Joe Jones once sold and used drugs, was in and out of jail and not a very good father to the son he had out of wedlock. But all of this was a very long time ago. Today, Jones, a native of Baltimore, is in and out of the White House, working passionately to change […]
Shireen Lewis was working on her dissertation for her doctorate and feeling very isolated and alone. She recalls thinking, “There must be other women of color going through the same thing I am.” Lewis put out a call and four women showed up at the first gathering of a support group for women working on […]
Khadeeja was driving to work one day when a friend called to say she had spotted Khadeeja’s daughter, Azariah, on the streets. “I turned the car around and made a detour and I see her walking toward me,” Khadeeja recalled. “I had to park the car and run after her. I got her but I […]
It was 2007 when Charisma Cannon lost her marketing job in Atlanta, which had the ripple effect of eventually causing her to lose her house. While she was trying to untangle her financial affairs, she was also struck by a mysterious illness doctors couldn’t seem to diagnose. The least amount of activity exhausted her. She […]
As a child, life looked bleak to Toni Blackman. She was taunted for being overweight, her father was a drug addict and later as a teen she was depressed and suicidal. Then she discovered her voice, the mic and that black people can have what she calls “white boy arrogance.” These were the first steps […]
Dani Simien was in his car, driving home from his girlfriend’s prom. It was a foggy Saturday night, April 29, 2007. The next thing he remembers is waking up in a hospital room. “I tried to move my legs and arms and I couldn’t. I saw all kinds of machines, feeding tubes, a trachea in […]
It is impossible to tell K. D. Hardy’s story without talking about his mother. In addition to giving birth to him, you could say also that Patricia Hardy helped re-birth her son. And she did it with a big dose of tough love. The family lived in Birmingham, where she worked as a medical secretary […]
Before Jamal Tate decided to be a college student, he took a diversion. He went to jail once. Then again. And finally, a third time. “We had everybody praying—my coworkers, family members, friends, even people at the jail,” said his mother Erica Swinney, who raised Tate as a single parent. “Maybe a month after he […]
