Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.

When I was in high school more than 50 years ago I had a pair of red, white, and blue shoes. I thought they looked good. At some point some Black kids in my high school began teasing me about the shoes: did I want to be white? Was I patriotic in racist Alabama? Why would I wear red, white, and blue shoes?

The shoes literally and figuratively took me to stand in my power and not care about the opinions of others. I liked the shoes, had no ulterior motive and that was that. A powerful lesson to learn as a teenager.