http://www.thelizlibrary.org/fatherless/021.html
This child was born in Georgia in 1919, the youngest of five children. His father was a poor sharecropper, earning $12 a month for working another man's farmland. His mother worked as a maid. Shortly after the child's birth, his father abandoned the family, heading for Florida, and was never heard from again.
Unable to continue supporting the family in Georgia, his mother took her five children, along with her own sister, her sister's husband, their two children, and three friends on a train to California, where a relative had an apartment for them to stay in a bad part of town. She continued to work as a domestic six days a week, and the children were often left alone to fend for themselves.
The child attended a public elementary school and then a vocational high school, wearing hand-me-down clothes. He was not a stellar student. He even joined a local gang, and he and his friends sometimes entertained themselves by throwing rocks at passersby, and playing other pranks. Sometimes they would sneak onto a local golf course to steal balls, which they then sold back to the golfers. Although he did get a paper route to earn money, sometimes he and his friends just stole things, and often what they stole was food.
When he finished high school, he went to a local junior college. Later he attended the state university on a scholarship, where he met the woman who became his life-long partner and wife, and the mother of his three children. He was forced to leave college before graduation, however, because he simply did not have enough money, even with the scholarship, to finish his studies.
After he left college, he worked for a little while, and then joined the Army, where he rose to become a lieutenant within two years, but where he also nearly became court-martialed when he defied a rule he thought was unjust and discriminatory.
In his later life, this child fought against other discriminatory laws, fighting racism in everything he did. He worked with Malcolm X as well as Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement. He testified against discrimination before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He also worked for New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, authored numerous newspaper articles, and was a television commentator.
After his death from a heart attack as a relatively young man, his wife established a foundation in his honor to help gifted young persons in need of scholarships and and other kinds of assistance.
The inscription on his grave reads:
"A life is not important except in the line of impact it has on other lives."
In a speech about him President Nixon said that he had brought a sense of brotherhood "to every area of American life where black and white people work side by side."
This child was UCLA's first four-letter athlete, the first person to be awarded all three of baseball's highest honors, one of the greatest athletes of all time, and perhaps best known as the man who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball:
Jack Roosevelt Robinson, aka Jackie Robinson, a boy from a "fatherless home."
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2 comments:
This is crap a waste of time. Yes its obviously alot easier when money involved as u have more access to resources to better yourself. Most of these storys involve sumone being left sumthin or inheriting sumthin when there father dies. In some ways thats a much more fortunate position to be in than being left nothing, Though loosin somebody is never nice. A dad is required and its very important if a dad can b there 4 a child. My daughters ask alot of questions that she wil not get the answers 4. As well as this small observation i have alot more roles to fill being a father. The world is nasty u need to love and assist ur kids b close to them b the best u can b 4 them and protect them. My mother is good but now iam of age i can now c what has been missed out most things in which my mother couldnt help me with. The only way i wud agree that its ok 4 a dad to not b around is when they mayb are violent or have mental issues to deal with. But even in this case it is important that a child knows who the father is and mayb what type of person they were so the child has more of a chance to find out what type of inner workings they have. 4 example if the dad wasnt a nice person then mayb a child knowin this will understand that may hav this trait and b able to counter act it. Like myself i wud always cheat on women not 4 any particular reason just sum unknown inner workings going on as im really not a bad hearted person. But over the years i have learnt more about my dad and although he has a good career and a very smart guy(by the way which he shares none of this extreme knowledge with me) he was quite a rotten guy in the ladys department. In Sum cases our dads dont have all the answers themselfs as we stil have to understand they also have the inner working thing going on, dnt think this article i read was very smart. Damian.damiyan@hotmail.co.uk
Damian you are so right about the needs of a child. First need is to be nurtured. When either parent is abusive the nurturing is non-existent. Then as the child gets older they need to get an education so when they "grow up" they can support themselves.
Not to be crass but your children will obviously not receive an education from you.
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