#GetaHeadStart: Darren Walker
[Music]
Darren Walker: I've always been passionate about the issues the Ford Foundation works on – education and human rights and civil rights. These are all things that matter to me in large part because of my own narrative and my own journey, which in many ways begins with Head Start.
I was raised by a single mother. I and my sister lived in the early 1960s in a small town in East Texas called Ames. What one in those days called “the colored community.” The scene is a little dirt road with a modest, shotgun shack and a woman approached my mother and me on the porch and told my mother about a new government program called Head Start.
I remember that I felt exhilarated by the process of learning to read, and it was something that I still remember to this day. My story of success and achievement was made possible in large part because of the head start I received.
I say at the Ford Foundation we are about hope. We're in the business of hope. Head Start is about hope. It's in the business of providing hope and opportunity to young, low-income, deserving children in America.
Narrator: For information about Head Start programs in your area, please visit acf.hhs.gov/HeadStart. #GetaHeadStart. Produced in 2016 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Ford Foundation President Darren Walker’s passion for human rights stems from his own childhood, namely his experience in the Head Start program. Listen to Walker’s story of how Head Start services helped him succeed and how, in return, he now helps Americans who have been disadvantaged .
