Jackson:Their experience in the segregated South—being Black people who were actually physically separated from the broader community—made my parents really interested in having me participate. So if there were swimming lessons, my mother put me in them. If I could give a speech or say a poem at the youth fair, she wanted me to do it. The mentality was:Here’s a chance for our daughter to do everything we couldn’t do, and we’re going to prepare her for this world of opportunity.My family also focused on education. My grandparents didn’t have much themselves, but they understood that it was the key to success, so they worked to put their children through college, and then my parents became educators. These ideas of self-determination, self-confidence, and the ability to do what you want to, now that you are no longer held back, motivated them to set high expectations for me and encourage me to achieve them.