Finding Her Voice

by Laura Breen Galante

Grace Jackson, who graduated from Hagerty High School in May, believes it’s important to use your voice. 

The Oviedo resident recently received top honors from the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA), making  her the highest placing Black female speaker in its 100-year history. The NSDA is the largest interscholastic speech and debate organization in the country.

Grace, 18, is a former Lake Mary resident who attended Heathrow Elementary and Sanford Middle. At Hagerty, she got involved in local speech and debate contests and became inspired to compete at the national level. 

Most individual competitors do so with private coaching, but Grace says that wasn’t in her family’s budget. Instead, she taught herself by watching videos of past champions. Her mother Lora also did everything she could to support Grace’s dreams by picking up Uber and DoorDash driving to fund debate competitions.

Grace’s many accomplishments are even more impressive because of the challenges she has overcome. Grace, her mom, and her younger brother and sister escaped a domestic abuse situation when Grace was in fifth grade. The family spent 47 days living at SafeHouse of Seminole, where they received the support they needed to move forward. 

“The importance of speaking up became very apparent to me from a very young age because of that situation,” says Grace. “And seeing my mom have the courage to leave [the abusive environment] was also a really big thing.”

A Way With Words

Grace’s first individual debate competitions yielded some second-round finishes, great friendships, and a growing passion for the speech and debate community.

During her junior year, Grace made the finals at NSDA and the National Catholic Forensic League (NCFL), placing ninth and sixth, respectively, in her event (known as Congress). It was the highest that anyone had ever placed from Hagerty High School. In her senior year, Grace continued to shine in the debate world, scoring second out of 15,000 speakers at the NCFL competition. 

And when she took the floor at this summer’s National Speech & Debate Association’s centennial competition, she placed second overall out of 25,000 speakers and earned the prestigious title of Top Speaker in the Senate. Grace’s winning words focused on removing troops from South Korea, foreign intelligence gathering, and a national firearm registry. 

“My goal in debate was never to get trophies. I wanted to help Hagerty build their team,” says Grace, who served as her school’s speech and debate captain during her senior year. “So once I had that national recognition, I got involved in the Florida Debate Initiative (FDI), and that is a phenomenal organization.”

The FDI is a nonprofit organization that empowers students through the advancement of civics education, debate competition, and critical thinking.

Lifting Others Up

“Grace’s leadership within the Florida Debate Initiative has been impressive,” says Abraham López, president of the organization. 

“She represents the very best of what speech and debate can cultivate — not just competitive excellence, but a deep sense of purpose,” he says. “Her success on the national stage is a testament to her voice, vision, and the values we strive to instill through the                                        Florida Debate Initiative.”

Grace is also a coach with Equality in Forensics, a nonprofit organization that provides free and online resources to make speech and debate more accessible to students, educators, and coaches across the country.

“It offers free coaching and free summer camps so that kids without private coaching, like me, are able to succeed,” she says.

With her mom and sister, Grace also established Bake it Forward, a nonprofit that provides baking supplies and organizes baking events at domestic violence shelters.

Now, Grace is a student at the University of California, Berkeley, where she plans to triple major in business, data science, and applied math. Her career goal is to advocate and consult for nonprofits, especially those that address homelessness and domestic violence, causes that remain special to her.

“I think continuing to be able to speak up is really important,” says Grace. “I believe everyone should use their voice to teach and advocate.”