I was born during a great turmoil in the United States, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941. I've always heard that many family members worked at the "Arsenal" in Pine Bluff where the war materials were made. By the end of 1943, when I was barely nine months old, I’d lost both my mother and my father, figuratively speaking. I spent the early years of my life on "Donation Lands" purchased when President Andrew Johnson took away the land given to former slaves which had been received by my great-great-great-grandfather, in Ladd, Arkansas, where I lived until the age of eleven. I was a high school dropout but managed to overcome the odds and by age forty-five I’d reared five children of my own, in the "projects" of Chicago, and finished law school. My life’s experiences led me to pursue employment which allowed me to collect child support for those who might have similar issues as those I had. I became an attorney in the Child Support Division of the Public Interest Bureau at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in Chicago, Illinois. Read more about this authorRead less about this author