film, “Sinners,” Delta Slim, a character played by Delroy Lindo, states, “We brought this from home” in reference to the Blues music depicted in the film innate and intuitive rather than forced. Quoting Slim, Lesesne applied the same sentiment to the genius of teaching. She stated that her research and development of the Black Teaching Tradition — which focuses on Black teachers within the United States — ultimately connects back to “thousands of years of documented deep thought on teaching excellence.”
Ultimately, Lesesne connected the values of the Black Teaching Tradition framework to the history and contributions of following nine Black educators whom she described as the embodiment of “teaching genius” and educators that everyone should know:
- Asa G. Hilliard III
- Barbara Sizemore
- Carter G. Woodson
- Harriet Ball
- Lorraine Monroe
- Marva Collins
- Mary McLeod Bethune
- Ruby Middleton Forsythe
- Septima Poinsette Clark
In the session, “Africa to Carolina,” presenters shared about a summer field experience opportunity offered to K-12 educators in North Carolina. The two-day gatherings center on providing professional development experiences that deepens educator’s knowledge while providing resources for teaching North Carolina’s transatlantic enslavement history.
Last year, participants traveled to Edenton and Somerset Place, the location of one of North Carolina’s largest plantations, estimated to have enslaved over 800 people over the course of 80 years. There, educators engaged in guided tours, training, and discussions to deepen their understanding of history and discover best practices for integrating these lessons into the classroom. One of the presenters, Dr. Laura Cox, the outreach manager at the African Studies Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that the goal is finding connections that highlight the way the “global is local and the local is global.”
Celebrating educators
When speaking about the Summit, CREED’s founder and executive director, Dr. James Ford, described it as a homecoming. “It serves as a reunion of sorts, where you can come together and get refreshed,” he expressed, adding that it also serves as “a reminder of who you are and what you already know.”
Honing in on the essence of the sankofa and its application to the Summit, Ford stated that “we carry inside of us, on a cellular level, the memories, behaviors, (and) predispositions of our ancestors, even without knowing it, and even without knowing them.” He further described this as a “cultural and spiritual technology.”
While emphasizing the importance of retaining knowledge and history that enables current generations to “enjoy the shade of trees that we did not plant” and “drink from wells that we did not dig,” Ford called upon attendees to dream of a future for the generations to come — even beyond this present moment.
In addition, #TeachingInColor also serves as a space for celebration. As a part of the event, CREED hosted a ceremony to honor three recipients with the 2026 Educators of the Year awards:
- Dr. Tristan Hunter, assistant principal with Halifax County Schools.
- Gianna Alicea-Rochelle, middle school family and consumer science teacher in Wake County.
- Valencia Abbott, social studies and history teacher at Rockingham Early College High School.
Beyond the Summit, #TeachingInColor continues to operate as a larger statewide network with ongoing gathering and discussions throughout the year.
CREED’s director of policy and advocacy, Dr. Jerry Wilson, stated that since the organization’s initial start on X (formerly known as Twitter) in 2019, “We’ve tried to build out a supportive community of educators of color across North Carolina to retain current educators of color, to inspire future educators of color, and to help folks teach in ways that advance equity.”
Click here for more information about upcoming #TeachingInColor network events and opportunities.
Recommended reading
