How to build your confidence -- and spark it in others

So when I was a little girl,

a book sat on the coffee table
in our living room,

just steps from our front door.

And the living room is a first impression.

Ours had white carpet

and a curio of my mother's
most treasured collectibles.

That room represented the sacrifices
of generations gone by

who, by poverty or by policy,

couldn't afford a curio of collectibles,

let alone a middle class house
to put them in.

That room had to stay perfect.

But I would miss messing up
that perfect room every day

just to see that book.

On the cover sat a woman
named Septima Clark.

She sat in perfect profile
with her face raised to the sky.

She had perfect salt-and-pepper cornrows

platted down the sides of her head,

and pride and wisdom just emanated
from her dark skin.

Septima Clark was an activist
and an educator,

a woman after whom I would eventually
model my own career,

but more than all the words
she ever spoke,

that single portrait of Septima Clark,

it defined confidence for me

before I ever even knew the word.