Chapter 1: Pushing for a Better Life

There are three aspects of my childhood that definitely impacted my school success: being an avid reader; watching my mother, aunts, and uncles turn to drugs and be sent to jail or prison; and believing that a college education was consonant with a better life. My mother gave birth to me at 19. She was a community college student at the time but dropped out shortly after I was conceived. Fortunately, she loved books and made sure I did as well. I gravitated toward books on Black history, and remember receiving praise for my early elementary school reports on Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Having books in the house was crucial, because it never allowed me to voice that I was bored without my mother quickly directing me to “read a book.” She and I played board games, math games, and worked out word problems on a chalkboard she kept in our hall closet as well. My mother was by far my best teacher.