While the contributions of African-Americans have been significant - in fact, they have
been too numerous to mention in a simple 500 word essay; I prefer to think of February
as "American History Month". The fact is the African-American struggle has not been
limited to the African-American people, but to all citizens of this country.

I myself come from a very racially diverse family; Native American, African American,
German, Hispanic, Anglo....

This list goes on and on. Rather then limit myself to one racial perspective; I like to
consider myself 100% American. This does not mean that I suppress or ignore my
heritage. On the contrary, it gives me the opportunity to celebrate my diversity in a way
most people can not relate to.

As this pertains to African American history and making progress, I would like to tell a
story from my childhood. I would like to forewarn the reader this information may seem
a little graphic to some. Keep in mind that if it is graphic to you as an adult, how I must
have felt living this experience as a child.

I spent my childhood days in a small rural West Virginia community. My early years,
which should have been full of wonder and amusement, were during the times of racial
unrest in the area. It was the early'70's though I don't recall the exact year.

I remember spending my summer between the end of third grade and the beginning ofthi
fourth in the small town of Rand, WV. I was blond haired and blue eyed in a
predominantly black community. There was a little boy in this town that I knew only as
"Knuckles".

Knuckles had a reputation for beating up the minority "white" kids in the town. He
would roam the streets with his gang of older teen-aged boys searching for victims. It
was nearing the end of summer and I had never met up with Knuckles - to me he was
becoming more of an urban legend.

As luck would have it, one day I was sitting alone on the side of the road playing with
my hot wheels when the alarm was sounded. "Knuckles is coming. Knuckles is coming!'

Now, I was very quick but really saw no reason to run like everyone else. I was playing
and having fun and I didn't even know who Knuckles was - why would he want to fight
me?

I soon had my answer. Before I knew what was going on I was surrounded by about six
to eight boys. All of them seemed to be teen-agers except for one boy who was even
smaller then myself. The little boy was Knuckles. The older boys taunted me but
Knuckles didn't make a sound. "Hit him, hit the -white boy Knuckles. If he hits you back
we 'II take care of him!"

I stopped playing at this point and looked up at knuckles. It was obvious to me that he didn't want to fight. It seemed as if he was afraid not to hit me - talk about peer pressure. Knuckles hit me once on the jaw and then moved on.

I looked up as he walked away, he glanced back and his eyes seem to say "I'm sorry -1 wish I
could play with you." I had no hard feelings toward him and I never saw him again. I
soon found that this incident was quite tame compared to what was in store.

Just before school began we moved a few miles down the road to a place called Georges
Drive, in Maiden, West Virginia. Georges Drive was a long hollow bordered by
mountains on one side and a small creek on the other. We lived in an old farm house on
the mountain side with a gravel drive that went up the hill at least 100 yards. 748
Georges Drive is not an address I would soon forget.

Summer was over and school had begun. I was now attending Maiden Elementary. This
year would mark desegregation in Kanawha County Schools and would prove to be
bigger then the "Kanawha County Textbook Controversy" of the previous year.

What was to occur was that a number of "white" students would be bused to Rand and a
slightly higher number of "black" students would be sent to Maiden. I saw this as an
opportunity to see some of my old friends.

The desegregation process did not start on the first day of school; in retrospect I feel this
was a horrible mistake. It did however start a couple of weeks later. By the beginning ol
October my older sister had moved back from Florida. In tow she had her four children
and her boyfriend. Her boyfriend was African-American and her youngest child, 2 year
old Tommy Lee, was bi-racial.

It was now October and tension was very high. Being a child I could not understand the
hatred. Perhaps it was due to my diverse background or perhaps simple childhood
innocence; it was most likely due to the values my parents had instilled in me.

I noticed that some of my so-called "friends" were no longer friendly. My father was a
truck driver for a local cabinet maker. Normally, he would be resigned to the regional
route which would take him to Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. It was a rare occurrence for
my father to be assigned the southern route which would take him through Virginia,
Georgia and the Carolinas.

As fate would have it, over the Halloween weekend my dad would be going to the
Carolinas. I had been with him to NC before but had never been to South Carolina. It
was my goal to visit every state in the union and my school teacher always felt the trips
were educational so I would be excused as long as I completed a report to present to the
class upon my return.

I was having a wonderful time on this trip but because ot hatred the tnp would abruptly
be cut short. It was Halloween night. The company my father worked for was able to
track us down and get a message to him -"Emergency at home, come home at once."

What we found when we made it home the next morning is that a group of people had
terrorized the rest of the family while we had been gone. They wore hoods and robes
and shouted racial epitaphs. They beat our dogs and broke out windows. They burned a
cross in our yard in the name of "racial purity". They threatened to do harm to my
sister's two year old son and chased away my sister's boyfriend - we never heard from
him again. To this day I have no idea what happened to him. The police were of little
help as there were no solid leads but the damage had been done. My families Civil
Rights had been effectively violated. Everything this country is supposed to stand for,
every principle outlined in the United States Constitution seemed a mute point.

Once the weekend was over and we were back to school I was taunted by several of the
other kids. Unspeakable words about me and my family that I do not care to repeat. At
one point during break time I recall I was in the restroom and one particularly hate filled
boy kicked the vent out of the door, called me and my older sister horrible things and
threatened me physically -1 guess he felt the need to keep his school bully reputation
intact.

Through out the week this continued, not just at school but at home as well. None of us
children could leave our yard without being harassed or having to defend ourselves. Good
thing we had a three acre yard to play in.

That Saturday night we awoke to a loud noise - it sounded like an explosion. What we
found was that my sister's car which sat at the end of the driveway had been fire-bombed.
By the time the fire department arrived it was a total loss. There were no witnesses to the
event.

It was at this time my sister made a decision which she struggled with until her death. To
protect her son, she would have to put him up for adoption. As fate would have it, she
was very lucky. She found an affluent African American couple who could not have
children of their own.

Laura was head of her department at an area hospital and her husband Thomas Lee was Security Chief for a local bank - and he already shared names with Tommy Lee so it seemed a perfect match.

So, how can this be "Making Progress"? For me, it gave me the desire to always treat
everyone as an equal. To celebrate our diversity as a planet and to continually strive for
perfection and to help those in need whenever I have the opportunity and ability to do so.

I have served the past two years as Team Captain for Verizon during the Leukemia &
Lymphoma Society's annual "Light the Night" walks as well as having served as
Committee Chair for the Society. I am a former member of the Verizon's Diversity Team and currently manage an MSN Community called World Religious Studies and Debate where the management team strives to show everyone that we all all part of the same race - The Human Race. And that is progress.