Chapter 13: Perseverance

I grew up in New Bern, North Carolina, in a close-knit neighborhood called Pembroke. Race was rarely discussed in my house during my childhood, but I was quickly educated on the matter via life experiences. When I was four years old, I was walking down the street with my aunt when a few White men riding in a pickup truck threw a beer can at us. The can hit my Aunt’s leg, and she had to get 32 stitches. I often thought about how I could have been damaged for life if that can hit me instead of her. This early memory has been etched in my head for years; not only because I didn’t understand, at the time, why someone would do such a thing, but also because no one was ever punished or held accountable for the assault. I remember how angry my great-grandmother was because we did not obey her. She told us not to walk along that street, but I also remember that something was missing. Where was the outrage at the person who threw the can? My family had always been the type who did not dwell on negative events too long but instead, looked at the positives. In this particular case, the positive was that at least my aunt was still alive, and she would go on living her life. Still, no one talked, or ever discussed what happened that day.