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Randolph-Henry High school hosted a guest speaker Thursday, Feb. 13.

Students gathered in the school’s auditorium during Intervention and Enrichment to hear Cainan Townsend speak on the topic of Black History Month.

In his speech, Townsend showed the audience pictures of well-known people as high-schoolers. He told the students these people weren’t always successful. He talked about their failures early in life and then asked the students to guess who they grew up to be. The crowd was surprised to learn that these people were very successful individuals such as Bill Gates, Lil Jon, Karla Hormolka, and other well-known figures.

Townsend then continued to talk about different civil rights movements and struggles that many different groups faced up until now. He asked each student to create a list of personality traits that are important to them. Once everyone had a list, he asked everyone to narrow it down until they eventually had one thing that they valued most. He noted that everyone would have different answers.

After this, Townsend explained that society is continuously evolving and protesting for different rights. This assembly was a fantastic eye opener to who we are as a society and the fact that we can make a difference in the world.

“I thought that it was really eye opening to me to see what I actually valued and to think about my morals and how they are compared to everyone else’s,” Autumn Guill, an 11th grader who attended the assembly said. “The values I chose were tranquility, equality, and honesty.”