About a year after my first birthday, the city voted two thousand dollars to establish a public school high school. Before then, only the children of white affluent parents received education beyond the elementary grades. Which were given in private institutions.

My mother, from that point on, saw education as they way to achieve success. And she insisted from my early years that I pursue this as a goal.

I think that the reason my mother chose the house we had move into, after the death of her father, was because of its closeness to the school.

It was now time for me to make my maiden voyage into formal education.