Today we’d like to introduce you to Horace Ryans III.
Horace, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I had no idea I would be in Atlanta for College. I had every reason to stay home in Philadelphia; my family, friends, and entire was built around a career in teaching in the school system I grew up in. I first visited Morehouse in 2018 and witnessed one of the most spectacular displays of Black male excellence I had ever seen. The day I visited coincidently was Founders Day–February 14th–and so my first exposure to what Morehouse had to offer was everything I needed to become the man I wanted to be. But that’s just how I got to Morehouse. I ended up receiving a full scholarship to attend the school that changed my life.
How I got to where I am today is a different story. But I’ll sum it up like this: I did everything I said I was going to do. I came into Morehouse very confused. I wasn’t 100% sure what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be, which is expected of an 18-year-old moving 600 miles away from home. Morehouse, for me, was where the best of the best went to be “normal.” By this I mean, that if I am surrounded by young men who excel in everything that they do, and so do I, then our collective best efforts are just normal. And I was okay with that. It took me until my senior year to understand that truth though.
But in the four years I spent trying to figure that out, I have done some pretty cool things: I joined the greatest fraternity on the planet, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, which had been a lifelong dream of mine. I have traveled across the country to represent Morehouse College at ASU x GSV, the premier education technology conference in San Diego, California. I have spoken at conferences back home in Philadelphia about the crucial nature of HBCUs in developing Black educators. I have represented myself and Morehouse on Capitol Hill as an HBCU White House scholar. I’ve co-founded PropelU, a community service and mentorship organization focused on providing high school students with the tools to advance socially and professionally.
I was chosen as a Presidential Ambassador for the President of Morehouse College and served as a Student Ambassador for the last four years. Even as a student, I became an undergraduate researcher for the Education department and was chosen as UNCF Mellon Mays Fellow, UC-HBCU Fellow, and have had the honor of teaching Sociology courses to high schools across the country, (virtually of course.) Not only that but every summer, I get to do what I love: teaching.
These experiences have given me the experience to figure out what I love to do, and what I would stay away from. I could continue to list the things I have done but I don’t think that’s important. I think now, as I plan to matriculate out of Morehouse, I get to look back and believe I have done all that I wanted, and that I can go wherever I want to because I have proven that I can do my job well.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There have been challenges along the way. I was extremely unsure of myself up until I got to my senior year. I thought I wanted to only be a teacher, to be inside the classroom and teach the curriculum that someone else made for me.
But all the things that I’ve done gave me a wider lens to look through because otherwise, I would’ve stuck with a dream that partially wasn’t even mine to begin with. Often because I was so unsure of what I wanted to do; I did everything. I had a very big problem, saying no. I wanted to find a way to make sure that I did everything I could do to put myself in the best position to be successful when in reality, I was already successful.
I spent a lot of my time ruminating on how I could be better, and not enough time praising myself for how far I had come. At this point, the struggle that I’m faced with now is deciding where I want to go (which I believe is a very good problem to have). I have so many interests and passions, but now I have to wrestle with what is it that I care about. What will I devote my life to?
Another struggle that I feel like I don’t talk about enough is the fact that there was never enough time in the day to do everything if you saw my calendar, and people say that it hurts their eyes to look at, I would try to fit so many things into every single minute of every single day. It wasn’t healthy, and it was even less realistic to even try and do all that.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Right now, I consider myself an undergraduate researcher in the sociology of education. I think I’m too young to say it is my specialty, but it is something that I truly love to talk about. If you ask anyone who knows me, I’m known for my work in this area, specifically, and for speaking out about issues that pertain to the quality of black education in the United States. I am most proud of the efforts, I put into writing, researching, to learning more about this topic, because it is truly something that I could talk about for hours on end.
Furthermore, as a young person who has been put in front of thousands of people to talk about the same issues, I have to sit back sometimes, and be proud of myself for being able to stand up for issues that matter to me. I don’t think I like being apart from others and I don’t think that I am. The work I do is done in communities, the writing I do is never done in isolation, and I also recognize that the work I do is part of a greater good. But if I did have to set me apart, it would be how hard I work, and how much I care about this particular topic.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I’m from Philly, and so I’ll never really say that I dislike Atlanta, but it will never be better than my home. This is a fact that there is so much room for opportunity in every single sector.
Not only is it being it the home to so many premier, universities and colleges, but it is also historically one of the cities with the best opportunity for black and brown people I think that is beautiful.
Atlanta has given me so much too so much so that I still think I have not gotten an experience. What I like least about the city, we have to be in the traffic, and I don’t even drive.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/h.ryans.iii/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/horaceryansiii?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_contact_details%3BGq%2FpbuisSxudtMZJtvNMdA%3D%3D
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/horace_iii93971
