I Was Your Black Child: What White Parents Raising Black Children Need to Hear Before It's Too Late

I was 49 years old before I knew what it felt like to look at someone and see myself.

I grew up Black in a white family in Lincoln, Nebraska, raised by parents who loved me completely and still missed almost everything I needed them to see. Nobody handed them a manual. And nobody handed you one either. But there are things you need to know before your child figures out you don't.

I spent thirty years in education as a teacher and a principal, and then as the founder of an executive leadership coaching business for school leaders. I watched what happens to Black kids in rooms built by and for white people. My own childhood didn't include a single person at the dinner table who looked like me. At 49, I finally sat across from my birth family for the first time and understood what had been missing my whole life.

I Was Your Black Child is that story, and it's also a direct letter to you. There's no research study in here and no academic argument about transracial adoption. This is the truth about hair nobody in my house knew how to care for, a conversation about race that never happened at our kitchen table, and a protection that disappeared the moment I stepped out into the world on my own as a Black teenager.

Kids like me get good at hiding the hard parts from the people we live with. Most parents never find out, and that's why I put every chapter together the same way. Each one starts with a piece of my story. Then it lays out what that means for your child, and it closes with a question to think about and one thing to do about it.

This isn't about being a bad parent. It's about being a more honest one, and I wrote this book because you need to hear what I wish someone had told my parents.

If you're raising a Black child and you love them enough to want the truth instead of comfort, this book was written for you.