"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand." ~ Woodrow Wilson

No one was more impoverished in his mindset than former president Woodrow Wilson. When prejudice wraps itself around your thoughts and worldview like a python, it's difficult to break loose. He was the President of the United States, yet he supported the Jim Crow system of de facto (culture/attitude) and de jure (law/politics) racism that fanned the flame of one of the most dangerous eras for African-American's in history. His support of the Ku Klux Klan reaped a harvest of "strange fruit" that broke the hearts of black mothers and the back of America.

I wonder what he would say if he knew that a young African-American woman was using the words that came from his mouth to empower others in her journey towards building a legacy, not only for African-Americans, but for humanity? Would he tell me that what he said was for Whites only? Would he protest my blog and burn a cross in my backyard?

I don't know...the man is dead. But what I do know is everything God has given me the grace to battle for has come because of my decision to stand on His promise and therefore fight against every form of opposition, both from within and without.

Woodrow Wilson didn't know me; my great-grandparents were adolescents when he was in office! Yet somehow the opposition he presented to my progenitors injected a warrior ethos and solidarity within their DNA that now courses through my own veins. In that sense, the legacy they left me has given me the right to take that racist president's words and use them as stepping stones to elevate my thinking and strategic actions to leave a legacy for the descendants to come.

In what ways have you used the opposition that has come against you to elevate to another level in your own mind and actions?