so there’s the same not all heroes wear
capes well these are my heroes my dad
Michael Fulbright and my grandmother
Carolyn Fulbright so it’s my birth we’ve
been through a lot together honestly
think that they when they see me here on
this stage or if I tell them about a new
accomplishment that they’re shocked
because we come from humble beginnings
Hamo beginnings that I try to avoid
talking about see I can’t seem to tell
my story without shame shame that I
believe is deeply connected to or at
least peripheral to this filling of the
imposter syndrome see I’m that
individual who cannot internalize their
success I’m also afraid of being exposed
for who I am in proximity to a mother
that I do not know organizing this story
has been nerve-racking it’s been anxiety
inducing our friends know I tried to not
get on this stage but it’s also been
therapeutic raise your hand if you love
your therapist
that’s how therapeutic it’s been for me
see I’ve been trying to figure out how
do I tell my story without having to
tell my story how do I get the same
point across about the imposter syndrome
without attaching emotions to it how do
I make myself comfortable in front of
you all without having to be seen long
story short I can’t and I won’t because
what most people know about me is that I
fight for people to be seen to be seen
as whole to be seen as equals so I can’t
continue to talk about my story without
talking about the fullness and wholeness
of my life and what shaped me to Who I
am today so so start I was lying on the
carpet of my grandmother’s bedroom floor
around this time last October and I was
asking my grandmother about my childhood
I don’t know much about it and I was
like grandmother where’s my grandma of
excuse me where’s my mom why doesn’t she
exist so my grandmother proceeds to get
out of her chair and she walks over to
the closet and she says well I guess
we’re at that age yeah I was 26
I don’t know at what point you tell kids
about the traumatic moments that have
happened to them in the Lifetime movies
that I’ve seen you’re 17 or 18 but 26 so
we’re doing it I love my grandmother for
this and so she goes to her closet and
she pulls out this chest of Court
documents and puts it in front of me and
she says read this and so I’m going
through these court documents and I’m
reading things about my mother that I’ve
always heard about and see that they’re
true so I read that my mother had been
in and out of jail for years that she
did drugs and she was a sex worker at
one point I started to read things about
a young Mercedes that I didn’t know
existed moments that I didn’t know
happened to me like San Diego police
barging into a living room and finding
me on a soiled mattress with several of
the children and drugs sprawled all
throughout the room ivory I realized in
that document that the first time that I
entered foster care was nine months old
the second time I was celebrating my
first birthday alone in foster care one
years old but remember I talked about
those heroes so my dad he joined the
military at 18 he’s the old cliff native
and so hey Oh cliff hey rude from Dallas
to San Diego to join the military he’s a
sailor he met my mother at 20 and he
heard that I was in foster care the
second time around and went above and
beyond to call my grandmother and tell
her I need you to get my baby girl out
of foster care and so my grandmother
moves from Dallas to San Diego and
starts the custody process for us there
I’m going through the documents again
and I realized that at the age of six
that my mother said that she doesn’t
want me around that she’s dead and I can
look her up when I’m 18 those first few
years of living not feeling valued or
wanted or belonging to any one person
I do believe explains much of the
posture that I feel that I am and so we
continue to go on my dad and my
grandmother get custody of me and we
move from San Diego to Vallejo to
Vallejo to Oakland my dad wants me to be
with my immediate
family and Dallas and so he asked for a
transfer back home to Dallas we go from
Dallas to Arlington to North Dallas to
Cedar Hill see I’ve always known how it
feels to be the new kid being a military
kid so I tried to either make myself
invisible or I’d act out to fit in I
remember in elementary in middle school
I would friends would ask me like
where’s your biological mother like why
she doesn’t why is she around and I
would say well she died of a terminal
disease that I want to talk about it I
mean how do you tell your nine-year-old
friends that your mom doesn’t want you
around in high school when I was
applying for colleges I remember
thinking I’ll never get into college
because my parents didn’t go even in my
young adulthood I would think that if I
have lapses of forgetfulness or struggle
with writing materials that I had
developmental deficiencies or something
because my mother used cocaine see I
would tell myself I’m the daughter of a
sex worker I’m the daughter of a drug
addict I don’t belong I’m not enough so
I try to overcompensate and hide all the
traits of her and be everything that she
was not not realized and most recently
that I’ve been trying to prove myself to
someone that doesn’t exist and so I
enrolled into the University of North
Texas and I got heavily involved in
campus activities I was a student body
vice president I was the president of
the top 40 leaders I was elected to the
National Youth Work committee of the N
double ACP the largest and oldest
organization in our country my first
opportunity to travel abroad was Israel
or I got to study the
israeli-palestinian conflict I got an
opportunity to also be a part of a
National Geographic documentary where I
got to travel to China and study
us-china relations as it relates to
young people I remember on that trip
journaling in my notebook and saying I
can’t wait to tell my mom about the
amount of selfies that are gonna be on
the Internet because everyone thought I
was Tyra Banks
it was like a real thing that happened
I’m serious like people thought I was
higher ranks they’re like let’s take a
selfie but she wasn’t there for those
moments I wasn’t enough at UNT I studied
political science because I wanted to be
an attorney I wanted to be a lawyer for
the kids that may have been swept up in
the welfare or foster care system like I
almost was but I interned in DC on the
hill and all the legislative directors
there told me that law school isn’t
worth the time or the money and I should
do something more worthwhile see I
finally ironic that the people with time
or money can tell a young black girl
like me to sit on the sidelines of her
dreams came home from DC graduated from
UT in 2012 I was unemployed for three
months because I didn’t take the outside
and go to law school and I remember
thinking if my mom showed up in this
moment right here she’ll say huh that
degree didn’t get you too far I did it I
wasn’t enough and so I did what most
college graduates do when I joined
corporate America it took about two and
a half years to realize how unfair
filling that was and after work every
day I would join political campaigns and
get involved in the community I was on
city council election and school board
election most of the folks that you may
see in office now was a part of that
kinda scenes also the GU gonna toriel
elections in 2014 had a great
opportunity to start a non-profit when
my good friends Matt Houston and
Courtney Brown we called it project zoom
and we were teaching young people from
South Dallas South Oak Cliff and
Pleasant Grove about social justice
through the lens of Nelson Mandela we
applied and received a grant for one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars from
the fossil Foundation and we take those
same kids to South Africa to teach them
about social justice and
entrepreneurship on a global level after
that I was gonna spend in the last three
years building the capacity of
leadership for young people from
marginalized communities across the city
and country that led me to work on
immigrant issues LGBT issues economic
justice rust racial justice
organizations like people for the
American Way
black lives matter
BLM BYP 100 I remember thinking this is
the work I want to be doing I’m fighting
for people on the margins yet feeling
ashamed that I can’t speak around my
mother who survived and lived on the
margins but that changed because I went
back through those court documents and I
remembers finding a three page long
letter that made me view my mother in a
different light and it gave me purpose
see it stated that at 16 she ran away
from home from Memphis Tennessee she
followed a man to the East Coast and
that’s how she got caught up in drugs
and prostitution
she lost her premature child due to
domestic violence and cocaine use before
she went to California at this point I’m
starting to question everything that I
thought I knew about her I’m questioning
her family and home environment and why
she felt she had to leave at such a
young age I’m questioning in the
criminal justice system and knowing that
she moved to New York in the late 80s
and there was tough policies like the
war on drugs that were instated I’m
questioning how those same tough
policies influenced my life as a child
in Southern California in the early 90s
hoping and wishing that rehabilitative
efforts probably would have kept us
together I started to see that my mother
was a fighter
she’s much very much so a fighter like I
am that she fought for herself in her
future in the way that I do for myself
and for others how she is me and I am
her see what’s paralyzed me and telling
this story is not just a sense of shame
that I’ve had but trying to figure out
how to overcome telling myself and I’m
enough because there’s this narrative
that I’m brave that I speak truth to
power that I stand in the face of
injustice but people don’t realize how
shameful I felt and how much of a coward
it’s been for me to think that I was
ashamed to talk about a mother who sold
her body as a means of survival as if
that was a scarlet letter for me and her
and I know it’s not see I recognize that
the students that I worked at at
Parkland College that they have similar
stories like mine and that
you’re enough that you were enough I
look at my girlfriend Danny and I want
to tell you that you’re enough my dad
and my grandma I want to thank you for
being more than enough for me I
celebrate myself now I recognize by
acknowledging what’s happening to me and
I pass that it’s healing and I thank you
until I’m wrong if you watch this in the
future cuz she’s still alive I hope you
see me standing here and know that I am
enough that I see you and I’m fighting
for world writing for a world where
women like us will be safe we’re
children like me do not have to hide in
shame a world that were allow us to
belong and just know that I am
constantly putting myself back together
of recovery my identity and I’m
reclaiming the wholeness of my life and
I thank you and mom just know on
December 12th I’m graduating with my
masters from from youth UTA and a
master’s in public administration thank
you
capes well these are my heroes my dad
Michael Fulbright and my grandmother
Carolyn Fulbright so it’s my birth we’ve
been through a lot together honestly
think that they when they see me here on
this stage or if I tell them about a new
accomplishment that they’re shocked
because we come from humble beginnings
Hamo beginnings that I try to avoid
talking about see I can’t seem to tell
my story without shame shame that I
believe is deeply connected to or at
least peripheral to this filling of the
imposter syndrome see I’m that
individual who cannot internalize their
success I’m also afraid of being exposed
for who I am in proximity to a mother
that I do not know organizing this story
has been nerve-racking it’s been anxiety
inducing our friends know I tried to not
get on this stage but it’s also been
therapeutic raise your hand if you love
your therapist
that’s how therapeutic it’s been for me
see I’ve been trying to figure out how
do I tell my story without having to
tell my story how do I get the same
point across about the imposter syndrome
without attaching emotions to it how do
I make myself comfortable in front of
you all without having to be seen long
story short I can’t and I won’t because
what most people know about me is that I
fight for people to be seen to be seen
as whole to be seen as equals so I can’t
continue to talk about my story without
talking about the fullness and wholeness
of my life and what shaped me to Who I
am today so so start I was lying on the
carpet of my grandmother’s bedroom floor
around this time last October and I was
asking my grandmother about my childhood
I don’t know much about it and I was
like grandmother where’s my grandma of
excuse me where’s my mom why doesn’t she
exist so my grandmother proceeds to get
out of her chair and she walks over to
the closet and she says well I guess
we’re at that age yeah I was 26
I don’t know at what point you tell kids
about the traumatic moments that have
happened to them in the Lifetime movies
that I’ve seen you’re 17 or 18 but 26 so
we’re doing it I love my grandmother for
this and so she goes to her closet and
she pulls out this chest of Court
documents and puts it in front of me and
she says read this and so I’m going
through these court documents and I’m
reading things about my mother that I’ve
always heard about and see that they’re
true so I read that my mother had been
in and out of jail for years that she
did drugs and she was a sex worker at
one point I started to read things about
a young Mercedes that I didn’t know
existed moments that I didn’t know
happened to me like San Diego police
barging into a living room and finding
me on a soiled mattress with several of
the children and drugs sprawled all
throughout the room ivory I realized in
that document that the first time that I
entered foster care was nine months old
the second time I was celebrating my
first birthday alone in foster care one
years old but remember I talked about
those heroes so my dad he joined the
military at 18 he’s the old cliff native
and so hey Oh cliff hey rude from Dallas
to San Diego to join the military he’s a
sailor he met my mother at 20 and he
heard that I was in foster care the
second time around and went above and
beyond to call my grandmother and tell
her I need you to get my baby girl out
of foster care and so my grandmother
moves from Dallas to San Diego and
starts the custody process for us there
I’m going through the documents again
and I realized that at the age of six
that my mother said that she doesn’t
want me around that she’s dead and I can
look her up when I’m 18 those first few
years of living not feeling valued or
wanted or belonging to any one person
I do believe explains much of the
posture that I feel that I am and so we
continue to go on my dad and my
grandmother get custody of me and we
move from San Diego to Vallejo to
Vallejo to Oakland my dad wants me to be
with my immediate
family and Dallas and so he asked for a
transfer back home to Dallas we go from
Dallas to Arlington to North Dallas to
Cedar Hill see I’ve always known how it
feels to be the new kid being a military
kid so I tried to either make myself
invisible or I’d act out to fit in I
remember in elementary in middle school
I would friends would ask me like
where’s your biological mother like why
she doesn’t why is she around and I
would say well she died of a terminal
disease that I want to talk about it I
mean how do you tell your nine-year-old
friends that your mom doesn’t want you
around in high school when I was
applying for colleges I remember
thinking I’ll never get into college
because my parents didn’t go even in my
young adulthood I would think that if I
have lapses of forgetfulness or struggle
with writing materials that I had
developmental deficiencies or something
because my mother used cocaine see I
would tell myself I’m the daughter of a
sex worker I’m the daughter of a drug
addict I don’t belong I’m not enough so
I try to overcompensate and hide all the
traits of her and be everything that she
was not not realized and most recently
that I’ve been trying to prove myself to
someone that doesn’t exist and so I
enrolled into the University of North
Texas and I got heavily involved in
campus activities I was a student body
vice president I was the president of
the top 40 leaders I was elected to the
National Youth Work committee of the N
double ACP the largest and oldest
organization in our country my first
opportunity to travel abroad was Israel
or I got to study the
israeli-palestinian conflict I got an
opportunity to also be a part of a
National Geographic documentary where I
got to travel to China and study
us-china relations as it relates to
young people I remember on that trip
journaling in my notebook and saying I
can’t wait to tell my mom about the
amount of selfies that are gonna be on
the Internet because everyone thought I
was Tyra Banks
it was like a real thing that happened
I’m serious like people thought I was
higher ranks they’re like let’s take a
selfie but she wasn’t there for those
moments I wasn’t enough at UNT I studied
political science because I wanted to be
an attorney I wanted to be a lawyer for
the kids that may have been swept up in
the welfare or foster care system like I
almost was but I interned in DC on the
hill and all the legislative directors
there told me that law school isn’t
worth the time or the money and I should
do something more worthwhile see I
finally ironic that the people with time
or money can tell a young black girl
like me to sit on the sidelines of her
dreams came home from DC graduated from
UT in 2012 I was unemployed for three
months because I didn’t take the outside
and go to law school and I remember
thinking if my mom showed up in this
moment right here she’ll say huh that
degree didn’t get you too far I did it I
wasn’t enough and so I did what most
college graduates do when I joined
corporate America it took about two and
a half years to realize how unfair
filling that was and after work every
day I would join political campaigns and
get involved in the community I was on
city council election and school board
election most of the folks that you may
see in office now was a part of that
kinda scenes also the GU gonna toriel
elections in 2014 had a great
opportunity to start a non-profit when
my good friends Matt Houston and
Courtney Brown we called it project zoom
and we were teaching young people from
South Dallas South Oak Cliff and
Pleasant Grove about social justice
through the lens of Nelson Mandela we
applied and received a grant for one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars from
the fossil Foundation and we take those
same kids to South Africa to teach them
about social justice and
entrepreneurship on a global level after
that I was gonna spend in the last three
years building the capacity of
leadership for young people from
marginalized communities across the city
and country that led me to work on
immigrant issues LGBT issues economic
justice rust racial justice
organizations like people for the
American Way
black lives matter
BLM BYP 100 I remember thinking this is
the work I want to be doing I’m fighting
for people on the margins yet feeling
ashamed that I can’t speak around my
mother who survived and lived on the
margins but that changed because I went
back through those court documents and I
remembers finding a three page long
letter that made me view my mother in a
different light and it gave me purpose
see it stated that at 16 she ran away
from home from Memphis Tennessee she
followed a man to the East Coast and
that’s how she got caught up in drugs
and prostitution
she lost her premature child due to
domestic violence and cocaine use before
she went to California at this point I’m
starting to question everything that I
thought I knew about her I’m questioning
her family and home environment and why
she felt she had to leave at such a
young age I’m questioning in the
criminal justice system and knowing that
she moved to New York in the late 80s
and there was tough policies like the
war on drugs that were instated I’m
questioning how those same tough
policies influenced my life as a child
in Southern California in the early 90s
hoping and wishing that rehabilitative
efforts probably would have kept us
together I started to see that my mother
was a fighter
she’s much very much so a fighter like I
am that she fought for herself in her
future in the way that I do for myself
and for others how she is me and I am
her see what’s paralyzed me and telling
this story is not just a sense of shame
that I’ve had but trying to figure out
how to overcome telling myself and I’m
enough because there’s this narrative
that I’m brave that I speak truth to
power that I stand in the face of
injustice but people don’t realize how
shameful I felt and how much of a coward
it’s been for me to think that I was
ashamed to talk about a mother who sold
her body as a means of survival as if
that was a scarlet letter for me and her
and I know it’s not see I recognize that
the students that I worked at at
Parkland College that they have similar
stories like mine and that
you’re enough that you were enough I
look at my girlfriend Danny and I want
to tell you that you’re enough my dad
and my grandma I want to thank you for
being more than enough for me I
celebrate myself now I recognize by
acknowledging what’s happening to me and
I pass that it’s healing and I thank you
until I’m wrong if you watch this in the
future cuz she’s still alive I hope you
see me standing here and know that I am
enough that I see you and I’m fighting
for world writing for a world where
women like us will be safe we’re
children like me do not have to hide in
shame a world that were allow us to
belong and just know that I am
constantly putting myself back together
of recovery my identity and I’m
reclaiming the wholeness of my life and
I thank you and mom just know on
December 12th I’m graduating with my
masters from from youth UTA and a
master’s in public administration thank
you
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