Learning From History: My Mother’s Journey

such a moving story. Please read, if you do nothing else today!

ok4rj:

In the spirit of Black History Month, I’d like to share a story from my family’s history. My Mother is the fifth child of eight born to sharecroppers in South Carolina. She came down with rheumatic fever in elementary school, which resulted in her staying inside reading books while her siblings and parents worked the farm. My grandmother divorced my biological grandfather due to his alcoholism, and relocated the family to Miami, Florida where my mother honed her talent for mathematics. She did so well in high school, even after integration, that she attended Brown University on a full scholarship the first year it allowed female students. She graduated in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics. She was offered a graduate assistantship at MIT because of her aptitude for computer programming. She did not go because my father, God love him, insisted they move back to Miami, Florida and have children.

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