ABSTRACT
I came of age during a period of social unrest, when demonstrations against racial segregation abounded and protests were beginning to rise against the unrelenting political oppression of the American South’s black population. In my youth Black Studies was neither an idea for universities nor a destination for black students. The colors of my youth were red with the violence of physical abuse and black with the people who surrounded me in the coastal plains of South Georgia. Cruel history teachers who were often hidden behind hooded masks wrote the lessons I learned.
