by Eva Clark

Created on: April 18, 2009   Last Updated: April 20, 2009

Drama: Overcoming challenges

Having been born in 1944, qualifies me as a person with a lot of stories to tell, but having been born an African American in 1944, uniquely qualifies me for this perspective on overcoming challenges.

I started my education in an all black school. It was an excellent kindergarten through eighth grade institution of learning. My kindergarten teachers were two cute "little old ladies," who nurtured us like grandmothers might would have. This school was staffed by excellent, caring teachers, most, of whom, lived in the neighborhood. These teachers knew our parents, aunts, uncles, and just about everyone else connected to our family. Our teachers were black. Our principal, custodians, the school secretary, and cafeteria staff were black. The only white people we saw at school during the day were the delivery men. Across the street from the school stood a great firehouse. The firemen were white. They were nice to us and we adored them. We were proud to say that our school was across the street from one of the grandest firehouses in the city.

Our school and its surroundings were always clean. The firehouse was always spic and span, too. School was just great. We even had summer school, which basically offered activities centered around arts and crafts. Teachers being teachers, however, managed to trick us into some type of academic consequence, on a daily basis. We went half days in the summer. It was strictly a voluntary program, which meant that all the kids in the neighborhood signed up to go, whether they attended the school in the regular session, or not. "Nobody was going to tell them what to do. They would do what they liked in the summertime." This type of thinking landed them in our school's summer session.

The firemen interacted with the students during the summer session. They ran workshops that most of the boys participated in. At the end of summer session, the school put on a pageant that was, of course, designed to showcase our skills and talents. Most of the adults from the neighborhood turned out, whether they were a parent, or not. This feeling of community reinforced our beliefs that all adults cared about our happiness and futures. The pageant took place in the evening and it always culminated with a huge display of fireworks, handled by, you guessed it, our brave and wonderful firefighters! Life was good.

I didn't think that my life could change as drastically as it did, but it did. My parents had been secretly saving up

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