One of 18 children, Janis Kearney picked cotton alongside her siblings as she grew up in the Arkansas Delta.

“One of the things I always tell young people is in spite of the fact that we were sharecroppers and we were the poorest family in Gould, Ark., my parents knew without a shadow of a doubt that none of us would ever leave home without getting a good education,” Kearney, of Little Rock, said. “They demanded it of us and we gave it to them. We did our best, we always did our best.”

Kearney became the first presidential diarist in U.S history under President Bill Clinton when she chronicled his daily life in the White House. She joined civil rights lawyer and activist Adjoa Aiyetoro on Friday to encourage about 50 Stuttgart High School students to work hard and follow their dreams.

The visit was part of the second annual Back to School with the HistoryMakers program, and was the first such visit in Arkansas. The Chicago-based nonprofit, the HistoryMakers, works to collect a digital archive of the contributions of African-Americans in every community.