Grandfather Legacy: Leading Where Equity Meets Engineering

27 Jun 2025 · 1 min

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In this reflective excerpt, the speaker outlines two people they would like to have dinner with: a knowledgeable insider on Tupac dynamics and, more poignantly, their late maternal grandfather. The grandfather, who died before the speaker was born, owned a construction company, acquired roughly 100 acres of land in South Carolina/Georgia, and built the family church. While attempting to secure a school bus for the local community—so children wouldn’t have to walk to school—he faced violent intimidation from the Ku Klux Klan, which burned a cross in his yard. The speaker expresses a deep curiosity about how the grandfather achieved these feats, his motivations, and the broader impact of his actions on equity and community development.

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dynamics around Tupac that people don't know. So that would be the first person I would, I would have, um, dinner with. The second person would be my late maternal grandfather. He died before I was born. He had his own construction company and he purchased 100 acres of land. My mom's not sure how he was able to purchase 100 acres of land in South Carolina in the time in, in Georgia. And so really understand what did he do. Like, he built our family church. Um, the Klan came and burned a cross in the yard because he was working on getting a school bus for my mom for their community so the kids didn't have to walk to school. So they burned a cross in the yard. Like, what was it for him to be able to do though? Just don't