The Beginning

"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent."

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Before you know who I truly am, I want you to know where I've been. Like many people, my life has been full of ups and downs, good times and bad. I've struggled throughout life in every sense of the word, and through trial and error, the path I am on now is the one I've been trying to steer toward all along.

In the cotton fields of Albany, Georgia, lies a place unknown to most — a place that I like to call "America's beautiful secret." It's a place where the sweet smell of peach trees fills the air and the warm sun shines endlessly. Even though my family (my mother, Glenburia; father, Raymond; and oldest brother, Raymond Jr.) only stayed until I was six months old, I consider Georgia to be an important part of my roots. My father grew up in Georgia and told countless stories about his childhood and my grandfather's funny cough (which I will mention again later!).

Of course, living in the South as a black man during the 1930s was not the most ideal situation. Some of my dad's stories took place during a few of America's hardest times: the Great Depression, the Civil Rights movement, and the Vietnam War. While growing up, my father and his family lived and worked on a Georgia plantation owned by a white family. Every member of the family — including my grandparents, my dad, my two aunts, and my three uncles — were expected to perform hard labor day after day. This included training horses, tending to the fields, and picking cotton. My dad spoke of being hunched over the cotton plants in the sweltering heat, day in and day out, trying to amass the one hundred pounds of cotton that would earn our family and him one dollar. As much as my grandparents wanted to participate in the Civil Rights movement, the family who owned the plantation where they worked would not allow it. They could have been fired ... or worse. However, my grandparents did what they could to contribute to the "fight for freedom," often visiting church services to draw strength and guidance from the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoken through their minister.

Even though life was hard, my father's humble beginnings lit a fire inside of him to strive for something better. As soon as he was old enough to enlist, my father joined the United States Marine Corps as a means of escaping life on the farm. Later, my dad was drafted into the Vietnam War. Later, he was injured in battle when he was hit with flying shrapnel on his left side. Though weak from that injury, he considered his enlistment in the military to be one the best decisions he ever made because it allowed him to buy my grandparents their very first home for twelve thousand dollars. His decision to give my grandparents that gift and thus begin to repay them for all that they had done for him throughout his life was an example of his strong character trait of gratitude.

My father graduated from Albany State University with a BA in sociology. Later, after he married my mom, he obtained his master's degree in criminal justice. He was the first member of his family to graduate from college, and that gave him great pride. In his youth, he performed the work of a slave, but by the time he was twenty-three years old, he'd earned two college diplomas.

My father was a man deeply affected by what he experienced in life — both where he came from and the nature of his upbringing — and therefore developed a true appreciation for where his life was headed. As most people are aware, there are many incidents on life's path that bring moments of great change. For my father, one such change took place one month prior to his first college commencement. My grandmother, my father's biggest fan, died as a result of complications from diabetes. Her death rocked the entire family, but my father took her passing particularly hard.

When someone dies, people go through a natural cycle of mourning; but eventually, most are able to move on with their lives. Not my father. After his mother's funeral, my father sat at her grave, each and every day ... for hours. He was so brokenhearted over losing her that he simply could not resume his normal routine. Eventually, my grandfather stepped in and insisted that he pack up and move to Miami, Florida, to be closer to his sisters.

My dad struggled with depression, not only from his mother's death, but also from the effects of war and the injuries he sustained. When he moved to Miami, he lived with his sister, Fannie Lue. One day, he told Fannie that he wanted to find a job. She told him she didn't feel as if he were ready to be employed with all that he was facing, but he persevered anyway and landed a job at Bakers shoe store.

One day while working, my father saw a lovely woman, my mother, enter the store. He asked if he could assist her with trying on shoes. Through the course of their conversation, he quickly became enthralled by her and offered to purchase her shoes for her. "No, mon', I have my own money. I can buy my own shoes," she answered. Though she turned down his offer in her thick, Bahamian accent, their interaction must have made quite an impact because she invited him to visit her in the Bahamas sometime. From there, according to Aunt Fannie Lue, my father and his sisters would travel back and forth to the Islands while he courted my mother. My father loved to tell that story of how he met my mom. He liked to say that he fell in love the first time he saw her and refers to their July 24th, 1971, wedding date as the highlight of his life.

Though my parents met in Miami, they really began married life together in Georgia. They had my brother, Raymond, in 1972, and I followed suit in 1974, right before my family relocated back to Florida. Despite the fact that my father wished he could have given his children the gift of a Georgia upbringing, the reality of emotion tied to his mother's vivid memory would have been too difficult for him to bear. Often, my father would comment that the love from the women in his life and my mother's act of introducing him to a belief in God were the only things that brought him through that dark period.

My parents shared a bond unparalleled by many other married couples. In fact, if one of them went into the hospital for treatment, the other one slept by the bedside until discharge, at which point they both emerged from the automatic doors, hand-in-hand.

I didn't always appreciate my parents' close and rare bond. Like most children, I would often butt heads with my mom or dad and run for support to whichever parent I didn't happen to be fighting with. Without fail, my parents would always back up one another. At the time, I would yell, "You only love...