After a trip to a former slave plantation, Maryland mom and health equity advocate, April Wallace, recently confronted her conflicting feelings of being a black woman raising a black son in modern-day America.

The feelings the visit conjured up – like how it was only a few generations ago that her little boy would have been working the fields beneath his feet, not playing on them – forced her to think about how far black Americans have come since the days of slavery, and even the Civil Rights Era, but also how much more work our country needs to do.

Read April’s story to learn how we can work together to make America a truly equitable place to live today and for generations to come.