Chris Singleton: Healing Division Through Unity
by James Coulter
With a new year comes new opportunities to bring about new beginnings through change. One motivational speaker who recently spoke at a local high school has a bold vision to bring about said change in the lives of young people.
Former MLB player Chris Singleton is on a mission: to make the world more united than it was on the day that took his mother’s life.
“The mission for me is that we realize the fact that everyone’s got stories behind the reason of why they are like what they like,” he told an auditorium of students at Lake Region High School.
“See, most of the time people don’t open up…because people won’t understand,” he said. “And when you share your story, you might realize…I am more like this person than I thought.”
In 2015, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton was one of nine people killed during a shooting at Emmanuel Church in Charleston, SC. The shooter wanted to divide people and start a race war. Chris seeks to do the opposite and bring people together.
“Before I said love is stronger than hate and forgive my mother’s killer, I did not have anything on my mind about what I am going to say,” he said. “So sharing those words, I think it was a higher power putting that on my heart, and I see why now: because now that’s my whole life’s mission. It just fuels me to keep pushing forward and be the opposite of the guy who took my mom. His mission was division and hate. My mission is unity, love, and resilience.”
Chris visits schools nationwide to spread his message of hope and unity. He recently appeared at Lake Region High School to participate in its Weekend of Wellness event.
The event’s centerpiece was a school assembly, where he addressed more than 3,500 students and staff. And while kids these days are usually glued to their phones, when Chris speaks, they listen.
“Once I start speaking, they see how passionate I am about this mission,” he said. “They open their hearts. And so when their hearts are open, I share a message of unity, a message of peace, resilience, and they always gravitate toward that.”
Chris’s message is simple yet poignant: love is stronger than hate, unity holds better than division, and no matter what problems you are going through, there’s always someone who cares.
“Kids are coming up afterwards, taking pictures,” he said. “Some of them, you can look in their eyes that they are going through something, whether it is a parent struggling with addiction, whether it is losing a loved one…But you know what? When you get knocked down, we don’t stay there. We stand up,and we keep moving forward, and we honor the people that we lost, that we loved. I want kids to know that they are not alone when they go through tough stuff. When they heard me share my story, they could tell that I genuinely care, too.”
Chris Singleton and his recent appearance at Lake Region High School were covered on the Chattin on the Ridge podcast. Listen to it on Acast: https://shows.acast.com/chattin-on-the-ridge/episodes/minisode-24-chris-singleton-healing-division-through-unity
