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My name is Ayisha Morgan Lee. I am 34 years old and I currently reside in the Hill District community. When I was younger I always thought I wanted to be a teacher and I really, really loved school. I enjoyed school, I can remember when school used to be cancelle, I would cry and I would get upset like why is school cancelled snow days, things like that. So much so that my parents gave me a classroom in my house, so I had like a full blown chalkboard, desk, tables, chairs, the whole nine yards and I say that because my parents always basically told me I could do anything I wanted. They never laughed at the idea that I wanted to have a classroom, that I was upstairs enjoying teaching, literally nobody who was there was nobody in the classroom, but I really enjoyed that. So I had a wonderful childhood.
We were very close family. My mom used to take me to her meetings all the time. She was always on boards here and so that’s how I learned about leadership and business and running a business. We used to travel a lot too, because her job took her around the country. So that was fun. So we always would travel and then I also remembered that because of my parents work schedule, I had a village that always kicked in. So no matter what my mom was out of town or my dad was late at work, there was always somebody there who would pick us up or make sure that our my hair was done before school. So yeah. I enjoyed my childhood.
I went to Saint Benedict the Moor School, which is still in the Hill District, but it’s in another building and the interesting thing about it is the building where Hill Dance Academy Theater, where I currently work, where HDAT is housed is at the school that I used to go to, so I went to Saint Benedict the Moor from K through 8th grade and then I also worked there literally every summer because remember I said I wanted to be a teacher and I love teaching, so I worked there every single summer helping teachers put together their decorations and their classrooms and all that kind of good stuff and then I wound up teaching at Saint Benedict the Moor School when I was in grad school. So now Saint Benedict the Moor School still exists, but it is 2 blocks down. They bought the old Robert L Vann School and so that’s where it’s housed now. So same school, but different building.
I went to Oakland Catholic High School. It is an all girls college preparatory high school and I absolutely love my four years there. I really liked being in an all girls environment. You never thought that you could not do anything, you weren’t distracted by the boys and I still have a very close relationship with Oakland Catholic now. I had a big challenge with math and I think that if my teachers at the time when I was younger presented it in a different way, I might not have been so fearful of it. I think sometimes it’s particularly when you are a girl in a school and you have the math and science and people see that you don’t like it. It’s kind of like, oh, it’s OK that they don’t like it. You still have to take it, at least for me, there wasn’t any encouragement of it and I think if somebody would have presented it to me in a different way than I would have grasped it in a different way, there were some things I couldn’t always get. Like, I have to do the math for certain things and I do the math, but there, I know there are better ways that I could probably be making it happen. If I wouldn’t have been so fearful of it.
I went on the the Black College Tour, which they don’t still have the one that I went on. I went on the Mary Elston College Tour where we went to 20 colleges in 10 days. That was a lot, but they do still have the Need College Tour. There’s also, I believe, the Sylvester Pace College tour. So I would take advantage of those. I went to Howard University in Washington, DC I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Dance from Howard University. To be on a black college campus is absolutely wonderful. I always knew I was going to go to an HBCU I just wasn’t sure which one, Howard happened to be at the time when I went was the only HBCU that has dance as a major. It feels like home. They have wonderful Homecomings, a wonderful environment. You learn about yourself. You learn about your history and then you could also stand out because when you get into the real world, you’re going to see everything and anything that is not going to always be of you or look like you and so it’s important to be nourished there and that during those four years.
My biggest inspiration is my mother. To this day we actually work side by side. She is our Development Director for Hill Dance Academy Theater and a lot of people find that interesting but that is literally my Ace Boon Koon right there. We enjoy working together. She inspires me because she never ever settles for anything less than the best or excellence, and she demands that, and not just for me, but everybody she encounters, no matter how old they are. You have to really be strong about who you are and figure out what your leadership style is and not worry about what other people say about you and then really figure out how to have girl empowerment with one another. I think that’s one of the things that we do as young girls and as women we tend to have this drama that we don’t need. We need to be able to empower one another and lift each other up
My advice for African American girls would be throughout the whole entire world, not just in terms of the Hill District would really be to believe in yourself and know that you can do anything that you put your mind to and to also always strive for excellence. Because I think particularly for black girls and girls of color, you have to be better than everybody else and you have to be able to believe that. and not settle for anything less than the best, and I think that’s very, very important. I think nowadays everybody’s embracing, you know, black girl magic, black Boy Joy, which is good because it’s really about each of us embracing one another and lifting one another up.