April 29, 2026
History came to life in a powerful way on Thursday, April 23, 2026, as dozens of J.E.J. Moore Middle School students heard firsthand about the realities of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide from someone who lived through it.
Mrs. Chantal Ingabire spoke to students in Moore’s lecture space, recounting her own fight for survival during the over three months of violence that gripped the region.
Beginning in April 1994, following the death of Rwanda’s president after his plane was shot down, and lasting until July of that year, the Rwandan Genocide saw extremist members of the majority Hutu population carry out a campaign of violence against the minority Tutsi population, and those among the Hutu who opposed the killings. According to the United Nations, more than one million people are estimated to have died in the violence, and as many as 2,000,000 people fled the country during and immediately after the genocide.
32 years later to the month of the horrific campaign of violence beginning, one of its survivors, Mrs. Ingabire, spoke to a generation that has only heard of the genocide in textbooks and other primary sources during their studies. During her lecture, students attentively listened to Mrs. Ingabire reflect on life before the violence, those who risked their lives to keep her and members of her family safe, the countless sacrifices, and moments of fear along the way, such as the moment she was able to safely cross a border with the family sheltering her after coming face-to-face with a guard who knew her true identity, a time she called “a miracle from God.”
Mrs. Chantal Ingabire shares her experience of living through the Rwandan Genocide with students and teachers in the J.E.J. Moore Middle School lecture space. (PGCPS Photo)“After Mrs. Ingabire’s visit, many of the students shared that they were moved by the stories she shared,” Mrs. Tonya Humphrey, J.E.J. Moore Middle School Gifted Resource Teacher, shared. “The kids said she was very brave to share her terrifying experience, and how fortunate she was to be able to find people who helped her survive. They also told me that it gave them an appreciation for their life here at home, and that knowing these kinds of things have happened in our world was heartbreaking.”
Mrs. Ingabire’s visit tied into the recent lessons the school’s three advanced 7th-grade classes experienced in recent weeks. These classes traveled to Richmond’s Holocaust Museum, where they saw artifacts and spoke with their guides about the causes of the genocide that occurred during the Holocaust and World War II.
From there, the connections were made to the Rwandan Genocide, allowing Mrs. Ingabire to share her firsthand experience from the 1994 genocide, a relatively recent campaign of violence, and a reminder that hatred and division haven't stopped with the ending of the Holocaust and WWII, and that the next generation needs to be part of the solution, spreading kindness in our world.