Transcript of “Jeremy Anderson | BEST Youth Inspirational Speaker”

“Listen to me y'all!

I had a teacher in eighth grade telling me I wasn’t high school material. And I believed that. They actually set my mom down and were like: ‘Yo, your son is not going to make it, so you should just go ahead and, like, wrap it up. Like, I can't legally leave him behind again, but I think you should probably go ahead and just sign him up for this special education course.’ My mom was like: ‘Nope, no!’ And you know what I did? I went into the ninth grade with that mentality, and I failed. Actually, I got kicked out of one high school, then I went to another high school and said: ‘Okay, I'm going to try my ninth-grade year one more time.’ I failed out of that one, went to the third… – I went to three different schools just to get my act together in the ninth grade.

And I said: ‘Man, I'm proving all these people right who don't believe in me. And my mama and a few people who do believe in me, I'm proving them wrong. Like, let me stop playing my people!’ Because, when I play my people, I'm playing myself. And so do some of y'all! You think it's cool to disrupt class? Man, you’re playing yourself and you’re playing your people, because people back in the day got burnt and beaten and spit on […] to get an equal education. And we come to school looking how we look, all clean and fresh, and we think it's a game. But people died for this!

So, I'm at a place in life now where I'm like: “Yo, I ain't trying to take back, I'm trying to give back now! Listen to me y'all. And I started to grow level by level by level by level and after I finally got my act together in high school, I took Summer School courses. Some of y'all are about to put the work in. I took Summer School, I took night courses. You know what I'm saying? I graduated from high school and I said: ‘Shoot, if I could do high school, maybe there is something to this college thing.’ Let me tell you something right now: You’re going to college! Like, there ain’t no ifs. Don't worry about debt or student loans, you’re going to college! But you got a program inside your brain: Now, you’re going! Like, there can't be no doubt. And so, for me, I said: ‘Bump it, if I could do high school, shoot, I'm going to college. I did college, got that bachelor's degree in social work. I said, well shoot, if I can get my bachelor’s, maybe I can get my master’s. If I can write one book, maybe I can write two books, then three books, then four books.

Listen to me: There ain't nothing you can't do and just because your parents might not have a plan for you. There is a plan for your life, my friends. But what you got to know, what you got to know is that you deserve it! The problem with most people is, they feel like: ‘Man, I don't really deserve it, you know, I’ve made some mistakes or this is all I know.’ This ain’t all you know, no more. I talked to so many folks. We've been to every major city in the hood, in the suburbs, all over the country. You know what I'm saying? And we meet a lot of people. They feel like: ‘Well, because my mama didn't experience it, or my daddy, I can’t.’ You can be the first! You can be the first in your family to experience these things. You can be the first in your family to gain it. I think about my three-year-old daughter, now. I'm like, for one, she’s going to have scholarships to go to college and, for two, we already have that grand saved up, just in case that something goes wrong. You know what I'm saying? Like, me and my wife we built our lives. We ain't just buying a house, y'all, we built a house! My girl got to choose what type of hardwood floor she wanted, what type of granite counter she wanted. You know what I'm saying? We got to build that in our 30s. My daughter, I promise you, her credit is going to be so far. You know what I'm saying? She is going to be on another level, because I'm creating a new culture. I'm instilling that in my daughter, now, and I'm telling y'all:

You can do the same thing!”