This post is being shared with you as a result of some of the responses that I received from an earlier Post!!

It actually started as a personal research project begun several years ago as I noticed how the city I grew up in had started to change! It became even more important to me as my late son would often ask questions about my childhood.....as he was confused often by the difference between what the Media said was typical black society and the typical black society that he was growing up in.

You see, I grew up in a part of Southeast Washington, DC that was known as Near Southeast!! I grew up in the shadow of the Navy Yard and the Marine Barracks.....both which were staples in my development...near but not in what was called the Capper and Lincoln Housing Projects!!

Old Folks used to call this area "Navy Place"....and it was totally segregated!! There were very few home owners in this immediate area.....but everyone who could seemed to work....many at several jobs!! It was truly a village of sorts as everyone seemed to know everyone else and children often had mutiple parents or guardians so discipline and values where well establlished. Children were allowed to play in the many play areas or the major playgrounds or recreation centers that dotted the area. The neighborhood Jut Joint was well known, and children were not allowed!!

My Great Aunt lived next door to the most popular Jut Joint....Johnny Browns.....and many a day while she baby sitted us we would watch the neighborhood number runners or dice shooters go in and out but we were never allowed to cross the fence that separated the property. I can remember being allowed to play the numbers when I was 7 years old....placing a 5 cents bet on a 3 digit number and winning $27.00 in return for my efford. I was allowed to buy one toy with my winnings.....it was a scoped Hunting Rifle......but the rest was placed in a savings account!!

Being a newly desegregated city back in 1958/1959 Washington still had its rules as far as what Negros could and couldn't do. I can remember riding the 'Street Car" with my Grand Uncle to watch my first Baseball game at old Griffin Stadium, and repeating this trip several times alone with my Brother and Cousin...without any conflict at all. Heck, I was there when Roger Maris hit one of his homeruns on the way towards the famous 61, although it didn't mean much to me at the time......my hero was Willie Mays...and he didn't play in the American League.

But for some reason the Washington Redskins were different! In 1958-1959 I noticed that my parents and all their friends routed for the Baltimore Colts and not the Redskins....although we kids were never told why. I can remember every Sunday when ever the Redskins were in town, all of near Southeast seemed to transport itself to a placed called Evans Grill in Bradywine Maryland....where all - black Semi-Pro Football teams would compete to cheering crowds and singing stars such as Sam Cook and James Brown would provide Post-Game entertainment. There was a small playground and amusement park where the kids could play all day....and there was a Picnic area where the entire family shared its basket with its neighbors in what could only be called a 50's version of the tailgate party!!

During all this time we as children where never reminded of our racial classification.....heck I was 10 years old before I realized that I was a Negro!! Prior to that it just wasn't an issue....because the adults in our community shielded us from the harsh realilities that race during that period held. It was only after being set on fire by some white kids....an event that I have written about before.....that my parents explained to me that I was of the Negro race and that some people would dislike me just because of that....and that I was to consider these people ignorant!!

My Grandmother washed toilets for the Department of Interior and did it for over 30 years so that my mother would not have to. My mother because her special talents worked as a poll secretary and never completed High School, but earned her GED...but instilled in us the value that you are as good as anyone else regardless of color and that you should judge a person by who they are, not how they looked.

As a child growing up...I had a poster with Douglas MacArthurs, Duty, Honor, Country speech posted above my bed and pictures of Benjamin O. Davis Sr. and Benjamin O. Davis Jr. in a picture album as examples of where your priorities should be and what hard work and dedication could gain you.

I got my first job at age 10....hauling groceries for people at the local Safeway Store where I suffered from the troubles that so many kids today still suffer..having my earnings taken by bullies who threatened to beat me up if I didn't pay. I got my first salaried job at age 14 working as a cigarette clerk at the local Drug Store. The store was owned by a Black Pharmarist who often spoke to all the kids about the value of a solid education. I got my hair cut in the local Barber Shop where the only picture on the wall was a picture of Althea Gibson the first Black Women to win Wimbleton.

Because of my mothers insistance I was admitted to a special program....the Amidon Project....when I was 12 years old and my life was never the same after that. I had to catch the bus and leave my secure envrionment of Near Southeast and go to school with folks from other sections of the city....many of a different color. After a tough start where I was suspended several times for fighting....my mom gave me one of those old black folk butt wiping threats.....I got my act together. I continued the program to its next stage where I attended Western High School in Georgetown where everything was white and for some time appeared as if it was another side of the world.

There I learned to properly speak the Queens English and understand that white folks weren't all that bad!! When I completed High School I went to college in West Virginia where I again first head met some people who chose to discriminate against me......but it as here that I also learned for the first time that I was Black.....a classification that prior to this would have been regarded as fighting words. It was also here that I found out that some folks would prefer to be stuck in their ways rather then broaden their horizans and learn about someone or something that was different!! I actually gained greater respect from Cole Miners then I did from students born in Rhode Island. Hell the miner didn't care about your color as long as you were willing to work for what you got!! But I noticed that many of the Northern White Students just assumed that all Black Students were poor and came from the ghetto!!

It was when I transferred to a HBCU that I was informed by many that I was now African-American....a classification that I still did not completely embrace....since my major area of study...History....allowed me to study the works of Black Historians like Carter G. Woodson, Benjamin Quarles and John Hope Franklin who had spend their lives trying to make white america understand that Negro History was in essence American History and that it should be accepted as such.

It was not surprising to me after graduation that I found hundreds of fellow graduates with the same story and background as mind, who were now going out and giving back to those young kids who would follow. My first job only earned me $7200 a year....and I had to live in my moms house and use her car to get back and forth to work...but it was a teaching job and i wanted to teach. But alast the Viet Nam War was still going on....and my brother had served at Khe Shan and my Cousing at Hue with the Marine Corp....so I didn't wait to be drafted and I joined the Army as an enlisted man because I considered it my duty to do so!!

So you see my history and up bringing was not privileged or free of hardship.....but it was filled with some very important facts....and they were....regardless of what you think of yourself there are others in this society who will attempt to label you, and there will be others who will dislike you because you are who you are. But regardless of the label...you are as talented as anyone else and as a result deserve the same opportunity as anyone else to be the best that you can be and to serve your country to the best of your ability!

That's my story....and I hope you can get something from it!!

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