00:00I meant it when I said that he did not make the crowd today, because he made it to the
00:04podium.
00:05Look right at me. That broken, starving kid who slept on that cold floor is me.
00:12I'm a single mother of three. Your dad abandoned us, and when that happened, I was left with no
00:19choice. We ended up in the streets. At that moment, I was just hoping for the best for my kids.
00:26As a kid, you don't really think much of it. You kind of understood the harsh reality of it. You
00:31learn to not really accept it, but you learn to, you know, just kind of move on and hope for
00:36more.
00:39We used to stay in our car having fun, playing music so they can dance, and just forget about
00:45their worries. During those times, it was just like very hard for me to focus in school. I'd had to
00:49worry about people calling me names, people saying this, that, making fun of me. We were still going
00:54through it, and then we switched schools to Whitney High School. I remember just like my mindset,
00:58really. I was like, hey, this is a brand new, fresh start. You know, why not take advantage of it?
01:03I saw the change with the help of the school. I started gaining courage for him as well,
01:09and I kept telling him that defeat is not an option, no matter what you go through.
01:14It was just my mindset. Become better as a man, whether it's in sports, whether it's in education.
01:19Just improve every day. When he finally told me he was selected to give that speech,
01:24my eyes really opened wide, and I asked him, are you sure? I was just in my room, just writing
01:30it
01:30down. I was thinking like, wait, I can talk about myself, but nobody will know until the end.
01:36Now tonight, I need to start off by dedicating this speech to a kid from my old school. A kid
01:42who
01:43should be putting on a cap and gown right now, but he did not get to celebrate with his class.
01:47He didn't
01:48make it to sit in the crowd with you tonight. This 13-year-old boy that I knew was starting
01:53off
01:53his freshman year. He started it off completely homeless. Now while everybody else went home to
01:58a warm house, he went to sleep on the freezing hard concrete floor. He did his homework squinting
02:04under a dim car light, and he went days without eating, just getting by on scraps. Now this kid
02:10told me that he walked into school with a 1.8 GPA, looking at everybody else, thinking to himself,
02:16when do I get home like all my friends? Every single day, this kid was torn apart. He got
02:22laughed at because of his clothes, the color of his skin, and the way he smelled. But nobody
02:28knew that he was going through any of this. Nobody knew that he didn't have a place to
02:31shower. People just laughed at him, writing him off as sorry, sad, and stupid. Now you see,
02:38when a kid is buried that deep in the dark, society expects the streets to just swallow them
02:43whole. And eventually they did. He vanished from that school. And if you were to ask about
02:50him today, they'd tell you that he was just another tragic statistic, another ghost. I'm
02:56telling you a story because I meant it when I said that he didn't get to celebrate with
03:00his class at that old school. I meant it when I said that he did not make the crowd today.
03:06Because he made it to the podium. Look right at me. That broke and starving kid who slept on that
03:25cold floor is me. I failed my first two years before transferring here to Whitney, but I fought
03:31back and I turned that 1.8 GPA into a 3.5. I'm not telling you guys a story to
03:42brag. I'm telling
03:43you because it brings me to my topic of failure. See, some people say that failure is you not
03:48passing a test or, you know, getting rejected by that one girl for Instagram. It's true. Or the old
03:55heads and the unks, it might tell you to look at a dictionary, but the dictionary doesn't know what
04:00it costs to survive in the dark. The absolute truth is the only person who has the power to
04:06define your failure is you. Now, Michael Jordan once said, I can accept failure. Everybody fails at
04:14something, but I can't accept not trying. Every single person in this graduating class has fought
04:20their own private battles in the dirt. Overcoming those failures is an exhausting, messy process,
04:26but we pushed through it together. Daniel Caesar said it perfectly when he sang, yes, I'm a mess,
04:32but I'm blessed to be stuck with you. I know ball. Yeah. Yep. We navigated the mess side by side,
04:40and I couldn't be more blessed to be stuck with this exact class today. Class of 2026,
04:46when life hands you a failure, don't fold. Let your aura be so undeniable that they have no choice
04:54but to respect the bounce back. To everyone who ever doubted me or laughed at me, thank you.
04:59You made me who I am today. Isley Beecham signing off.
05:04There was not a dry eye in the house. Was that beautiful? Was that a beautiful speech?
05:09I felt proud of him. Most people going through things like this sometimes set back or sick into
05:16depression. I'm so proud of him for the gentleman that he has become. I finished school. I'm looking
05:22for a job. I'm looking for housing. It still hasn't come through yet, but we are praying and trusting
05:29God that something will come through. There's a quote that if you can look up, you can get up. Regardless
05:33of what somebody says about you, what somebody thinks about you, you can still make it. My message
05:38that I hope people are getting is just like, you're going to fall in life. Life isn't perfect,
05:42but the thing is that you can always get back up. There's a brighter future. If you reach for it,
05:48you know, if you have the drive to, you know, to succeed, you will.
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