I am Dr. Truman Hudson Jr., and I'm an educator and a community builder. My most significant childhood memory goes back to when I was 3 years old and my mother brought me to the Utly Branch Library over on Woodward and Alger and I can recall going into the library in October around this time of the year, going in, looking at this beautiful architecture inside of the library and looking at the stacks – and falling in love with the smell of the books and just falling in love with learning. And I can recall getting my first library card at 3 and just being in love with education ever since. 

I had this conversation with my students in regards to what I believe community is, and I recall growing up and post the civil rights movement. There was this big push for understanding yourself as a Black person in America. And I can recall George Benson's song, The Greatest Love of All... And that song really pushed us to understand that we have a sense of pride and that we can be somebody successful if we work together as a collective to advance a broader mission. That song and that experience post-civil rights movement. Plus, growing up in a household where my grandmother, Thelma Robinson, my mother, Rev. Dorothy Hudson, embraced people from outside of the family as well as people in the family to help move them to the next level. It's kind of like central to who I am, so I can't run away from it. It's like natural to see a person who is in need or a person who has assets that have not been yet realized and help them lift up those assets. The challenges that we have politically across the world can be addressed when we can all just see each other as humans first while I identify as a Black man. I only identify as that because that's what people see when I come into a room. But ultimately I'm a human.