Your dreams matter. Your presences matter. And your worth will always matter. To me. And to the village who has joined us on this call today.
– Mike Browne, leader, advocate and community-builder in ECE

As part of the Exchange Fall Conference, Clearing Pathways to Leadership, Joy and Equity in ECE, participants were invited to write a letter of support to themselves as a young person.

Mike Browne, a writer, thinker and cultural critic, an activist and leader in ECE, has written for Exchange and supports the press as a Board member for Dimensions Foundation, the parent organization of Exchange. Mike wears many hats, but whatever role he is in, he is a human being of passion and presence. He shared this letter to his young self, with the community gathered together virtually, that day.

My message is to the inner boy in me – First of all, I love you. We don’t ever get to hear that from ourselves, as I talk to my inner Black boy and we certainly dont hear “i love you” enough from society. A society that will continue to impose upon us, the social, physical, spiritual restrictions that communicates to us, all the ways in which you “should” be. You should be like this. You should look like this. Black boys should act like this. You should just shut up and dribble. I’m here to remind you, and I say remind, because it aint nothing new, it might have just been forgotten, but your right, as a Black boy, as a Black king, is to be joyful, daring, imaginative, and all the words that Ms. Cortina my preschool teacher whispered to me. And that right isnt a right to be earned. it’s your birthright. Your dreams matter. Your presences matter. And your worth will always matter. To me. And to the village who has joined us on this call today.

Our deep gratitude to you, Mike, and to everyone who comes together to read, write, speak, and listen — to imagine and reimagine, as part of the Exchange community.