Lift as you climb. I was raised on that idea long before I ever heard the phrase.
I learned it at home first. My older siblings, Kairn and Arlan, graduated from Harvard and the University of Chicago, and they passed down everything they learned along the way, down to which classes to take in high school and what to expect once I got out east. I learned it growing up in Galesburg, too, where a coach, a neighbor, or a teacher will step in for you without being asked and without expecting anything back. In retrospect, these experiences taught me that being the first person through a door means nothing unless you hold it open for those behind you.
In February 2025, I spoke with TSPR after being accepted into the Institute for Responsible Citizenship, a two-summer program that places young Black men committed to public service in high-level Washington internships, with professional programming at night. I am proud to have been the first Boston University student the Institute ever selected. Yet I am prouder to watch that pipeline grow. The year after me, Jaise King, a friend of mine and someone I mentored, became the second.
For two summers, I wore a suit every day in ninety-degree Washington heat. I arrived at my internship by eight, worked until five-thirty, biked across town for Institute programming at six, and got home around nine-thirty, Monday through Friday. The classes were the part I looked forward to most. Two weeks learning about Reconstruction made me reckon harder with the legacy of slavery in this country and my own responsibility for the unfinished work it left, and two more on ethics and public policy pushed just as hard. Being in a room with eleven other men who had done the same readings but still approached every topic from a different perspective made for some of the most constructive conversations I will forever cherish.
I spent my days interning at Capstone DC, a firm that specializes in policy and regulatory due diligence for institutional investors and private equity clients. On the financial services side, I researched how legislative and regulatory developments were likely to affect various companies and industries, then turned that into analysis clients could act on. My previous internships were largely focused on policy and advocacy, but Capstone provided me with a new perspective on how a regulation moves through financial markets and how closely investors read policy.
Outside of my internship, I had the privilege of sitting at dinner tables with individuals whose careers I had only read about, among them Governor Wes Moore of Maryland, Marc Morial of the National Urban League, and former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, to name a few. What struck me most was not their lengthy resumes, but their stories of who helped them get to where they are today. One speaker told us to approach life as though we were assembling a board of directors for it. Another told us to find the work that feeds our souls. Their advice, along with countless other conversations, taught me that a career is something you must build intentionally, with people you choose and problems you care deeply about.
All of these experiences have led me to the same place. I intend to work at the intersection of law, policy, and finance, directing investment toward access and upward mobility in underserved communities, and I will earn a graduate degree in law or policy to do it. This year, I am finishing my degree in political science, serving on Boston University's first Presidential Student Advisory Group, and making sure SoulAAn, the organization I founded for Black American students, is in strong hands before I graduate.
That instinct, lifting others up as you climb, is Galesburg. I did not know it was uncommon until I left. Most people assume a town this size is a place you leave, not a place that shapes you. For me, it has been the opposite. What Galesburg gave me is an instinct that will serve me for the rest of my career, and one that few people bring with them.
Jon Sibley III is a 2023 graduate of Galesburg High School.
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Tri States Public Radio or its license-holder, Western Illinois University.
Diverse viewpoints are welcomed and encouraged.