"When I look at one of my Latinas, for example, I treat her as though she is going to be my… grandchild’s pediatrician, or when I look at one of our Black-American boys, I try and educate him as though he were going to be my city councilperson…I try to treat them as though they are going to be consequential people, and we work back from there. And I find that if you treat them like they actually have a future, they tend to have one."

— Diego Little, instructor at Rainier Scholars, a year-round enrichment program that provides academic and emotional support to students from as early as fifth grade and until they graduate college.

Tags: education black history month american graduate