Touch Me! I'm for Real

Like most kids, teachers asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. That question was hard to answer as a black girl growing up in Harlem in the 1950s. When I tried to look back beyond my grandmother to understand my family's past, there was an ugly stain on our history left by slavery and then just a dark blur. It was said we came from Africa. Where exactly? I didn't know. There was no connection. When I looked around me, I saw crime, violence, and drugs spreading malignity through the b...