LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Some special guest speakers visited Frederick Douglass High School on Tuesday.
In an auditorium full of students, a panel of five Black men and women shared their experiences with education during segregation and desegregation in America.
They spoke to an auditorium full of students.
Helen Caise Wade hopes she's making an impact.
"We've made some change but not enough, and that's why I think all of us were here," she said.
All five panelists answered questions and shared some of their experiences with a room full of high school students.
"And they always told me, you can go and strive to be what you want to be, but you might run into some headaches," said Wade.
In 1955, at 16 years old, Wade was the first student to integrate into Fayette County Public Schools.
Wade then started college at UK, an experience she says nearly broke her. She finished college at Kentucky State University and then had a long career as a teacher.
"They have an opportunity, that they don't have to face some of the problems that we did," she said.
"I don't think I'll ever experience something that shocking in my life, in my education," said Dominique Higgins, a senior at Frederick Douglass.
Higgins is part of the Black Student Union, the group that organized the event.
"I feel a lot of emotions hearing all of their stories," she said. "And it makes me grateful, very humbled to be here today. Time has changed, but to know that my people have come from a struggle. They walked so we could run."
She'll be headed to college in the fall and she hopes to be eventually seen as a leader like the ones she listened to on Tuesday.
"I know that one day I will mean something to someone like they mean something to me today," Higgins said.
There was recently a scholarship developed and named in honor of Helen Caise Wade.
The scholarship is offered to assist students of color in Fayette County Public Schools to attend UK and study education.
