Inspiration above information

Every opportunity I get as a motivational speaker to share a message that will inspire people is an opportunity I cherish, but there's something extra special when that opportunity involves youth. Many years as a seventh-grade English teacher proved that young people, as much as they challenge our patience, are sponges. They pretend to be "too cool for school" sometimes, but they're not. Once again, as I addressed a group of students at Cape Girardeau Central High School last week, I saw eyes light up and hearts abound with hope.

I was tasked with delivering a motivational Black History Month presentation sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, but not everyone there was an athlete, not everyone was a Christian, and not everyone was black. It was a diverse group -- just the way I like it. We could all use inspiration. Our backgrounds and experiences are different, but some things are ubiquitous: We all try to discover our purpose. We all want to be successful. We all have to overcome obstacles.

When deciding the focus of my speech, I knew what I did not want to do before I knew what I wanted to do. I did not want to make this another lesson about somebody else's history -- some facts about slavery or civil rights or details about someone else's life. I did not want to talk about the same people we hear about all the time. I did not want this group to leave there with information. I wanted them to leave with inspiration. Information gets stowed away or forgotten. Information will only take them so far. But inspiration can last a lifetime. I knew from the start I had their attention, but the highlight for me was the student who approached me after the presentation, shook my hand enthusiastically, and said, "Thank you! That lit a fire in my spirit!" Mission accomplished!

I wanted my presentation to help these students connect other people to themselves, to help them take lessons from another person's story and use them to write their own. "If you walk across this stage with a diploma in your hand and know more about what someone else's purpose was than what yours is, you've wasted your time, and we have failed you!" I said. "You have a purpose. You must leave a legacy."

I decided to use Missouri's own Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou to leave an impression, the poets who knew about struggle but also knew how to turn it into their favor.

Langston Hughes was mistreated in a white school -- chased home with stones and tin cans and treated especially vilely by one teacher. He knew loneliness and rejection. Later, a teacher and his classmates selected him as class poet, though he had never written a poem. All black people have rhythm, they believed, and since he was black, he should have that distinction. Hughes took what he deemed to be a stereotypical, racist assumption -- and look what he did with it: turned it around. He has gone down in history as one of the nation's greatest poets. See, people sometimes try to box us in, I told the group of about 50 students in attendance, but we decide what we will do with it. Hughes did much. I shared with them one of my favorite poems, Hughes's "Mother to Son." It's about never giving up in spite of difficulties. We are without excuse, I told them.

We moved on to Maya Angelou, whose poetry fueled many a class discussion during my years as a teacher. Several Cape Central students said they had heard of her, but not many knew much about her. I shared her story -- how she was raised mostly by her grandmother and the low self-esteem with which Angelou suffered. Then I told them that when she was 10, her mother's boyfriend raped her, and I explained the ensuing circumstances that caused her to withdraw and stop speaking for nearly a year. I introduced them to Mrs. Bertha Flowers, the sophisticated "black aristocrat" a young Angelou admired. Mrs. Flowers pulled her out of the abyss of silence by taking time to make her feel special and exposing her to the power of books and spoken language. It was that one woman who unleashed the voice that trauma had muted. Maya Angelou, we know, has gone down in history as one of the most powerful voices we have ever heard -- because someone cared. But we almost missed out on that voice.

I then recited her poem "Still I Rise," and when the students rose from their seats to leave the auditorium, they rose inspired.

Again, learning someone else's story is not inspiration; it's information. Inspiration is finding hope for one's own life. I am confident that this is what took place last week. That was my prayer, that is what I wanted and that is why I titled my presentation not just "Black History Month: Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou," but "Black History Month: Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and YOU."

You can watch my Cape Central presentation at www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fTo3DO7fno&feature=youtu.be.

Adrienne Ross is an author, speaker, columnist, editor, educator and Southeast Missourian editorial board member. Reach her at aross@semissourian.com.