Chapter 7: Trying a Different Approach: The Influential Power of Mrs. Taylor and Mr. Johnson in Seeing an Ugly Duck Turn Into a Swan

A child born into an unhealthy home environment and a socio-political system of racial segregation, known as Jim Crow, in Hodges, South Carolina in 1952, had little chance of becoming anything but a common laborer, even though he dreamed of something better and would often spend nights standing in the backyard of the sharecropper framed house, that his mother and nine siblings occupied. He would often look upon the lights that shined from afar and wondered where they came from. While he dreamed and wondered, the reality of his life always returned to the environment of struggle, poverty, violence, and mistreatment because of his “Blackness” and his being a “bastard child.” This was my life. The reality of my early experience often left me feeling like an ugly duckling. It is difficult to navigate spaces and places when you are viewed from the lens of being poor, a “bastard child,” and dark skinned. Back in 1952, when I was born, people with dark skin were often relegated to a position simply because of their color. Jim Crow laws made it difficult for all Black people, but being dark skinned was another form of segregation within the Black community.