Interview with MyKeisha Ross, October 12, 2022

00:00:00William Breeding: Today is October the 12th, 2022. I'm William Breeding and I am here with MyKeisha Ross.

MyKeisha Ross: Yes.

Breeding: First, I'd like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to interview you. I thank you personally, and also on behalf of the University of Georgia Oral History Program, which is housed in the Richard B. Russell Library.

Ross: Okay. Thank you for the opportunity.

Breeding: Okay, first I would like for you to tell me your name and I'd like for you to spell it for me, for the sake of accuracy. I want to make sure we have it recorded correctly.

00:00:41Ross: Okay, my name is MyKeisha Rishonda Ross. I go by MyKeisha Ross, which is M-Y-K-E-I-S-H-A, last name Ross, R-O-S-S.

Breeding: Okay, what year were you born?

Ross: I was born, that's a story, in 1988.

00:00:57Breeding: 1988?

Ross: Yeah.

00:01:04Breeding: Now you said that's a story now, now a smile comes with that.

Ross: Yeah, because I have identified that I have two birthdays, but my birth certificate says one date.

00:01:11Breeding: Okay, don't give me a birth-- you got two birthdays. Let's leave it at that.

Ross: Two birthdays, yeah.

Breeding: Okay, you smiled when you gave that year, so tell us why.

00:01:26Ross: Um, the '88, I think '80s babies are some of the best babies. We were hard-headed, but I like the year '88.

00:01:39Breeding: Oh, okay. All right. So, well, I'm not going to ask what you mean by hard-headed, because I think it changes. You being one of my ex-students, I run into my ex-students all the time. And they'll say, "Mr. Breeding," and some of them would say, "I'm so sorry I was bad." And I'd say, "Shoot, by today's standards, y'all were angels."

00:02:02Ross: Yeah, by this generation, it's totally different.

00:02:09Breeding: Okay, what I'd like for you to do is tell me some of your, first give me your school experience. You can give it to me from pre-K up until your last level of education, and then we can go back, and you tell me some exciting and good moments, or moments that you treasure, or that help form your life. so you can do it all together or you could go through the whole spectrum and then come back and break it down.

Ross: Okay, I'm working on timeline.

00:02:45Breeding: Okay.

Ross: So, my timeline starts when I moved to Athens, second grade. So, the first school that I went to in Athens was Winterville, actually, over on the east side. It was a very, it was a different culture in that school. It was more diverse, more together. And back when I went to school, it was a lot of the teachers cared, it was more compassion. So, it felt like family. From Winterville, I moved, so, going into third and fourth grade, I was then in Cleveland Road. So, now we're on the west side of Athens. Still different culture. From Cleveland Road, I moved to Whitehead. So, my family moved around a lot. I just said today how we moved either every six months to a year. We didn't have a lot of sustainability in the household. My mom was a single mother with five jobs at times, so whatever worked for her, we moved. And, so, at this point, I'm in fifth grade and I'm at Whitehead. Whitehead was the cutoff end in elementary. Whitehead was most of my memorable years, because that's when I started finding my identity, along with the environment at this time. Fifth grade and I am living in Rolling Ridge, which is one of the housing projects here in Athens, Georgia, and that changed the trajectory of my life, staying in Rolling Ridge, it opened up my eyes to poverty. It opened up the underprivileged opportunities, that we didn't have the resources that everybody else had. I had hand-me-downs, so me and my brother, we were the only kids, but we didn't have, so a lot of times, now, I wear what I wear and I do what I do because growing up, I didn't have. And in elementary, I was always bullied because a lot of times, me and my brother wore the same clothes over and over, or my hair wasn't done, or I didn't have the shoes that everyone else was wearing because my mom couldn't afford it. My grandmother and aunt was still living, when I was in Whitehead in fifth grade, but my aunt was undergoing cancer. So going into graduating fifth grade, the memorable points that I remember is I was class president. So that was exciting for me because I was president of the school, and I got to make decisions and got to run a little bit of the things that I never knew or seen myself as. Burney-Harris came along.

00:05:48Breeding: And Burney-Harris started sixth grade, correct?

00:05:51Ross: Sixth grade.

00:05:52Breeding: Okay.

00:05:53Ross: So we're in Burney-Harris Middle School. So Burney-Harris is two things here in Athens. It was the first Black school, if I'm correct. So that was before my generation, but Burney-Harris Middle School is now still standing here, and I went there 6th through 8th. My kids, my son and my daughter goes there and attended there. So 6th grade, into sports, still trying to find my identity. And 7th grade, I kind of like, just the beast kind of came out. I was learning myself, and I was learning that I was a Black female with a body of an adult woman, and I was in 6th grade, and I still stayed in Rolling Ridge. So, a lot of my middle school years was the start of abuse. It was the start of sex trafficking. It was a start of sex trade. The start of seeing substance abuse, because when you're in elementary, you really don't see it much. But when you get into the middle school years, you start getting aware of what's happening in your environment. So at Burney-Harris, sixth grade was an awakening. I really didn't like school like that. I was being a class clown and doing a lot of things. I was actually a good student, but I would cut up in class, in sixth grade. I'll never forget my language arts teacher. She knew I had a potential, but at this time nobody didn't know that I was being abused and molested by my cousins. I was working at Chick-fil-A in the sixth grade with a worker's permit, so I had responsibilities. So, every day I was coming home, I was getting sexually abused by somebody. And school was the outlet. It was the outlet for me to sit and cut up and have a little fun, so I gave one of my teachers, a lot of my teachers hell. And we laugh about it to this day because I was a good student, but I acted out because I didn't want to go home. I knew when I got home, I was going to have to give up something. So that, you know, that's sixth grade. Sixth grade, I'm an adult, at this point in my life, I'm just in a child's body. And seventh grade came, that's when sports came. Basketball saved my life. I tell that in every interview because I didn't know how to play basketball, I just wanted, I wanted to be aggressive. I wanted to learn how to survive. So I went out for basketball and it became addictive. It was a release. It was somewhere that I felt like I was undefeated, on the court. So that was seventh grade at Burney-Harris and eighth grade I became the captain of the team and I ran track. So back up a little bit, sixth and seventh grade I ran track, because you can run track in sixth grade. So I discovered that I was very fast and I was running on the high school teams. Mr. Breeding actually had me do that. So I was, like, fast as lightning and I didn't even know how fast I was. So sixth and seventh grade I was into track but then once I decided to play basketball that kind of went another way. Eighth grade still in sports because it's keeping me off the streets. So I would play the sports because I knew after school you would have to stay a little while longer and I know my mom got off at 7 so I would have to time the time frame. If I go home then I'll be left an hour with my brothers and my cousins so they didn't have time to molest me. So I would have to manage the time that how long it would take the bus to get home so I can cook and then do my homework or go to work and so football came up and my coach, Gresham, him and Coach Rick at the time were the coaches at Burney-Harris and Damian Gary and they all got me ready for football but I didn't know that I was going to crack my rib and so when I cracked my rib it hindered me in basketball and so I lost my breath on the championship game and it was either live or die, and I just remember that my mom took me out the game because I couldn't breathe and we lost the game.

Breeding: That was a football game.

Ross: It was actually an eighth grade football season didn't really go it was a good season for me but once my rib got cracked at Coile Middle School by Kent, never forget Kent Hall cracked my rib and they were like "Either take out or you won't be able to play basketball," so I took off for the rest of the season and--

Breeding: So you played football in middle school?

Ross: In middle school.

Breeding: Okay, that wasn't at Burney-Harris was it?

Ross: It was at Burney-Harris but we wore Clarke Central uniforms.

Breeding: Oh that's right.

Ross: So it's still now it's called the C-team. So like the eighth grade plays at Clarke Central. So I did, I was the only girl and then some more people started coming out, and it was I was happy because then I wasn't the only girl, but football was a little different because, once again, I was still getting bullied but this time I was getting bullied by boys. And now that I've learned growing up that it probably was a flirtatious thing versus a bully thing but that was middle school. Middle school was a very adventurous year for me. I was still finding myself and I didn't know what I was doing. I was just really surviving because my home life was horrible. It was a prison. Then when I got to high school, that's when, in ninth grade, everything spun. Like, my whole world turned upside down. And I went to Clarke Central, so I knew basketball was my life. But I didn't really know Athens to me, really when it comes to sports, what I'm teaching my son and teaching some of my mentees now, and it's still happening in the coaching arena, that if you don't know the family, or if you're not from Athens, or they didn't know you were an All-Star player, you get overlooked. So I had to work harder because I was coming from Burney-Harris. And to me, it was always like if you came from this school, you got more playing time, or if that coach knew you, you got more playing time. And that's when I met my god mom, who is still to this day my mentor, or my coach, Frazier. And so ninth grade I was with Frazier and Coach Hudson. Coach Hudson was my agility coach, my strengthen coach, and they were like my tribe. And I didn't know the potential and the greatness that I had because I wasn't really interested in sports. I was just doing it to stay alive. But now when I coach, I-- I understand that sports is life, and so ninth grade year, Clarke Central, ninth through twelfth, I'm in the streets at this point. And--

Breeding: What do you mean in the streets?

Ross: They call it gangs now, but I wasn't in a gang. I've always been a very humble person, so I'm very street savvy, but I knew the streets. I knew, you know, I'm from Rolling Ridge. I'm from, you know, I've been in every project in Athens, so I knew of my generation and what was going on. I kept heed to what was happening. So it was a lot of drugs. It was a lot of sex trade. It was a lot of-- Just abuse. It was just fighting. We didn't have guns, we had-- either fighting with your fist or you fighting with a bat and that's all we fought, you know, we were just fighting and fighting and fighting.

00:15:14Breeding: Just because you were different, when I say different you live in different--

00:15:21Ross: Sides of town

Breeding: Different sides of town. Yeah.

Ross: Yeah, it was always a Eastside versus W-estside rivalry. So, me and my crew, we were crews, it wasn't necessarily gangs. We were Westside Mob and Westside Mob was made up of, really, the basketball team like everybody, you know when you play ball you become a sisterhood or a brotherhood but inside that you have your own crew and so I had my own crew and in our crew we just we were you know, they call us too cute. We were somewhat thugs but pretty.(LAUGHTER)

Breeding: Pretty thugs.

Ross: Yeah, so you know we were different because even I remember a lot of times when we would travel and play they were like, "Y'all don't play. Y'all cheerleaders. Y'all can't play no basketball. Y'all look too good to play basketball." So it was always funny because they never thought that we were ballplayers, but we were just tough ballplayers and-- but the streets taught me a lot. And now, in my role, I'm glad I learned from the streets. And I say that is because the streets teach you how to survive. It teach you how to stay aware. But I took it different, I made sure I didn't keep the enslaved mentality that the streets will make you have.

00:16:53Breeding: So, uh, let me ask you, when you said you're glad it didn't make the slave mentality, are you saying, and I'm not going to put words in your mouth, but tell me if I'm on point or did I miss the point that once you're in that kind of life, it basically can frame your mind to say, this is all-- only thing for me. I can't go to this other point in life or other place in life or other position, maybe is the word I'm looking for, in life.

Ross: Yes.

Breeding: Is that what you're saying?

00:17:28Ross: Yeah. Coming from where I come from, now in the position that I'm in, it's like going back to Rolling Ridge. I go back there a lot, because I always feel like the reason, you know, even taking on a journey from elementary to middle to high school, I've always been a giver and no one, I've always felt like no one understood MyKeisha Ross. I'm a chameleon or I'm a mystery and what I really am is a humanitarian like I'm that person that if you getting picked on I'm gonna be that advocate or if you don't have I'm gonna give you clothes, if you don't have shoes I'm gonna be that one, and it didn't come with just politics, it came with my ancestors, it came with my grandmother Edna Bell, it came with my aunt Kathy Bell, who passed when I was in in middle school, and I am them I live their legacy.

00:18:28Breeding: Give me those names again, I want to make sure people heard what you said, the names again.

00:18:33Ross: Edna, my grandmother name is Edna Bell. It's a long name, but it's Edna Katie Ruth Jenkins Bell. Edna Katie Ruth Jenkins, and Ruth is from the Bible, and so she had the strength of Ruth, and my aunt is Kathy Bell, and my aunt Kathy was paralyzed from her waist down, so a lot of people would call her handicapped but she never accepted the word handicap because she could do what you could do but better, even as being paralyzed. So, it was always embedded in me that a woman can do just as much as a man, and my grandmother and my aunt was-- my grandmother was a lot like Jesus, like, she was doing his work she never had a job, she was a carpenter, she was she worked with her hands, so, I work with my hands I'm a giver. I opened up a distribution center, which is a thrift store, to give families an opportunity-- like growing up I didn't have, if you remember, I didn't have clothes, so I opened up a center to give people clothes that may not never see a Nike or Jordan or Versace or Gucci. It's free you know and I want people to understand that it's materialistics and it don't make you. I get the questions and even when I ran for mayor, every question in every interview was "Why do you wear what you wear?" And it was because I always wore hand-me-downs, and I never got a chance to wear a label because we never could afford it, and it's not about the label because I wear it, it doesn't wear me. So to teach people in this generation, the reason I wake up is to show them that you have to tap into your greatness now before it's too late, because you don't want your gifts to end up in the grave with you. So my journey from elementary, middle, and high school, I did graduate, 2006, and with people, I used to be ashamed to tell this part, but just two weeks ago I stopped being ashamed of it. I got my high school diploma, and what's the crazy part about it now in public schooling is standardized tests used to mean so much, that you know all we do is study for the high school graduation tests or the SATs or the ACTs, and so my senior year we had the high school graduation tests, and if anybody know me they know the story between me and my mom. It's not really good. But my mom has never, you know, she birthed me and I don't blame my mom anymore. I forgive my mom, but she's never stood up for me in anything. I've always stood up for myself, but I do remember my senior year, talking to my coach Johnson, and I went to her room and I was crying and I was like, "I got my high school test scores back." The high school graduation test. I made a 500 on every single exam. Science was my favorite subject, but I made a 499 three times. 499, 499, and 499. And I couldn't get past that one point. So I did not get that one point. My mom went to the Board of Education and spoke on my behalf of how important it was for me to walk across the stage, and that was the only good thing my mom has ever did for me and so I--

Breeding: Were you able to walk across the stage?

Ross: I was able to walk across the stage and I was able to get my diploma.

00:22:41Breeding: And let me tell those listeners maybe even during this generation but definitely in the future, high school a test were used often to determine a child's success or failure of having learned a material. I have taught students who ended up becoming inventors, being very successful in life and beyond high school, who could never get in the gifted program because of a test. And then, during the time period where tests, you had a high school graduation test, students could have all A's in the classroom, but not pass one of those tests, and not get the opportunity to march across the stage and let the world see them receive their diploma because, as Ms. Ross said, she missed it by one point. And I have actually advocated for probably some of your teammates, and I remember one young lady who did what I thought was, looking at it now, almost impossible. She had a child when she was in the 9th grade, she wanted to play basketball. She would take the child to the sitter at like 5 in the morning, go to class, go to practice, pick up the child and she went through that for almost three years. In fact, the basketball team who my daughter was on literally adopted the baby. So, you know, kids would be taking care of the baby while they're practicing. And they did not, they told this young lady, in fact, she was up for a scholarship. And they gave her the choice of taking the course during the summer and not walking with your class, or walk with your class, and you can't take that class during the summer. And that would determine, basically, you receive a scholarship if you do it our way. If you do it your way, you will not be in a position to receive a scholarship.

00:25:08Ross: Yeah.

00:25:09Breeding: So that is how important they made that. Now since then, the high school graduation test does not have a factor, as far as a person walking across the stage, and walking across the stage to Black people was basically for everybody, the child, the parent, or who have you, that was like, "Hey, my child has accomplished something." So I, sorry for that interruption, but I wanted people who were listening to understand the importance of what you were saying or the impact. Go ahead, continue please.

00:25:44Ross: Yeah, so that's the truth that I, I was ashamed of for many years and it was like, well, you got your diploma, but you got it based off of this. And then at years after, years after my son was like eight at this time, they started, they got a new superintendent and the superintendent started doing some new qualifications to where they were sending all of my generation, literally '05, '06, '07, '08, you got your diplomas in the mail, even if you didn't pass the graduation test. So it was so much stress on us to pass it, and so after high school, I went to Middle Georgia College in Cochran, Georgia. And thinking that I'm going to have this new start, new journey, and get out of Athens and just finally play basketball. So I went, started a new life, paid for it out of my pocket through all the working I had done from sixth grade. And I got up there and the whole Clarke Central was there. So it wasn't really as fun as I thought it was gonna be, cause I was like, dang, I thought I was leaving Athens. And all of my classmates, literally, all of the popular kids that we considered popular from-- who didn't get a D1 scholarship or even a D2 went to Middle Georgia cause that was the easiest school that we could get to go on to higher education. And so my plans were to go to Middle Georgia, get a walk on scholarship, and then go to Valdosta. And from Valdosta, I was gonna see. But my first year, I got pregnant with my son. And my mom told me, well, if you was not raped or anything, you had to keep them, and I could not get an abortion. But I got that walk-on scholarship. So it was a choice between my son or the love of my life. And I chose my son. And I resented that for a long time because--

00:28:09Breeding: And the love of your life was basketball.

Ross: Basketball.

Breeding: All right, continue.

00:28:13Ross: So, in my book, it does describe a letter that I had to forgive myself as well as forgive, you know, my son and everything, 'cause he knew not what he had done.

Breeding: Or had not done.

Ross: Had not done.

Breeding: Okay.

Ross: He didn't do anything. But the love of my life was always basketball, and basketball saved my life, so I would work my butt off every single day. I stayed in the dorm. I stayed across the street in the dorm from the girls' basketball team. So when they got up to go to practice, I went to practice. When they were fooling around, I was in the gym. Literally, I made my money by playing the boys' basketball team. Some of my Athens—

00:29:03Feasyt Breeding: Oh, now what do you mean by that, playing the boys' basketball team?

00:29:05Ross: We would bet. They were like, "I bet you can't beat her." And so how I made my money in college, because I didn't have a job and I had to pay my own way, was some of the guys that knew I played in Clarke Central, we all was in school together. So they would bet the college team that they couldn't beat me, and by this time, I had enhanced over the summer, because I was trying to get the scholarship. So my skills had just enhanced and I was in the gym every morning at 5 a.m. to, I went to class and then I would go back to the gym. So they were seeing me just study the game and study the game. In high school I didn't have a three-point shot. In college I did. So everything was developing and I would play the guys for $50 to be able to pay for whatever my supplies and it was either lose or win. So I won. I went undefeated for a long time, in college, and then I did tattoos. So people at that time I would stencil their tattoo so that they can go to Macon and get their tattoo done. So that was how I hustled to make the money for college because I didn't have a job. But college was fun. I didn't get the full experience after finding out I was pregnant because even when I got to that to the fourth trimester, I didn't want to have my son in Cochran, I didn't want him to grow up and be like I was born in Cochran. So I came back to Athens and that might have been the worst decision I could have made. Yeah that was definitely a bad decision.

00:30:56Breeding: At this point in time, that's the way you see it?

00:30:58Ross: Yeah, I feel like I could have stayed exploring on my own. When I came back, it was, you know, it was downhill. I was homeless. Me and my son was homeless. My mom put us out. So it was like, I was homeless for like two years with a brand new baby. And I was, I call it couch surfing from the supporters that I had, because remember, we're not from Georgia. So all of my family's Cleveland, Ohio, Little Rock, Arkansas, Mississippi. So none of them are in Georgia. So I didn't have nowhere to go. So it was like one of the worst decisions to make, was coming back to Athens.

00:31:49Breeding: Okay, and I say at this time, because knowing you, knowing the way you think or what I've heard come out of your mouth and watching you, there is no such thing as a final failure. It's this experience gonna make me stronger. So you continue. That's why I mean, you have the right to say that was a bad decision.

00:32:13Ross: It was definitely, it was a bad decision. But, you know, every season has its reason. And it, like you said, those failures help me understand that now I'm able to take that blueprint and create what success look like to me. So in my everyday life now, I make sure I don't go back to that point. But it also, I think people have to understand like the mental health in it. It's also a point to where trust is a factor because you don't know, you know, especially when you don't have that support system, you just don't know if it's going to work out for you sometimes and all you can have is hope. And I kind of felt out today that all we can have is hope. I'm battling with, you know, some health issues now, and I see that time was how I survived. So that's what helped me survive now.

00:33:22Breeding: Okay. And that's what I was wanting to hear you say, but I couldn't say for you.

00:33:28Ross: Yeah, so it's a lesson, but you don't want to keep having to go through those same lessons.

Breeding: Say that again.

Ross: Like, when did the lesson go be a different one?

00:33:45Breeding: Now, you can keep it going. I could start asking questions. I didn't want to change direction of what we were talking about. So, now you're back in Athens. Were you able to go back to school, or was that basically it for school?

00:33:58Ross: I tried to go back, several times. Every time I go back, it was like a brick wall. There was always something missing. I went and tried Piedmont, then I tried Athens Tech, and it's just trying to balance the whole mother, the navigation of mother and career with no support. It's always, and I feel like pretty much I'm learning that. I'm self-taught, but I'm more educated now than I've ever been in life and I read books. That's it. Like I read a book a day or my library is full of amazing books. So all I do now is read or I listen to audio or I listen to podcasts. So that's my schooling. Like I don't feel like you have to have that certification to make you qualified. I feel like experience is a qualification, and not only is experience a qualification, I feel like as long as you're doing the work, like in my situation in life now, like I've experienced a lot of the things I talk about. But I found a solution. So I don't want to be a problem, I want to be the solution. And so I have to go and research those things to be the solution versus just giving my opinion on, "This is my opinion." But I read every day. And I listen to some type of one-percenter, whether it's Eric Thomas or somebody, Les Brown or-- sorry, Zig Ziglar, those are the people that I listen to, Oprah, and they've taught me more than I feel like schooling have taught me. Yeah. They've--

00:36:13Breeding: You answered a question that I quite often ask young people who have figured certain things out, I won't say it all.

Ross: Right, right.

Breeding: And those are the people I target. Did the school system prepare you for life as it is now and where you plan to go? And since this is not my interview, I'm not going to give that, but--

Ross: That's a question you want me to answer?

Breeding: No, that's not a question. I think you've answered that.

00:36:48Ross: Oh, okay, because I was like, "Oo-wee, I can definitely let Clarke County, UGA know, no."

00:36:57Breeding: I get that quite a bit. I didn't want to say that, but yeah, that's all.

00:37:02Ross: And now I'm teaching my kids. My kids have school, but they have school when they have home. When they're at home, they're in school. So I'm homeschooling them for life skills, worth ethics, financial literacy, be what you want to be now because it's not too early, you know, so youth is life. Focus on that structure. We focus on, no, you can be who you want to be now. Start that generational wealth now because there's so many generational curses that you have to break along the way. So why not be you, you know, be authentic. Leaders are needed now. Mentors are needed now and they need examples. So they got to be their own example, you know. So what I'm teaching my kids now, even with conferences last week, I've talked to my teachers, my kids' teachers and told them I learned last year during my campaign that you can opt out of standardized testing. I did not know that because I would have been did it. Like my kids would not be taking standardized testing if I would have known that, but they don't want us to know because--

00:38:17Breeding: I'm learning that as a teacher, I saw our kids were literally punished for not, for not doing well on the test.

00:38:27Ross: And the teachers get punished for the standardized testing. Some teachers, and this is where I kind of try to draw the line because, even in the political realm, when I spoke about schools and politics in schools, I'm not talking about the teachers. I feel like it's just like being in law enforcement. When you're in law enforcement, and I work in law enforcement, I work in that courthouse, you don't see the sheriff department, the police department, the DA office, the ADAs, the judge, you don't see them in one area, nowhere, but in the courthouse. That's the only place they, they still ain't together then. But in the public school system, it's, it's like-- so the reason I use that example, because law enforcement can't talk about what they go through. Teachers can't talk about what they go through. It's like, not only is it students crying out for help, but the teachers are adults and they're crying out for help and they can't get the help. So I'm just like, I advocate for much success for both teachers and students, but my heart is with the youth. But it's still, as a coach, which is a form of teaching, I'm like, you know, sometimes you just got to stand your ground. And I've been saying this since I was a coach at Burney-Harris. So I went back to Burney-Harris to coach, and we went undefeated, and that's a whole 'nother situation. But when I was there, I still advocated. And when you're advocating, you have to have that sacrificial mindset that you're gonna lose something. You don't know what you're gonna lose, but if you advocating and you planting a seed to the youth, they gonna remember that. I remember y'all. I remember all the teachers that I loved because I communicate with them now. So y'all made that sacrifice for me to say, okay, this is the teacher that taught me this. And this is the teacher that I love. This is the-- even with Ms. Shell. She tell everybody I gave her a whole patch of gray hair, but she knew that I loved her as a teacher.

Breeding: Ms. Shell?

Ross: Vicki Shell. Yeah, and Miss Rambo, she knows that she was one of my favorite teachers. So the kids need somebody who's going to fight for them. And I ain't seeing it. I'm not. And now I'm getting, you know, certain calls to where you want to come and speak on this behalf. You want to, at the end of the day, what I have learned. And I'm a student in life. How can you break the system that's meant to hurt us? You can't break it. You've got to create a whole 'nother system. And it don't have to be a system. See, we're stuck on systems because everything in life is a system. But why do we have to create a trap? A system is a trap. So in my mindset is how can we create and this is a prime example and I love it because I asked this question last year. I said how can we get our kids out of the situation they in and me and I want to say another colleague of mine who was actually on the school board um she stopped and said "MyKeisha you can't break the system." I said "yes you can because you can create another one" but then I thought about it. Joy Village was just created. So how can we break our kids from the system? You save up the money and you get scholarships and you put our kids in that system.

00:42:24Breeding: Okay, stop for one second. For those who are listening, Joy Village is a Black school that was just started here in Athens, Georgia, and it advocates that it is for Black children. I actually went to the school's grand opening and there were other students other than Black students, But the administrator, Laura, what is?

00:42:58Ross: Laura Smothers.

00:42:59Breeding: Laura Smothers. Her interview can be seen also, because I did one with her, and she could explain the school. But that would be considered an alternative to public schools, where a lot of parents at this time are very disenchanted with the public school systems for one reason or another. Sorry for that interruption, would you continue? You were saying that save up.

Ross: Yeah, you--

Breeding: The community saves up and--

00:43:32Ross: Yeah, that's just like even we're talking about. And these are the same subjects, same sentimental. Affordable housing. I studied and I've researched and I've studied and I've been in seminars and meetings like, OK, why we ain't on affordable housing? OK. Well, while we ain't into putting our kids in the school, we have the resources. We have the non-profits that's scattered. However, we're ignored. We're ignored. They're going to keep funding the same programs. They're going to keep blocking the same people. So, in my solution, it was always, we are our worst enemies. We are, Black people are our biggest enemies. Like, we are our worst enemies.

Breeding: Why do you say that?

Ross: Because we are more so inferior of our own. We don't want to see each other. We're crabs in a bucket. Well, not me, but I'm just saying what I've seen as a 34-year-old woman. Here in Athens, I never, ever thought I would see the division, the turfs, the cliques, the rivalry in non-profits, like in the school district, in church. It's so divided that even me, as an adult, I can't say that, and I'm not talking about everybody, but it may take offense to it, but I can't say that I can go to a Black elder and say, "I need help. Can you direct me on what I should do?" It's not an each-one-teach-one. It's a, "Oh, well, who do you think you are that you should do this?" It should be a mentorship mentality. "Oh, this young adult or young lady or young man, they want to do this, so let me help them, not close the door on them." That's what we have here. We don't have collaboration, unity. I did a video the other day, "Where is the love?" We're looking for love, and we ain't got it. We ain't got it in the church. We ain't got it in the schools. We ain't got it in the workforce. We don't have it nowhere. As a 34-year-old woman, I just learned in my sabbatical, that my whole life, what I've been missing is nurturing and love. My family never gave it, and the community ain't giving it. What are our kids missing? What I've done four years of research and surveying this community is we're missing leadership and love. And that leadership, the leadership we have now, I got a lot of hate doing my campaign, but it's not leadership. It's not leadership. It's people that just decided, "Oh, well, I'm bored. I want to go do this." If we were led by leaders, we wouldn't be in the situation we were in.

00:46:55Breeding: So that statement, and you and I may disagree, but you and I have talked quite often. Now, I don't disagree with that statement. I agree with it. And I think a lot of times the question has to be asked, "Why?" In fact, if all the other questions were kicked out of the world of questions, my question would be, "Why?" And through life, if I can answer why, I can help-- It gives me a certain peace that the God force in me says, "Okay, this is what you need to do." So, the leadership, the youth leadership, the young people, I'm going to call young people between 20 and, how old are you?

Ross: Thirty-four.

Breeding: And 40. That leadership that we have here in Athens, I'm going to call it leadership because that's what they call themselves. What do you see the issue with them, or do you see an issue?

00:48:01Ross: Yeah, I definitely see an issue.

00:48:03Breeding: And the solution, you think. Go ahead.

00:48:06Ross: I see that there is an issue in the leadership, and the issue is--

Breeding: The youth leadership.

Ross: Youth leadership. For one, okay, this is my philosophy, and the way I can put this and word this is, they say "train a child up in the way he or she should go and they should not depart from thee". But what I'm learning is who said I was trained the right way? Okay. Who said my mama did it right? Who said her mama did it right? So now I'm having to deprogram myself and unlearn what I learned. So I said that because the young leadership, as in myself and a lot of other people here. Who said that we were trained the right way? We don't have those-- For example, I use myself. Okay, I'm a community outreach specialist. I call myself a walking resource hub. And that's because I did the work personally. I was homeless, so I had to gather those resources. I had to gather the information for affordable housing, all the resources for finances and EBT. I then went into work for the Neighborhood Prosperity Leaders, which provide resources. But you didn't get proper training. You were a person, if you had your own capacity, you go out and do what you knew how to do. I had to learn how to plan events. I had to learn how to put on concerts. I had to learn how to sell tickets and bring awareness through resource fairs and work with stakeholders that growing up, you afraid of, because you're seeing they're an authority, so-- How can you sit in the same room with this authority figure?

00:50:01Breeding: And you're talking about neighborhood leaders?

Ross: Neighborhood leaders.

00:50:04Breeding: Okay, go ahead.

Ross: So, one, we're, and this is something that MyKeisha Ross company, I have my creative consultant company now, and in there I help businesses develop in a creative way. How can they put the word out? How can they, how can they attract my generation to their company? So, my job is, as a freelancer, is to help you redevelop your content and gain access to followers, okay? But, in doing that, so as community outreach, I was never taught. How to be a campaign manager. I was never taught what outreach was. I just was doing it. I'm a giver. So I give to the less fortunate, because that's what my grandma said. You give, you receive. But no one ever taught me in the corporate world, in the school world. No one taught me that. So the training is not there. So us as leaders, what are we looking at? Like, what leader do I have to look at and say, "Oh, well, I want to be that person, so let me go to this training and get that training." Like, okay, I ran for mayor. What training can you set yourself up for to be in the political realm, whether it's commissioner, whether it's -- we don't have an outlet.

00:51:35Breeding: Well, let me ask you this. With the neighborhood leader, Is that, when you go to the top head of it, Black or white, the person who basically you report to?

Ross: Yes, you report to a white man.

Okay, do you think that may be part of the, not all of, but part of the, you know, it's a difference between being a good person and a qualified person. I will say this to help you understand what I'm trying to say. Okay. There was the job I was probably the best candidate for the job. It was the coaching job. I was the only one in that school, probably the only one in that district, meaning Clarke County School District, who met the criteria, if it was on a scale from 1 to 10, I was an 11. The person who got the job was actually a 4, if that.

00:52:48Ross: And probably a student of yours.

00:52:50Breeding: This one was not a student of mine, but the person who made that decision was a person I looked up to, a person I idolized. And There was a degree of, in my mind, and I think history shows this was his way of doing a lot of stuff, loyalty. I wasn't there with him a long time, but I was offered the tennis job. The only thing I know about tennis, a ball, a racket, and some line, they call it forecourt and backcourt. We might have had a Venus Williams in that school, and that person would know, And then the other job I was offered was the golfing job. Ball and I can name you got a putter and yeah, so you get my point. Yeah, so I am a good person Yeah but I Also had respect enough for myself and those students That no, I can't take this job. Yeah, you will have kept my salary the same. Yeah Yes, I would have had something to do. So I'm gonna go back to the neighborhood Leader and I don't want you to criticize anyone if you Don't want to But quite often I see buddy buddy systems and they are not putting people in the place that can-- They'll do enough to help you get by, but to be great, because I know some neighborhood leaders who are good people, hard workers, but if they don't have the knowledge to function, they got to learn it on their own, and that in itself, some positions, you know, artists can learn on their own, but if you're a neighborhood leader dealing with people you can't relate to, and if I'm saying something wrong, I'm not trying to put stuff in your head. So comment on that for me.

00:55:00Ross: Okay, yeah, and then I have to go get my son. So Neighborhood Leaders was created through the prosperity packet of the 4.5, I want to say, million dollars that the city had. And the commissioners chose Chose, do I say name, or hold a name, or, well, Clarke County has-

00:55:28Breeding: Well, let me ask you this, since we're going to be cut for time, there's another couple of situations. If you were selecting a person that you were going to report to when you first started the job, knowing there were limitations on what you could do, that you knew how to do at that time, would you have chosen that person?

Ross: No.

Breeding: Okay. I'm going to move on from there.

00:55:57Ross: Yeah. Like, I mean, just real quickly, like that's the issue, the leadership. So the person that's the executive director, I told the city manager, I told the mayor, I told the commissioners, and I've said this to the _Flagpole_, she don't need to be the executive director. She don't have leadership skills. She have pastoral skills, but that don't mix. Like, so she should not be that person, but the person above her, like, because Y'all are all close in proximity as far as you, the mayor, and the city manager. You shouldn't have gotten that money and You got it not on the RF-- RFP, but you got it on a MOU. But everybody else--

Breeding: RFP, MOU, what does it mean?

Ross: So, proposals. So when you do that large amount of money, you're supposed to have RFP.

Breeding: RFP?

Ross: Yeah, so he didn't have that. He had a MOU. A MOU is what I do with UGA when they want to collaborate with me and UTA's Life and we do study and tutoring for the kids and they get Skypings and stuff.

00:57:02Breeding: So it sound like you're saying the buddy system is in place.

00:57:05Ross: That's what it is. It's all of that. Athens Land Trust, buddy system. They $3 million sitting there since 2007. Nobody knows about it for youth, but they got it. Now they asking for more money. Athens Land Trust get the most money in Athens every year, if you check our finances. So it's a buddy system, you know, Boys and Girls Club, they get the money. So it, and--

00:57:32Breeding: So are there other organizations out there?

Ross: Yeah.

Breeding: Who, I'm not gonna use the words that are superior, but. Is this a Black, white thing?

Ross: Oh yeah.

Breeding: Okay, that's what I wanted to get to ask.

00:57:47Ross: Yeah, it's that and it's cahoots. Like the situation that happened with the commission, that ain't new. That's the third time that that happened. The texting and -Mariah resigning.

00:58:01Breeding: -Mariah Parker resigning and appearing that Mariah, uh-- -Melissa Link. -Melissa Link, Jesse Hall, and the mayor were, according to, uh-- The e-mails, this information is coming from e-mails that were sent by three of those people. The mayor was not involved in that e-mail, but the content of the e-mails did say he gave a blueprint to, I call it, --They were trying to control how the election, when the election would be, by Mariah Parker resigning at a specific time, and that is well documented in the city, um-- Public records. Public records and county, um, commissional meeting, of two weeks ago.

00:59:05Ross: Yeah. And I think people need to, and this is not what they, this goes back to leadership training and awareness. Studying for mayor was-- A lot, but I did it, you know, and even with running, I told them I didn't have opponents, I didn't have any opponents, I didn't have challengers because I was in the learning phase. I'm a student of life. But the things that I learned that the commission do, that this city does-- It's not right. That's why we're so far behind. And so when people, for example, just to give a brief example, commissioners cannot meet-- If it's two commissioners and they're having a meeting, that's illegal.

Breeding: With the developer.

Ross: Right. And even so, when you have a special action meeting and you know about it and you call it 24 hours in advance, that's illegal. You cannot do that. So if we're going on a trip and the commissioners are a part of this trip and it's two commissioners in the car and it's two other employees, they cannot have a meeting.

01:00:21Breeding: Now, is the number two, I do know when you get there's a certain number for a quorum.

Ross: Exactly.

Breeding: And that number is not two, is it?

Ross: It's not two.

Breeding: So two could, but if there's enough to form a quorum.

01:00:35Ross: If it's enough to form a quorum, but those two people cannot meet about a gender assignment. Okay, okay. So our commission is all illegal, but they do this all the time. Why? Because once again, let's go back to and that's why we talk about this all day. But the neighborhood leaders, the prosperity leaders are many commissioners. People don't know that. But none of them has a hub. Where do the commissioners meet? Do anybody know the answer to that question? Do they have an office? They don't have an office.

Breeding: I've heard, but that's a rumor.

Ross: You know, they all work in remote. So you don't know what they're doing. You don't know what they're conspiring in. So when all of that was brought to. So my campaign manager, he's very wise, he's a chess player. And when he was pointing out all these things, it was like, okay, take it back. And I had to take the trips with them. So I was in the car with the mayor and commissioners as they were discussing the money that was released this summer for youth development. Was I supposed to be in their meeting? No. So they do a lot of illegal stuff. This ain't the first time. So that's why I'm just like, okay, I'm not shocked because they always do this. But when is enough enough for the city? When is enough gonna be enough with the leadership of Blaine Williams? But I was wrong in other people's eyes. Blaine is our reason we're so far behind. The mayor don't make our decisions. He has to last say so. So that's why it's a lot of opinionated things that I could have said or said it the right way. But When you sit down and you're studying in these books about the city, the city manager is who we need to contact for a lot of things. Because we can all rule it, but him and the attorney say yes or no.

Breeding: So what can the mayor say?

Ross: He can say what he wants to say, but if the city manager doesn't agree to it, if it's not in his budget, it ain't going to get agreed to. So that's why my, the reason I ran for mayor was to get the city manager out. Because once I discovered that the city manager-- I call certain things certain things and sometimes to remove things you got to you have to remove certain people that's like on the chess you got to get the Queen out, you know, and he is the Queen on the chessboard so he needs to be removed but no one's looking at it like that they thinking that this little circle means something that circle don't mean so this is the circle that means something you need to know the relationships we need to know the financials and the financials all in with Blaine. That's what's holding this city back.

01:03:42Breeding: Now I know you had to go, but I want to ask you one last question. Well, two, but one of them you've already thought about it, I'm sure, and it probably would be easy for you to answer. But the other, we were talking about the younger generation of leadership, the older generation, and as you and I have talked, my belief is that you do have older people who are olders, not elders, and they need to get out the way. I look at my job as an older person, an elder, to say, OK, it's their time now, but I do need to give them information. Now, one of the problems I think you and I are in agreement with, some of the younger generation, I said 25 to 40, got things figured out, and they're going to do it regardless of what they hear. But my thing, I'll use an example just about you and I, if I may permit, I was encouraging you not to run for mayor at this point in time. I gave you one reason that really I probably wouldn't have listened to, but I do think it's a fact, splitting the vote. But another one, you have pretty much verified to me a lot of things that are happening. Everybody wants you to speak. You're getting to know people outside of your circle. And I think in order to run a campaign, in order to win, you have to lay the groundwork. And that's something I didn't see. But now you're telling me that your goal wasn't so much to win. Is that what I'm hearing?

01:05:29Ross: Yeah, my goal was to, for one, show people that you can do anything you put your mind to it. Even I have to. And I know a lot of times, and I'm going to say this, we don't give the credit to what credit is due because people put, you know, the separation between religion. But, it was an assignment from my spiritual father to do it. And I say that deeply because during my campaign, it was a tear. Because I do suffer from church hurt, and because of my lifestyle, I suffer from church hurt. But God, truth be told, was the main reason I did that assignment. And in that assignment, God was my everything. He was my supplier. Whatever I drew, I had. And it's about manifestation. With my clothes, I drew it before my campaign. So when my campaign came, this person from nowhere came and was donating clothes and food and everything that I had. It wasn't about the money. It was because God told me to do it. So he supplied it. But I didn't know it. It came so fast, so quick. What I thought I was prepared for, I wasn't prepared for. So at the same time, it was a learning curve, but it was also-- The fact that I did it to show people that you can do anything you want to do with a high school diploma or even without a degree. You can still-- It ain't even got to be so much for politics, but it was to show them stand up for what you believe in, you know, advocate for your culture, for your community. The other thing was to get Blaine out of office because he's been there 12 years. And like you're saying, it's like track past the baton. Like, I met, I did a tour of mayors during my campaign. I met every mayor in the Western Circuit, and most of them gave their reason why they ran and why they're in their position, and a lot of them said at this time, I would cut off. Most people know at the eight year or even the 12, it's time to go. He's at his 12, why is he still there? Why aren't we looking into it? We have a new assistant city manager, but who is he? Where did he come from? He's Black, but is he for the Black people? So, I just think if we get out of this cliquish mentality here in Athens, and sit down as a community and everybody say, I look at the at the world in it. I'm a visionary. And sometimes when you are visionary, well, most of the time, if you are visionary, you have these big visions that no one going to think is possible, and that's okay. So I'm okay with people not believing in what I see. But it's also I'm an innovator. So I create new. But so these old traditional ways, they're not going to work for our new generation. So it's going to take people to take the time and sit down and say this is what work. Because we didn't did it in law enforcement and we didn't get the I put together the event was working was not. They all came together. And that's my dream is to bring unity into the community. And that's my slogan. You know, unity is key, but it's going to take people to actually unify.

01:09:10Breeding: OK. And my last question. Did you look in the mirror today?

01:09:18Ross: I did.

01:09:19Breeding: Okay. Tomorrow when you look in the mirror, and you look in there, and you don't see the image you saw today, you see 12 kids looking back at you, what advice would you give them?

01:09:41Ross: I would say, never give up.

01:09:49Breeding: Okay, well, I want to again thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. And so many years from now, people won't have to wonder who MyKeisha Ross was. They'll know from her own words. Thank you again.

01:10:10Ross: Thank you so much for this opportunity. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END