Christine Bischoff grew up in a small southern West Virginia coal town.
“Everyone’s dad was a coal miner, and very few people were educated,” Bischoff says. It was the type of place where opportunities were few and far between.
There were about six career choices in the whole town.
“You basically picked one, and that’s what you were going to be,” Bischoff says. She went with the one that, to her, sounded the most fun: physical therapy.
Then Bischoff’s life changed permanently because of her teacher, acclaimed poet Maya Angelou.
“To a 21-year-old, everything she said was mind-blowing,” Bischoff says. “Because you’d never thought of the world like that.”
Angelou — whose work extended far beyond poetry into activism, social work, and civil justice — was also an education advocate who spoke on numerous occasions about the power and importance of learning. Bischoff had her as a professor in college.
One day, Angelou gave her class a sage piece of advice: If you don’t like the path you’re on, step off of it.
“So I literally walked out of the class and said, ‘I’m not going to be a physical therapist. I’m going to be a civil rights attorney. I’m going to change the world,” Bischoff said.
