# 1.THE EARLY YEARS

I started school on the northeast side of Detroit, we’d moved to Quincy Street. My mother had saved and saved, and was able to get her dream two-family flat. Since we moved in the summer, I had not started school and did not know anyone. One of the neighborhood teenagers saw me sitting on the downstairs porch one day and started a conversation. She decided to befriend me and stopped by daily. I do not remember if she asked my mom if I could go with her place or if I just left. She took me everywhere, including to see her boyfriend that I do not think her mother knew about. I would be given candy and free reign of the TV while the two of them would disappear in the back. When we left, I got a quarter for my promise of silence. It was a good deal.

Eventually, I started to see other children my age, I was about seven. Our family was the 10th or so Black family on the block. Across the street was a white family of a single mother and three kids. The youngest was named Carmen. She started coming over to my house around dinner time after she discovered that my mother cooked every day. My mother would hint that it was time to go home for dinner but she rarely left. I do not think they had much to eat at her house and her mother never came over to check on her.

The neighbor boy, Leslie, was a lonely guy mainly because he was bullied a lot. He was Albino. I liked playing with him and we had fun creating go-carts of cardboard and old roller skate wheels. He started my career of advocating for the underdog as I got into several fights defending him against the bullies. As a result of my defensive moves, the boys who lived downstairs from me, Fred and Boyce (called Putt), recruited me to join them in challenging other kids to wrestling matches. The three of us become a force to be reckoned with. Especially since some believed they had an advantage over us because one of us was a girl. Poor things, how embarrassing when they lost to us!

When school started in the fall, Putt was my teammate and friend. When our teacher started to pick on him in class, I was not happy. For some reason, I decided that I would not participate in her class, nor speak to her. Whenever she called on me to answer a question, I would write the answer down and give the paper to Putt. My silent treatment went on for weeks. Finally, she called my mother up to school for a meeting. The teacher explained to my mother that I did not speak in class and wondered if there was a problem at home or if I could not speak. My mother was floored since at home I talked non-stop. When we got home my mother told