we all see color:

VOGEL LAWYER SHARES HER FAMILY’S BATTLE WITH RACISM

Jerilynn Brantner Adams was attending her then 17-year-old son Jackson’s varsity basketball game out of town. It was a game that would be painfully carved into her memory forever. Not because of a thrilling win or a devastating loss. It was a game where overt racism reared its ugly head when an opposing player called Jackson the N-word.

Watching her child experience racism was excruciating. “I remember seeing Jackson’s face. He pushed the kid. The ref called a technical foul. It was Jackson’s fifth foul and he was done with the game,” Jerilynn says as tears stream down her face. “The biggest heartbreak is when you can’t do anything. You can hug him, and you can try and talk to him, but I can’t tell him this won’t happen again. I can’t promise it will get better. I can’t make it better by myself. And as a mom, that’s really, really hard.”

Jerilynn is a lawyer at Vogel Law Firm in Fargo. She grew up in Harwood, North Dakota, going to public school through eighth grade and Oak Grove for high school. She attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, for her undergrad and double majored in political science and business with an emphasis in accounting. She attended the University of North Dakota Law School and began practicing family law, following in her father’s footsteps.