Positive Prospects - Part 4

I believe the first time I began to realize in a real tangible way how life in the greater world did not parallel my experiences in America occurred during my travels to St. Vincent Island in the Grenadines. Here I witnessed severe poverty. The indigenous people, earning dollars on the month, were living in tin-roof lean-to's with no electricity and no running water.

These people clung tightly to my group of visitors, and in just a few short weeks I learned of the hard lives these people--under the Queen--have grown to endure as a normative experience. The disparity between the indigenous people in the rural portions of the island and the wealthy people in the urban areas was striking to me. I sympathized with these indigents and appreciated their desire to feel valued and important. This trip, I believe, was the cornerstone of my belief in social justice.

A second important experience in forming my beliefs about social justice occurred during my freshman year in college at Samford University in Birmingham, AL. Here I spent time on a weekly basis at a juvenille delinquent holding cell facility. Here students waited to stand before a judge or to be transferred to a more secure facility.

During my time there, I engaged in activities such as playing cards, lifting weights, playing basketball, and simply talking with these delinquents. During these interactions I encountered many deliquents who over time became to me a people faced with many hard choices to make on a daily basis. These hard choices were in the midst of an environment that did not necessarily include models of making good decisions if models existed at all. The demographic of this hodling cell at that time was nearly 100% African American. I grew to understand that the story that brought these children to this place in their lives was not a simple one dictated simply by wrong choices. This experience began to set in stone for me the a strong belief in a society that strives to be intentional about creating opportunities for African Americans. Because of this experience, I have a deeper intuitive understanding that the blessings I have in life are not simply deserved due to my own hard work and good choices. My circumstances and the accident of my birthplace have had a lot to do with it.