Sandra McLeod Humphrey's Blog, page 8

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Humble Beginnings to Baseball Hero and Civil Rights Champion

Imagine This: You're a young black man who wants to play professional baseball, but it's 1944 and there are no African Americans playing on any of the major league teams. So what do you do? Do you give up your dream?

You're born in a small farmhouse in Cairo, Georgia, the youngest of five children, the grandson of a slave, and the son of a sharecropper. When you're only six months old, your father takes off for Florida and is never hard from again. Without your father to work the farm, you and your family have to leave the farm.

In an effort to escape the discrimination problems of the Deep South, your mother moves your family to Pasadena, California, where you share a small apartment with your uncle. Your mother takes in washing to pay her way, and you often eat day-old-bread dipped in milk and sugar for supper.

Somehow your mother manages to save enough money to buy a small house, but as the only black family on your street, you encounter a lot of prejudice. Some of your white neighbors call you names and even start a petition to get your family thrown out of the neighborhood.

Your mother refuses to give in to the neighborhood pressure, however, and refuses to move. She works six days a week cleaning other people's houses, and after school, you haul junk, shine shoes, and sell newspapers to earn money.

You're a good student, but your heart is more into sports  than in your schoolwork. You love all sports and become a four-sport star at your high school-—earning letters in football, track, baseball, and basketball.  And at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), you become the university's first student to earn varsity letters in four sports.

In 1942, you're drafted into the army where you encounter the same discrimination you encountered in your neighborhood. After your discharge from the army in 1944, you want to play professional baseball, but there are no African Americans playing on any of the major league teams.

You join the Kansas City Monarchs, a Negro League team, where you encounter as much racial discrimination as in the army. Many hotels and restaurants refuse to serve black people, so you and your teammates often sleep and eat on the bus.

But your luck is about to change! Branch Rickey, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, has decided it's time to end segregation in baseball, and he believes that you are the man to do it.

You join the all-white Montreal Royals, the Dodgers' top minor league team, and though taunted by fans, you never lose your cool. Rickey decides it's time to move you up to the major leagues and April 15, 1947, is a historic day for major league baseball and for the entire nation.

When the major league baseball season opens that day, you're there in the Dodger lineup, the first African American to play baseball for a major league team.

In the beginning, your white teammates try to ignore you, but as the fans and opposing players abuse you with catcalls and racial taunts, your teammates unite behind you.

You rise above the harassment and answer the abuse with your bat and your feet. Your .297 batting average helps the Dodgers win the National League pennant and you're named Rookie of the Year.  In 1949, you're named the league's Most Valuable Player (MVP) and you also star in a movie about your life.

In your ten seasons with the Dodgers, they win six National League pennants. You retire from baseball in 1956 with an impressive career batting average of .311 and in 1962, you're inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the first black man to receive baseball's highest honor.

Branch Rickey chose well when he chose you to be the man to end segregation in baseball, and your life and legacy will be remembered as one of the most important in American history.

"The first freedom for all people is freedom of choice."

Jackie Robinson (1919-1972)

 Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about Jackie Robinson:

Giving Back:  In the 1950s, you become a civil rights activist and a strong supporter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

 Did You Know that in April 1997 Major League baseball honored Jackie Robinson by retiring his jersey number 42 and that he was the first player to be so honored?

 Something to Think about:  Why do you think Jackie Robinson was able to tolerate all the verbal abuse he received during the initial phase of his professional baseball career without ever retaliating?

 

 Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Shy, Plump Teen to Music Megastar

Imagine This: You are born in Havana, Cuba, where your father is a motorcycle policeman assigned to the escort detail for President Fulgencio Batista and his family.

When Fidel Castro overthrows the Batista government in 1959, Cuba is no longer safe for you and your family and you find refuge in the United States.

Life is very difficult for the Cuban refugees in Miami because there are social problems as well as money problems. Many Americans don't want so many Cuban refugees in their country and they treat you badly.

But you're determined to succeed and you work very hard, always managing to be at the head of your class. And when things get tough, your mother and your grandmother teach you to find comfort in music.

When you're ten, your father is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (a serious and disabling disease that attacks the brain and the spinal cord) and you become his primary caretaker while your mother works during the day and takes classes at night to become a teacher.

For the next six years you become a little mother to your family, taking care of both your younger sister Rebecca and your ailing father who can no longer walk.

When things become too much for you, you find temporary escape by locking yourself in your room and playing your guitar. You find that you can temporarily forget your problems while you sing along with the ballads and pop songs you love. Instead of crying, you express your pain through your music.

During your teen years you're quiet, shy, and "a little chubby." Your music becomes more important than ever as your father's condition worsens, and when you're sixteen, he has to be moved to a Veterans Administration Hospital.

During your senior year of high school, you and some girlfriends put together a band. You receive some unexpected help when the father of one of the band members invites Emilio Estefan, a popular band leader in Miami, to listen to your band and give you some tips.

You meet Emilio again a few months later at a wedding where he and his band, the Miami Latin Boys, are playing. He asks you to sing a song with his band and a few weeks later, he asks you to join his band permanently.

After you join his band, it develops a different and very special sound, and Emilio changes the band's name from the Miami Latin Boys to the Miami Sound Machine.

You and Emilio become very close and you're married in 1978, three months after you graduate from the University of Miami. Throughout the 1980s you and the band not only continue to record Spanish-language songs but you also begin to record more and more English-language songs.

Through your music you shatter cultural and gender lines across the globe and become a superstar in the world of music. You win seven Grammy Awards, placing you among the most successful crossover performers in Latin music and you're included among the top 100 best selling music artists with over 90 million albums sold worldwide, 26.5 million of those in the United States alone.

With all that you have accomplished, you still have one unfulfilled aspiration: to perform a free concert in a free Cuba.

"In my music I like to focus on things

that bring us together, not things that tear us apart."

Goria Estefan (1957-    )

 Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about Gloria Estefan

 Giving Back: Gloria Estefan is not only passionate about her music, she is also a passionate and tireless worker for those with problems. She and Emilio organized a benefit concert that raised millions of dollars for the victims of Hurricane Andrew and she has also worked hard for many years to help battered and abused children in Miami.

 Did You Know that Gloria Estefan was painfully shy and that the most difficult part of being in a band was overcoming her stage fright?

 Something to Think about: Do you have a problem that stands in the way of your pursuing your dream?

 

 Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Varsity Reject to NBA Superstar

Imagine This: You are cut from your high school basketball team, you don't make the college recruitment list of 300 top high-school basketball players, and your high school counselors suggest that you give up your dream of a professional basketball career. But you don't give up your dream!

You're born in Brooklyn, New York, the fourth of five children. At age seven, your family moves to Wilmington, North Carolina, where your father works as a mechanic at a nearby electric plant and your mother works as a teller at a local bank.

Just about every kid in the neighborhood hangs out at your house because it's the only one with a basketball court. As the smallest and the youngest of the backyard competitors, you have to learn quickly and play hard if you want to be included in the basketball games.

Although you love basketball, your first love is baseball and you love playing Little League baseball. By high school, basketball has replaced baseball as your favorite sport, and you try out for your high school varsity team when you're a sophomore.

After the tryouts, the cut list is posted and you and a friend check out the list. Your friend makes the team. You don't. At 5'10", you're not considered tall enough, and no one in your family is over 6' tall, so the odds are against you that you'll ever gain much more height.

Devastated, you struggle through the rest of the school day. After school, you race home and shut yourself in your room where you dissolve in tears.

But you don't give up your dream! You decide to work hard and prove to your coach that you should be on the team. You get up every morning at six to practice and train for hours before school begins, and you stick to this schedule for the rest of high school.

Over the summer, you have a four-inch growth spurt and finally you make the basketball team your junior year. But when the list of the top three hundred U.S. college basketball prospects is published right before your senior year, your name isn't on it. And your high school counselors even suggest that you forget a professional basketball career.

All your hard work begins to pay off, however, when Roy Williams, the assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, persuades the famous Five Star Basketball Camp in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to invite you to their camp that summer to compete against the other basketball high school recruits.

You're invited to two of the three sessions, and you earn the MVP Award for both sessions which results in a full basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina (UNC). By the end of your freshman year in 1982, you become a national celebrity after sinking a fifteen-foot jump shot in the final seconds of the game which gives North Carolina the 1982 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship.

The summer of 1984, you make the U.S. Olympic basketball team, and the U.S. team goes virtually unchallenged as it sweeps its way to the gold medal.

You also turn pro in 1984 and are drafted by the Chicago Bulls where you are an immediate success both as a player and with the fans. You can do everything! Both defense and offense.

By the time you retire in 2003, many consider you the greatest basketball player of all time and one of the most admired athletes in America.

"I've failed over and over again in my life. That's why I succeed."

Michael Jordan (1963-    )

 Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about Michael Jordan

Giving Back: Michael Jordan has launched the $5 million Michael Jordan Fundamentals Program to help schools in poor neighborhoods and has made generous donations to other charities including the James Jordan Boys and Girls Clubs.

Did You Know that Michael Jordan scored a total of over 32,000 points during his NBA career?

 Something to Think about: Why do you think Michael Jordan never gave up his dream of having a professional basketball career even when it seemed that all the odds were against him?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

 

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Welfare Mother to Billionaire Author

Imagine This: You are nearly penniless, severely depressed, divorced, and trying to raise a child on your own in a mouse-infested apartment while attending school and writing a novel. Your novel is rejected by twelve publishers, but you don't give up your writing!

You were born in Yate, England, and you enjoy making up stories for your younger sister Di and her friends. You write your first story at age six—-a story about a rabbit named Rabbit.

When you're nine, your family moves to an old stone house in the country next to a cemetery. On your first day at your new school, the class is given a math test to determine who is bright and who is not, so the students can be assigned to seats according to their scores.

You fail the test because you've never learned fractions, so the teacher moves you to the "dim" row. You're very embarrassed, but you study hard and, by the end of the year, you're allowed to sit in the "bright" row. Meanwhile, you continue to read books and write your stories.

Your last two years of high school are marked by two major disappointments. Your mother is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a serious and disabling disease that attacks the brain and the spinal cord, and you're denied admission to Oxford University even though you've done well on your entrance exams.

Instead of going to Oxford, you attend the University of Exeter where you study literature and French. You've always wanted to be a writer, but after college, you need a job, so you take different secretarial jobs to support yourself while you write in your spare time.

On the train ride back to London one Sunday evening in June 1990, the train breaks down and the image of a character for a book comes to you. The characters, the setting, and the story just "pop into your head." You have no pencil or paper and you're too shy to borrow any from fellow passengers, so for the next four hours, you close your eyes and give your imagination free reign while you "write" the story in your mind.

By the time you step off the train in London, you know it will be a seven-book series, and you give your main character some of your own traits, including the same birthday.

While teaching English as a second language to students in Portugal, you marry a Portuguese journalist and in 1993, you have a daughter you name Jessica. Your marriage doesn't work out and your life hits rock bottom.

You move to Edinburgh, Scotland, to be closer to your sister and where you and your daughter live on welfare in a mouse-infested apartment. You're as poor as is possible without actually being homeless and you consider yourself a "failure."

But you don't give up your writing! By late 1995, you complete your first book in the series and type all ninety thousand words of it on a secondhand manual typewriter.

You find an agent who begins sending your book out to publishers. Twelve publishers reject your book, but finally in 1996, Bloomsbury agrees to publish it. They want the book to appeal to boys as well as girls, so they use your initials J.K. rather than your name Joanne.

Bloomsbury publishes only one thousand copies of your first book, half of which are distributed to libraries. But your luck is about to change! Every year a big book fair is held in Bologna, Italy, where European publishers display their books and auction off foreign rights to their books. Arthur Levine, the editorial director of Scholastic Books, enters the bidding war for your first book and submits the winning bid of $105,000.00 for the American rights to publish your first book in the United States. The sale makes publishing history. Never before has anyone paid so much for the right to publish a children's book.

Both Bloomsbury and Scholastic sign contracts for the entire series of seven books and the rest, as they say, is history!

Sales of your books skyrocket and adults, as well as children, are reading them all over the world. Your books are made into movies, and you become one of the most famous and beloved authors in the world. You have inspired a generation of young people to read books and to tap into their own imaginations, and you have shown how a lot of hard work and a little luck can lead to magical results!

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all in which case, you fail by default."

J.K.Rowling (1965-    )

 For More about J.K.Rowling:

 Giving Back: J.K. Rowling is a generous philanthropist and contributes generously to numerous causes including cancer centers in Scotland, the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Scotland, and the National Council for One Parent Families.

Did You Know that J.K. Rowling's favorite author is Jane Austen?

 Something to Think about: Why do you think J.K. Rowling never gave up on her writing even after she considered herself a "failure?"

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Service Station Operator to Creator of Fast-Food Empire

Imagine This: At age sixty-five, people tell you that you're too old to start a new business. You have a recipe for fried chicken, and for two years, you travel across the country trying to sell franchises for your recipe. But no one wants to buy it and your secret chicken recipe is rejected 1,009 times.

You're born in Henryville, Indiana, the oldest of three children. Your father dies when you're six and you take care of your younger brother and sister while your mother works at the tomato canning factory three miles away.

Even at this young age, you do a lot of the cooking and quickly master many regional recipes to the delight of your family. During this time, you not only develop an independent spirit but also a passion for cooking.

You hold your first job at age ten, working and living at a nearby farm, but you're fired after only a month because you spend too much of your time enjoying the squirrels and butterflies and not enough time working. You know that losing your job has disappointed your mother, and you vow to make something of yourself and become someone she'll be proud of.

When you're twelve, your mother remarries and moves to Greenwood, Indiana, in order to improve the family's financial situation. But you don't get along with your abusive stepfather, so you move back home to Henryville where you work as a farmhand.

You work odd jobs as a streetcar conductor, a blacksmith's helper, a railroad fireman, an insurance salesman, and finally as a service station operator in Nicholasville, Kentucky. You do such a good job running the Nicholasville service station that the Shell Oil Company offers to build a service station for you in Corbin, Kentucky, and charge you no rent at all.

In 1930, in the midst of the depression, you open your first restaurant in the small front room of the gas station in Corbin. It's actually a fifteen foot square storage room with one table and six chairs, and you are the station operator, chief cook, and cashier.

You specialize in southern cooking and everybody eats together—-truck drivers, tourists, and salesmen—-all at the same table family-style.

Word spreads about the homey atmosphere and the good food at your café and in 1935 Governor Ruby Laffoon gives you the title "Kentucky Colonel."

Your restaurant flourishes and in 1950 you add another herb to your chicken recipe which you've never used before. You know that now you finally have the perfect combination of eleven spices and herbs.

In 1956, however, a new highway is built which bypasses the whole city of Corbin which drastically reduces your restaurant's customer traffic. You end up having to auction off your property to pay your debts, and at the age of sixty-five, you're virtually broke.

For two years, you travel the country cooking batches of chicken for restaurant owners and their employees using your secret recipe, but no one is interested in buying franchises for your chicken.

Your secret recipe is rejected 1,009 times, but you refuse to give up. By 1960, all your hard work begins to pay off and you have sold 400 franchises in the United States. And by 1964 there are more than 600 franchises.

By 1979, there are 6000 KFC restaurants worldwide with sales of more than $2 billion annually and today KFC has more than nine thousand KFC restaurants in eighty-six countries. And you are remembered as a man of vision and imagination who created a fast-food empire which symbolizes quality in the food industry.

"Feed the poor and get rich or feed the rich and get poor."

Colonel Sanders (1890-1980)

 

For More about Colonel Sanders:

Giving Back: Colonel Sanders believed strongly in "giving back" and helping others and established the Harland Sanders Charitable Foundation which continues to donate generously to innumerable charitable organizations from churches to hospitals to colleges.

 Did You Know that the Colonel's secret recipe for his KFC chicken is kept in a safe in Louisville, KY, and that security precautions protecting the recipe would make even James Bond proud?

 Something to Think about: Why do you think Colonel Sanders never gave up believing in his recipe even after hundreds of people rejected it?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Sickly Child to Fastest Woman in the World

Imagine This: You're born in a shack in the backwoods of Tennessee in 1940, and your home has no running water, no electricity, and no indoor plumbing.

You were born two months early, weighing only a little over four pounds, and you were so frail that no one was even sure you'd survive.

By age four, you've been stricken with scarlet fever, chicken pox, measles, mumps, double pneumonia, and polio. The polio leaves one of your legs partially paralyzed, and doctors predict that you'll never walk again.

Like other black families, your family has to deal with prejudice. Black people can't sit with white people on buses, on trains, or in movie theaters. Black children and white children go to separate schools. And white doctors treat only white patients and black doctors treat only black patients.

There is only one black doctor for your entire town's black population, and the nearest hospital for black people is in Nashville—-more than an hour's drive from where you live. But twice a week, you and your mother travel by bus to the hospital in Nashville to get treatment for your leg, and back home your family massages and exercises your weak leg.

What hurts the most is that the local school won't allow you to attend because you can't walk. You continue to work hard on your leg exercises while you dream of walking and some day running.

You're eventually fitted with a heavy steel brace that supports your leg which means that you can finally go to school. But school isn't the happy place you had imagined. You feel lonely and left out as you watch the other kids on the playground doing all the things you can't do. Some of your classmates even make fun of your leg brace.

You continue to exercise your weak leg while your family cheers you on, and by age twelve, you're able to take the leg brace off for good.

In high school you become the star of your basketball and track teams and your speed and agility attract the attention of Ed Temple, the track coach at Tennessee State University (TSU).

In 1956, Temple invites you to attend his summer track program at TSU where you become much stronger and much  faster. Soon you're traveling to races all around the country, and you even earn a spot on the US Olympic team–its youngest member

At the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, you don't do well in the 200-meter event, but you and your team win a bronze medal in the 400-meter relay.

After high school, you're awarded a track scholarship at TSU which makes you the first member of your family to go to college. You remember what it felt like to stand on the winner's platform at the 1956 Olympics, and you dream of getting another chance to win an Olympic gold medal.

By 1960, you're faster than ever and make the Olympic team again. And at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, you not only win three gold medals, but you set three new world records: in the 100-meter event, the 200-meter event, and the 400-meter relay.

You have achieved the impossible by becoming the first American woman to win three gold medals at a single Olympics. Once known as the sickliest child in your hometown, you have become the fastest woman in the world!

"I can't are two words that have never been in my vocabulary."

Wilma Rudolph (1940-1994)

 Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about Wilma Rudolph:

Giving Back: Wilma Rudolph loved working with youth, and in 1981, she set up her own foundation to nurture young athletes and teach them that they, too, could succeed despite all the odds against them.

Did You Know that Wilma Rudolph won three gold medals in the 1960 Olympics in spite of running on a sprained ankle?

 Something to Think about: What do you think kept Wilma Rudolph going when all the odds were stacked against her?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Shoeshine Boy to Celebrated Sports Hero

Imagine This: You're born in the Dominican Republic, the fifth of seven children, and you live in a one-bedroom house with dirt floors and no indoor plumbing.

You learn a strong work ethic from your father and a deep sense of honesty from your mother. Unfortunately, your father dies when you're seven, and now everyone in the family has to work.

Your mother cooks and washes clothes for people while you and your brothers and sisters wash cars, sell fruit on the street, and shine shoes. Even with everyone in the family working, times are very hard, and sometimes there's enough food for only one meal a day.

The difference between eating and not eating often depends upon which shoeshine boy reaches a tourist first, and many times you and the other kids who shine shoes have to literally fight for your customers.

One day when you're twelve, you're the first shoeshine boy to reach a tourist named Bill Chase. Bill Chase is a U.S citizen who owns a local shoe factory, and he is so impressed by your strong work ethic and determination that he hires you and your brothers to sweep floors and clean the machinery at his factory.

Baseball is the most popular sport in the Dominican Republic, and you and the other neighborhood kids make your own baseball equipment from cardboard boxes and burlap bags. You love baseball and you play as much as you can, whenever you can!

When you're thirteen, Bill Chase buys you your first real baseball glove, and you and your family are treated like part of Bill's own family.

Even though you love school, you decide to drop out in the eighth grade, so that you can work full time to help provide for your family.

Over the next few years, people begin to recognize your baseball talent and, when you're fifteen, the Philadelphia Phillies offer you a contract to play in the States on one of their farm teams. The contract with the Phillies is canceled because baseball officials feel you're too young, but a  year later the Texas Rangers offer you a professional contract, and you're given another chance to pursue your dream of a professional baseball career.

When you arrive in the United States, there are new challenges to face: the problems of racism and drugs. You manage to avoid both these problems, but your move to the States is still very difficult for you because you know very little English and you miss your close-knit family.

You're used to working hard and you work hard on both your fielding and your hitting. In 1989 you're traded to the Chicago White Sox, and in 1992, you're traded again. This time to the Chicago Cubs where the batting coach, Billy Williams, helps you improve your batting.

You start your 1993 season strong and you just keep improving. A wrist injury in 1996 disables you for part of the season, but in 1997, you come back stronger than ever—-getting your one thousandth base hit and your two hundredth home run.

You lead the Cubs to the playoffs in 1998 and are voted the National League's Most Valuable Player (MVP). You and Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals also make baseball history that year when you break Roger Maris's record of 61 homeruns in a single season.

In 1999, you become the first player in baseball history to hit sixty home runs in back-to-back seasons, and in 2001, you become the first player in history to surpass sixty home runs three times.

You're traded to the Baltimore Orioles in 2005 and end your illustrious career in 2007 with the organization where it all started, the Texas Rangers. In spite of some controversial issues in your later years, you have come a long way and are still considered a sports hero, both in the States and in the Dominican Republic.

"My life is a celebration of faith."

Sammy Sosa (1968-    )

 Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about Sammy Sosa:

 Giving Back:  In 1998, he created the Sammy Sosa Foundation, an organization that raises funds for underprivileged children both in the Chicago area and in the Dominican Republic.

Did you know that Sammy Sosa's first baseball glove was made from an inside-out milk carton.

 Something to Think about:  How do you think the strong work ethic Sammy Sosa learned as a young boy helped him in the Major Leagues?

 Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Child Victim to Extraordinary Renaissance Woman

Imagine This: You're born in St. Louis, Missouri, but you spend your early years growing up in Stamps, Arkansas, in your grandmother's home. Growing up in Stamps, you learn what it's like to be a black girl in a world whose boundaries are set by whites. It means having to wear old hand-me-down clothes from white women, and it means not being permitted to be treated by a white doctor.

After living with your grandmother for several years, you and your brother return to St. Louis in 1935 to live with your mother who is working part time as a card dealer in a gambling parlor.

At age seven, you're raped by your mother's boyfriend, and your mother's boyfriend is then murdered by your uncles. You feel so responsible for his murder that you vow never to speak in public again.

You carry out your vow and speak to no one except your brother. No one knows how to help you, so you're sent back to Stamps. Even though you don't speak in public for several years, you listen intently to everything that goes on around you. Many people think you're retarded, but your grandmother never becomes discouraged and she never gives up on you.

When you're ten years old, you meet Bertha Flowers, the most educated black woman in Stamps. You and Bertha not only read books together, but she also gives you a poetry book and tells you that "a person who truly loves poetry reads it aloud." For the first time in years, you begin to believe in yourself again and you begin to speak.

By the time you graduate with honors from the eighth grade in 1940, people now begin to see you as precocious and eloquent. In 1941 you and your brother are sent to San Francisco to live with your mother again. In San Francisco, you attend George Washington High School and study dance and drama on a scholarship at the California Labor School

You try many jobs, but none of them lasts long. While working in a restaurant, one of your jobs is to drive the owner's prize fighters to their fights. But you're quickly fired when you try to stop one of the fights because you don't want to see your friend get hurt.

After working as a dancer for a while, you audition as a singer in 1952 and are hired at the Purple Onion, a famous San Francisco nightclub. Over the next twenty years you tour in a production of Porgy and Bess, you record the album called "Calyspo Lady," you hone your skills as a writer, and you become involved with the Civil Rights Movement.

At age forty-two, your humorous autobiographical account about growing up in segregated Arkansas, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is nominated for a National Book Award and you become the first African American woman to make the nonfiction best-seller lists.

You use both your positive and your negative life experiences in your poetry and at age forth-three, your first volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, is published and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Since 1981, you have been a professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where you discovered your love for teaching. It is at Wake Forest that you realize that you're "not a writer who teaches" but rather "a teacher who writes." You write and deliver a poem, "On the Pulse of the Morning" at President Bill Cinton's inauguration on January 20, 1993.

As a best-selling author, poet, educator, historian, actress, songwriter, playwright, dancer, singer, producer, director, and civil rights activist, you are recognized today as a Renaissance woman who is one of the great voices of contemporary literature.

"You might encounter many defeats but you must never be defeated, ever."

Maya Angelou (1928-    )

 Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about Maya Angelou:

 Giving Back:  She established the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity in 2002 to address the medical needs of minorities.

 Did You Know that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on Maya Angelou's birthday (April 4th), and for years afterward, she didn't celebrate her birthday?

Something to Think about: How do you think Maya Angelou made the transition from victim to one of the most extraordinary women of her era?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG: From "Second-Class" Citizen to World-Class Athlete

Imagine This: You're a young black boy growing up in segregated Richmond, Virginia, where you dream of playing tennis professionally. But tennis is a game played by rich white boys, not poor black boys. So do you give up your dream?

 When you're four, your family moves to a five-room frame house in the middle of Brook Field Park, a blacks-only park, where your father is the caretaker. You're always drawn to the tennis courts and, in spite of your small size, you learn to swing a tennis racket fast and hard.

You learn the love of books and reading from your mother and the importance of self-discipline and hard work from your father who works several jobs to support the family. Your father also teaches you to "always be a gentleman" and that the way you play the game is more important than who wins.

When you're sixteen, you're drawn to the sixteen tennis courts at Byrd Park, a whites-only tennis complex where you're allowed to watch but not play. You stand behind the fence watching until someone shouts at you to go back to your "own part of town."

That's when you really begin to understand what being black means: not being allowed to play in the parks for white people, having to ride in the back of a bus even when there's a seat in the front, having to live in "the other part of town," and having to go to "those other schools."

But back at Brook Field things are a lot better. That's your domain and that's where you meet Ronald Charity, a college student who teaches tennis at Brook Field during the summers.

Ronald Charity begins helping you with your tennis game when you're seven, and when you're ten, he asks Dr. Robert W. Johnson to let you go to Johnson's summer tennis camp. You go to the tennis camp for eight consecutive summers where you not only hone your tennis skills, but you also learn the importance of good manners and composure on the court. You're told that there is "no excuse for poor manners."

As you grow taller, your game improves even more and in 1955, you win the singles championship in the American Tennis Association's twelve-and-under competition.

Although you're banned from some local tennis courts and tournaments because of the color of your skin, you always keep your cool and learn to walk away from those situations with dignity.

After high school, you earn a tennis scholarship to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and it's not long before you're recognized on a national level.

In 1963 you become the first African American male to play on the courts at Wimbledon and the first African American to make the US Davis Cup team.

By 1965, you're ranked third in the country and sixth in the world in the amateur tennis rankings. And in 1968, you win both the United States National and the United States Open singles titles to become the top-rated amateur tennis player in the United States.

In 1975 you win Wimbledon and attain the ultimate ranking of number one in the world. You're inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 1985, and in 1992, you're named "Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year."

You retire from competitive tennis in 1980 following heart surgery, and in 1992 you go public with the news that you have AIDS which you contracted from a blood transfusion during your surgery. By going public, you help the country begin to look at AIDS victims with more compassion and less fear. You die from AIDS-related pneumonia on February 6, 1993, and you're remembered not only as a world-class athlete but also as a world-class human being!

"I want no stain on my character, no blemish on my reputation"

Arthur Ashe (1943-1993)

 Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about Arthur Ashe:

 Giving Back:  Arthur  Ashe  used his position as a world-class athlete to speak out about social and racial inequities, both in the tennis world and in society as a whole.

 Did You Know that Arthur Ashe was the first black student to receive a UCLA scholarship?

 Something to Think about: Why do you think Arthur Ashe went public with the news about his AIDS?

 

 Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG: From the Cotton Fields to the Whitehouse

Imagine This: You're a young black woman who dreams of being a missionary to Africa, but your school can't send a black missionary to Africa. So what do you do? Do you give up your dream? Or do you find a new dream?

You're born in Mayesville, South Carolina, the fifteenth of seventeen children. Your entire family works long hours growing cotton on your five-acre farm.

Your parents want at least one of their children to receive an education, so in 1885 when you're ten years old, your parents send you to Trinity Presbyterian Mission School, a school for black children.

You get up early every morning, do your chores, and then walk the five miles to school. You study hard at school, then you walk back home where you do more chores, and every night you teach your brothers and sisters what you learned in school that day.

You do well in school and when you're twelve, your teachers select you to receive a scholarship to attend the Scotia Seminary in Concord, North Carolina, where you excel in English and you learn to speak and write with confidence.

After you complete your education at the seminary in 1894, you attend the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. The Moody Institute sends missionaries to countries around the world, and you want to become a missionary in Africa. But there are no openings for black missionaries in Africa, and you later say that this was "the greatest disappointment of your life."

You begin teaching at the Haines Institute in Augusta, Georgia, where you discover your love of teaching and you realize that you don't need to go to Africa to help your people. Africans in America need teachers just as much as Africans in Africa, and you decide that you will dedicate your life to helping black children receive an education.

Back then, schools for black students offer only classes to help them become better servants or laborers and do not teach students how to be leaders. And there are few educational opportunities for young black girls, but you intend to change that!

In 1899 you move to Florida where you work hard to raise money to open your own school. You realize your dream in 1904 when you open the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Your first class has only five girls and your supplies are meager. You use sticks of charcoal as pencils, you boil berries to make ink, and you make desks and chairs out of old wooden boxes. Tuition is 50 cents a week.

Your school grows quickly and two years later there are 250 students and four teachers. You continue to work hard to find wealthy patrons such as John D. Rockefeller to support your school, and in 1923, your school merges with the Cookman Institute for Men in Jacksonville to become Bethune-Cookman College.

You serve as president of the school from 1904 until 1942 while you continue to work to improve educational and economic opportunities for African Americans.

In 1935 you found the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) which grows in time to include 800,000 women, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt asks you to work with him as an advisor on Negro Affairs. You serve as his advisor from 1936 to 1943.

When you die in 1955 at age 79 from a heart attack, you are recognized as an educator, a civil rights leader, a political activist, a presidential advisor, and one of the most influential black women of the twentieth century.

"I would not exchange my color for all the wealth in the world. For had I been born white I might not have been able to do all that I have done or yet hope to do."

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955)

For More about

 Giving Back:  Mary McLeod Bethune dedicated her entire life to improving educational and economic opportunities for African Americans.

Did You Know  that she had 72 black rose bushes planted at Bethune-Cookman College so that even her garden would illustrate  "equality" and the black rose became her trademark?

 Something to Think about:  Do you think that it's possible to give up one dream and replace it with another dream? Why or why not?

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!