Lisette’s Take: “I wanted to talk with him because he’s one of the preeminent thought leaders in education. He understands the equity issues that are out there. He’s a fierce advocate for public education. He leads the largest public university. Just really exciting.” To hear all episodes and learn more about Lisette Nieves, visit Lisette-Nieves.com
John B. King Jr. is the Chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), the nation's largest public higher education system. Previously, he served as the 10th U.S. Secretary of Education under President Obama, and as the President of The Education Trust, a nonprofit focusing on equity in education. His trailblazing career also includes serving as NY State Education Commissioner, the first African American and Puerto Rican in the role. He comes from a home where learning was valued, both his parents were public school educators in Brooklyn, NY.
Lisette Nieves: Hi, everyone. Welcome to The Junction Podcast. I'm Lisette Nieves, and today we have an incredible guest, Dr. John B. King Jr. who's the chancellor of the State University of New York University system.
We're so excited about that. And I just want you to know a few things about John that I think is important. Dr. King is the chancellor of SUNY, as we said. He was the 10th Secretary of Education under President Obama. In his trailblazing career, served as the New York State Education Commissioner. He was the first African American and Puerto Rican in the role. So think about that. He has made history. He comes from a home where learning was valued. He's open about the incredible challenges he had growing up, and yet how resilient and how optimistic he is about the future.
So I just want to start real quick, why I wanted to talk with you today was because you're one of the preeminent leaders, thought leaders in education. You understand the equity issues that are out there. You are a fierce advocate for public education. You lead the largest public university. Just really exciting. You see what government is doing in trying to dismantle access, and you have been diligent in your response to make sure that public education is central and accessible. So I've got a quick icebreaker for you. Ready?
Chancellor John B. King:
Okay, sounds good. I'm excited for the conversation.
Nieves: All right. So the first question for you is, what are you looking forward to doing this weekend?
King: Oh. Well, several fun things. We are inaugurating our new Stony Brook University president. So I'll speak at that inauguration tomorrow morning. And then I will head up to Albany for the Gala for Somos weekend, that Puerto Rican and Hispanic task force the legislature puts together. And then on Sunday, I think we're having breakfast with my daughter who goes to school not far from Albany. And then I'm going over to the Assembly Chamber. There is a program that allows high school students, the Puerto Rican Youth Legislative Initiative, that allows high school students to be in the assembly chamber doing a mock assembly session. And every year I try to go and speak at the start of that mock assembly session. So I will do that on Sunday.
So it's a busy weekend, but lots of good stuff.
Nieves: I love that. I love that. So let's go right into, Chancellor. Both your parents were educators and you wrote about this in your book, but it would be great for listeners to just hear you kind of walk us through, what did that tell you about education and how did it influence your path in education?
King: Yeah, both my parents spent their whole careers working for the New York City public schools. My father was African American, grew up just after the turn of the 20th century in a very segregated New York City, and saw a pathway to opportunity through education and becoming an educator. He ended up being a teacher, administrator at the school and then district level. He was very passionate about educational excellence and demanding the best of students and loved teachers and was always encouraging folks in our family to become teachers.
My mom was born in Puerto Rico, in Ponce, came to New York as a kid with her mother. My grandmother, who was then a single mom with two kids, she came to the Bronx in the early 1940s. My mother learned English in the New York City public schools, went to Hunter College in the CUNY system and was the first in her family to graduate from college. My grandmother worked in a garment factory and seeing my mom graduate from college was her dream. And my mom really instilled in me this idea that school was a place of nurturing and support. She was, actually, my mom was a teacher and a guidance counselor. She was the guidance counselor in my elementary school at PS 276 in Canarsie. So, school was really an extension of family in a way for both of my parents. So they were very passionate about school. They both, as you know, they both passed away when I was a kid.
Nieves: Yes.
King: My mom when I was eight, my dad when I was 12. And in the period when it was just my dad and me, my dad was very sick with Alzheimer's. So home was really unstable and scary. So I'm very fortunate that I had those early experiences with my parents, instilled in me this love of school. And then school really took on this outsized role where PS276 in Canarsie and Mark Twain Junior High School in Coney Island saved my life. And they were the places that were consistent and structured and nurturing and supportive and loving and challenging and interesting during a period when home was extraordinarily difficult. So I always think it's interesting that my parents were so committed to New York City public schools, but they couldn't have known how much of a difference New York City public schools would end up making in my life.
Nieves: Yeah. And I thank you for always being so open about this story, because I do believe that it is functionally the second or third pillar for a lot of young people and how you speak about it is really powerful. You also talked about, in particular I'm thinking about school, one of the things I remember that I love, John, as you always say, you believe you were the only chancellor and secretary of education that was actually kicked out of high school, right?
King: Mm-hmm.
Nieves: Talk a little bit about that, because there were all these assumptions of this linear path around achievement. And I just love that you really show people how robust and up and down it is. And so, let's hear about that.
King: Sure, sure. Yeah. So during those years when it was just my dad and me, school was such a safe haven and I just had great New York City public school teachers, gave me a sense of hope and purpose. After my dad passed, I moved around different family members, different schools. And even though I still love the academic side of school, I was angry at adults. I was angry at the things I was exposed to as a kid.
Nieves: You were let down by adults. Yeah.
King: Yeah.
Nieves: It's okay. It's okay to say it. Yes.
King: Yeah. Yeah. And it made me question adult authority, because adults had failed me in some ways. And so, I got in a lot of trouble. I just ignored the rules. And I think in some ways, schools have strategies for kids who are struggling in everything. I was doing fine academically, but I was really struggling socio-emotionally. And the school I was at did not have supports for me, so a boarding school. And I just kept getting in trouble, kept ignoring the rules, and eventually got kicked out. And at that point, my life could have gone in a lot of different directions. Folks could have said, "Here's a Black Latino male, family in crisis, no respect for authority. What chance does he have?" And written me off. And we know that happens for so many young people.
Nieves: So many, yes.
King: But I was very lucky that I had an aunt and uncle who took me in, and teachers and a school counselor at a public high school in Southern New Jersey who gave me a second chance and were willing to see me as more than the sum of my mistakes. And they invested in me, helped me get my life on track, helped me get to college, helped me rethink how I even thought about what my own future would be. And it was such a blessing. And it was another time that public education stepped in and saved my life.
Nieves: Yeah. And I think when I think about that story, I think so much about young people today and how often just having room for another context to show up differently, just how important that is, right? Whatever that environment is, that we really, versus assuming they will be the same in every context, just keep exposing them to other contexts.
King: That's right.
Nieves: There's so many things we could talk about. You started as a social studies teacher. Well, there has been a few executive orders, hasn't there? Yeah, haven't there been? And I just want you to kind of walk through what are humanities teachers facing right now, and how should we be looking at history? And just ground us in some context of what's happening and what I think of your education origin as a professional.
King: Yeah. I mean, look, it's a terrifying moment where you have the federal government and some states really attacking the notion of truth in our study of our history. The reality is American history is complicated. It is undoubtedly a story about the ambitions of the American Revolution. It's a story about the profound wisdom of the Constitution. It's a story about building and innovation, but it is also a story of slavery and taking the land of Native Americans.
Nieves: Exploitation.
King: The story of exploitation of various immigrant groups, periods of intense nativism, the story of segregation, the story of inequality. Those stories are both true and they're bound up together. And certainly as a teacher, I always thought it was important to help students grapple with those tensions in our history, in our country, in our present. And now you have this effort in the federal government to try to erase some of that, to pretend that those things didn't happen, to frame telling those true stories about our history as somehow unpatriotic.
When in fact, to me, the highest patriotism is to grapple with our hopes and the struggles of our country's history. You have states that are saying, "Don't teach about slavery. Don't teach about Harriet Tubman. Don't teach about the Civil Rights movement. Don't teach about Stonewall and the effort to expand rights for LGBTQ folks."
Nieves: Or the Suffragettes, right?
King: Or the Suffragettes or the fact that there was a time in this country where women couldn't own property in many places, right? So there's this unwillingness to be truthful and to be nuanced as we talk about our history, so much so that you have teachers who are scared. And it's not just in history, it's also the English teacher who maybe is scared to teach Toni Morrison, because they'll be told that that's not allowable or appropriate.
You have these horrible stories of superintendents going into the library, the school library at night under the cover of darkness to try to take books off the shelves for fear that those books will be implicated in some book-banning effort at the school board level or at the state legislative level. It's terrifying. So I'm very worried. I'm worried that we're going to have a generation of Americans who are going to be undereducated, and I'm worried that this is undermining the health of our multicultural democracy.
Nieves: Amen. Amen to that. When we think about it, especially as a high school social studies teacher, which you were, that's the height of moral development for young people, right? This is what we should be saying, that this is when you need to be grappling, right?
There's a story that some people know, but not everyone knows. And I love this about you, John. If you could walk us through something, when I think about juncture and the junction moments, like these are moments in your life where you're really different after it, you take a path. And when I was thinking of you, one of those was obviously not just when your parents passed away and how you had to make some decisions, but one was when you decided to really look up your genealogy.
King: Mm-hmm.
Nieves: And can you walk me through that and what that was like? Because that was... I can't forget that story. Walk me through that.
King: Yeah. It's an extraordinary journey. When I was serving secretary, I got invited to give the commencement address at University of Maryland Eastern Shore, where my grandmother graduated in 1894. And it took a while to figure out when I was going to actually give the talk, but I, in preparation for it, said, I really need to dig into family history a little more, understand how my grandmother came to be there. Was one of the first Black women to graduate from college in that era. I've got to better understand our family's journey, how she ended up in Eastern Shore.
Nieves: Yeah, how did that happen? Exactly. That's right.
King: So I started digging into our family history, and I had a friend whose mom is a librarian, and she had worked with someone who worked at the Schomburg, the part of the New York Public Library that focuses on African American history, and she connected us. And this genealogist at the Schomburg, who's then retired, said, "I'll help you with this project." So one night, I get an email from her, I'm sitting on the couch with my family, we're just watching TV, I get this email that says, "I found the place where your great-grandfather was enslaved." Great-grandfather,”
Nieves: Great-grandfather. Think about this. Oh my goodness.
King: That's not that far, right? "And not only that, the place is only about 25 miles from where you live," because at that time I was living in Silver Spring, Maryland. "And not only that, the cabin that your great-grandfather lived in as an enslaved person is still standing on the property. And not only that, the property is still owned by the family that are direct line descendants of the family that enslaved your family." So that was an incredible moment, because as an African American, you know there is this connection to the institution of slavery, but you don't necessarily think that you're going to know the place. And-
Nieves: And so often the place is in private land and private spaces that you don't have access to, right?
King: Yes, yes. So then that was the next question, what do we do with this information? Do you call ahead? Do you write a note? Do you send an email? How do you say to someone, "Hey, we have this complicated historical connection to each other, and I want to see this cabin."?
Nieves: That's right.
King: So my cousin, so we talked about it as a family, my cousin was visiting the Smithsonian African American History Museum, where they have a cabin that's preserved quarters of enslaved people. And she saw that and she was like, "I just have to see this place." So she drives out with her husband to the house, knocks on the door and says, "I'm Jan King Robinson and my people were enslaved here."
And it set in motion this incredible relationship that we've built with the Becker family. They were very welcoming. I've had this incredible opportunity to stand inside of the cabin that my great-grandfather and his family lived in as enslaved people. Cabin is not 30 feet from the main house, so you're deeply conscious of the intimacy and cruelty of the institution of slavery.
Had the opportunity to get to know this family, to have some hard conversations, because for them, it's also reckoning with their ancestors and what happened there on that property. But we've really built a wonderful relationship and I feel like it's a gift to know this place and for my daughters to have been inside of that cabin. And it is also, to me, a very hopeful statement about America, because my family went in three generations from enslaved in that cabin to serving in the cabinet of the first Black president.
Nieves: It's pretty amazing.
King: Pretty amazing.
Nieves: What was the John King before standing in the cabin and after standing in the cabin?
King: Maybe two things. One, such a deep appreciation for the fact that my existence is a product of the perseverance of my ancestors, their ability to live with faith in a future they could not see.
Nieves: That's right. Working towards something they could not benefit from.
King: That's right. Right. That's right. Their survival made my life, my family's life possible. That was a very profound thing to experience and to reflect on.
The other thing was maybe the even more intense devotion to making sure as a country we have the hard conversation, that we can't hide.
Nieves: No.
King: This is part of who we are and how we got here. And I've always believed that, but being in that cabin, seeing it...
Nieves: Yes. Feeling it.
King: Feeling it. Understanding that these were... Again, the cabin, I said 30 feet from the main house. These were two families living in the same physical space.
Nieves: Constantly surveilled. Right. Right, understanding.
King: The other, owning. We have to grapple with that and what that means. Yeah. So I'm very passionate about that and very committed, that at SUNY, we're going to continue to grapple with the truth of our history and we're not going to be deterred by the forces that are trying to take us away from that democracy building work.
Nieves: That's right. That's right. And that people want to engage in the discussion on both sides, right? So...
King: That's right.
Nieves: John, we got to talk about the junction moments, and particularly with genealogy, we got to talk about you going through high school, everything you went through growing up, but you also took a moment to stop and write it all, right? Why did you write a book? What was that process like? And then can you share the title so we can share that with our listeners?
King: Sure, sure. So the book is Teacher By Teacher, and what led me to write the book was really... Well, to be honest, I kind of resisted the idea of doing a book for a long time. People would say, "Oh, you should write a book." And I'd always say, "Oh, yeah, sure, sure, sure." But I didn't really want to do it. It was after the experience of exploring my family history and an article in the Washington Post about that, where a book agent reached out and said, "You should do a book." And I started thinking about, "Well, if I did a book, what would I want it to say?" And really, what I wanted to do is tell the story of the impact that teachers had in my life and these incredible teachers I've worked with over the course of my career, and to really try to lift up the foundational role that teachers play in our lives and in our democracy. And it was such a blessing. It was hard to make the time. It was hard to kind of go through some of the really dark periods of my job.
Nieves: You're revisiting all this trauma, I'm sure.
King: Yeah. Yeah, so that was very hard, but there have been so many blessings from the experience. One, I got to do this book tour where I got to spend time with teachers, including my fourth-grade teacher, Ellen Osra, teachers who had made such a huge difference in my life, who came to different events. And so, that was really amazing. I got to travel around the country and see former colleagues and former students who would come to events. That was such a blessing. I got to tell people about why they should think about becoming teachers.
And one of my hopes for the book is that it might spur a young person who's struggling to see that it could get better, but also spur a young person to think about a career as a teacher. So that has been really a wonderful blessing. And then, of course, my daughters read it and I feel like they knew some of the stories, but not all of the stories, and it was a way to pass on my journey and our family's journey to them, and that's really an incredible blessing. So I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to do it.
Nieves: John, always a pleasure talking to you. I remain inspired by your leadership. Thank you for making sure that there is opportunity for young people, social mobility, in public higher ed. And I'm going to leave it to you to close us out with whatever you'd want to say.
King: Well, I want to thank you, because you provide such a fantastic example, a career where you've always been passionate about education and the development of young people, but you've also always been really passionate about developing leaders and mentoring leaders and-
Nieves: Thank you.
King: ... Paying it forward. And I think about you and I think about you as an example of what it is to try to make a difference and also prepare the next generation of leaders to make a difference. And I thank you for investing in my leadership and being a mentor to me.
Nieves: Anytime.
King: And look forward to continuing to work together to prepare that next generation of leaders.
Nieves: Absolutely. Well, you know I'm in, so thank you. Have a great weekend. Appreciate your time.
King: Thank you. You too.
Credits: Thank you for listening!
At The Junction, we reflect on the moments that make us — with today’s most impactful leaders. The show was created and hosted by me, Lisette Nieves, and produced by LWC Studios.
This show is available everywhere you listen to podcasts, and on YouTube. I encourage you to share video and audio episodes by linking to them on social media, websites, and by sharing them in your online affinity groups. Our executive editor is Juleyka Lantigua. Michelle Baker is our senior producer. Alyson Rich and Cesar Ventura provided administrative support. CDM Studios is our live recording location. Our theme song is “La Juntura Cultural,” arranged by Randy Seriguchi, Jr. and D'Artanian Woodard, produced by Randy Seriguchi, Jr., and recorded by Farmacy Studio.
For more information and episode transcripts, visit Lisette-Nieves.com. If you’d like to reach out, please email us at Hello@LWCStudios.com.