"Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud!"; was one of our cheers when I was still in high school. I grew up in a time when segregation was prevalent in the South. I was forced to attend a segregated all "black" high school when the white people succeeded in forcing me out of Fayetteville Terry Sanford.
The differences were glaring. While attending the "white" high school the demands on me were great. I generally had so much homework I burned the midnight oil until two and three in the morning. I did not mind. I was competitive and I was willing to go without sleep just to make my "white" classmates look like monkeys. They did not have to know what my "brilliance" cost.
They did not have to know I stepped out of a "home" that smelled like a bus station. No one had to know I used my elbow to push the piles of dirty dishes and clothes away from me on the dining room table just to make room to study, to type.
I knew I was getting out, that I would be free. Forced out of Terry Sanford my senior year I was glad to flee, to run back to E.E.Smith. It was cool. It was different. We had a great band, great students, unfortunately we were labeled black, "colored", less than , so little was expected of us we did little. I taught African American Studies. I was a boss. Then life got me.
"Come ye out from among them."
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