Black History Saved My Life with Ernest Crim III

Change The Narrative with JD Fuller

The man who says Black History Saved My Life and wrote a book about it is known as Mr. Ernest Crim III. He is a self-proclaimed Black History Advocate who is a native of the southside of Chicago and a product of the late 80's. Mr. Crim is a University of Illinois Urbana Champaign alumni who advocates for Black History, equity and justice as a speaker, cultural consultant, socio political commentator, cast member on the PBS documentary ‘Divided We Fall’, author of the Amazon best-seller, Black History Saved My Life, former City Council Candidate and high school social science instructor. Mr. Ernest Crim the third is a “must follow” on social media and we am so excited to share this space with him today,

What You Will Hear:

• Being raised in Chicago and perceptions
• Transition into the classroom and why Ernest left the school environment altogether.
• Transformative experience moving away for college
• Teaching and living what he talked about
• Positive reinforcement and mindset
• Ernest’s book Black History Saved My Life
• Parents. Creating environments outside of school to nurture blackness
• Hate crime that went viral
• Most racist experiences
• Internalized oppression

Quotes:

“They put us in those situations when we moved here as we left the south in search of safety and economic prosperity and it just forced us to make a way outta no way and we're still doing that now, despite all the negative press and publicity we get.”

“I took a black history course. And I think those two courses kind of encapsulate what I do now. I love journalism, I love writing, I love telling stories, and I love our history.”

“That's why there's violence and there's a lot of gang issues. It's because we are born into the situation and before we can even figure out what happens, the trauma keeps hitting us, so we're just trying to survive.”

“It was not about loving the profession, it was about loving our people.”

“Teaching is the only job where you can get in front of kids every single date and they have to be there.”

“When you say history saved your life, what it means is you found something in the past that gave you motivation to do great things moving forward.”

“We didn't have everything materially, but we were wealthy in terms of the love”

“My mom had to decide if she wanted me to go to a school that lacked resources that was all black or be bussed to a school that was all white and possibly deal with racial trauma.”

Mentioned

Instagram @ErnestCrimIII

Tik Tok @ErnestCrimIII

ErnestCrim.com

Mae Jemison

Quincy Jones