Janelle Turnquest is a program manager senior analyst at Cigna in Houston and a 2018 Emory University graduate. The softball student-athlete majored in psychology with a minor in global health, culture, and society. Turnquest finished her career with 21 home runs and 108 runs batted in. She earned a master’s degree in management from the Wake Forest University School of Business in 2019.

The UAA “Conversations About Race and Racism” series seeks to lift the voices of people of color and recognize the challenges faced in both athletics and academics at the collegiate level. By sharing personal stories, we hope to elevate the conversation about race to raise awareness and bring about change.

Growing up in Predominantly White Schools

Turnquest was the only Black student in her elementary school and one of three African-Americans in a high school of 705 students. “With a lot of retrospection since then, I recognized why many comments didn’t feel right at the time,” she recognized. “When I was in the fourth grade, a Black man had been exposing himself at the local high school. When the teacher mentioned it, everyone in the class looked at me. I felt weird, but I wasn’t sure why at the time.”

That same year, Turnquest wanted an Asian-American friend of hers in the fifth grade to hang out with her. “Her mother looked at me and told her no in front of my face. We had lived in the same neighborhood for years,” It was not a defining moment, but when you consistently have this cup and have negative things poured into it, you become hyper-aware of racism and constantly on your guard,” she explained. “When we learned about slavery in school, which we skimmed over, I was very uncomfortable being the only Black student. I recall another African-American student being in my class my senior year and I no longer felt uncomfortable when racial topics came up. There was someone else there who knew what my experience was like and was there to hear it with me.”

READ FULL STORY: