I'm History...But Do I Repeat Myself? Race, Religion, and Reinvention with Lee Knapp

What happens when you return to teach at your own high school nearly thirty years later, and it's been transformed from nearly all-white to one of the most diverse schools in Virginia?Lee Knapp is an award-winning history educator and author of the memoir I'm History...but do I repeat myself?, which weaves her own fraught Southern history into America's complicated story of race, religion, and reinvention. The book moves through her spiritual journey out of a controlling evangelical church, the collapse of a 32-year marriage followed by an unexpected late-life romance, and the reckoning of confronting her beloved grandmother's participation in a 1921 lynching viewing.In this episode, Lee shares what it was like teaching students like Abdul, Kosal, and Farid, whose immigrant stories reshaped how she saw the Richmond she grew up in, how she came to terms with her grandmother's history of white supremacy, and why she believes loving your family or your country requires honestly confronting what they've done. She also opens up about her exit from a controlling charismatic church and the late-life romance that began by skipping a pep rally.What We Talked About:Returning to teach at her newly diverse alma materStudents whose immigrant stories reshaped her worldviewConfronting her grandmother's history of racismLeaving a controlling evangelical church behindAn unexpected late-life romance after divorceWhy history repeats, and how individuals can break the patternConnect with Lee Knapp:Website: linked on her profileBook: available on AmazonFacebook, LinkedIn & Substack: linked on her profile