Just six days before George Floyd’s killing and the resulting call to action in our country, I became the executive director of one of the largest education nonprofits in North Texas — its second-ever woman and first-ever black commander in chief.

At the time, there were already two major crises facing our country, both disproportionately affecting the black and brown students in our classrooms: a pandemic that kept students with limited technology away from their teachers and peers indefinitely, and a financial crisis that threatened to rip out already fragile financial security.

And then, I turned to my black husband and 5-year-old son.

What would the world do with these black men I can’t live without?

I have an abundance of personal and professional success, yet still I’m a black person living in America, a wife who worries about her black husband’s safety when he leaves the house and a mom who worries about when society will decide her son is not just a cute preschooler but a threat.