About Me
To put it simply, I'm an educator who believes in the power of stories to bring our world together.
Hi, I’m Lance B. Dixon—an educator, a former pastor, and someone who has spent most of my life trying to understand how the stories we inherit shape the people we become. My work in schools has focused on helping students build bridges of belonging, and much of that passion comes from growing up as a biracial kid in 1970s Detroit. Those early experiences taught me a lot about identity and alienation, and they’ve shaped the lens through which I see the world today.
My path toward understanding race, history, and community hasn’t been confined to classrooms. It’s taken me across North America, Israel, and South Africa—places where the legacies of racism, colonialism, and division still reverberate. Each of these journeys pushed me to listen more deeply and think more critically about how we heal and move forward. They also helped me recognize the power of storytelling, especially when it comes to stories that have long been overlooked or erased.
A Footnote to Freedom grew out of that passion to share stories hidden on the margins of history - this one happened to be about my own family. For years, all I knew was that my grandfather, George Dixon, was one of the six hundred men who served in the only segregated Black battalion that served Canada during World War I. But the details were fragmented, wrapped in silence and generations of pain. Through long conversations with my father, Blair (who sadly passed away just weeks before the completion of the book), I began piecing together our family’s story—one defined by struggle and discrimination, but also by resilience, pride, and redemption. Writing this book was my way of honouring that legacy and sharing a chapter of Canadian history that deserves far more than a footnote.
Today, I serve as vice principal of a bilingual Spanish school in the northeast of Calgary. I have already been enriched by the stories of this community, who have journeyed from parts of the world I have yet to experience on my own. One day I hope to visit those places. In the meantime, I am proud to learn their stories. One such story is included on my website. Listen to Maria Gonzalez shed light on the injustice of thousands of children being taken from Chile during the Pinochet regime. Only a few days prior to the interview, Maria discovered that she also had been taken from her real mother but was kept in the country. As Maria wrestles with the emotional conflict, she will move your heart, and in so doing I hope bring our worlds a little closer together.
Thank you for being part of the work of sharing our stories and building bridges of belonging. If you have a story you would like to share, please contact me. I would be honoured to help share it!