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It was the fall of 1976. I had just graduated from elementary school a couple of months ago. The
graduation was nice filled with good memories all the girls dressed up in white dresses and wearing
nylons for the first time. The church was Zion Baptist on forest and Vandyke on the east side of Detroit.
My music teacher Mrs. Jackson was so proud this was her idea right from the beginning. The principal
of our school and Mrs. Jackson thought it would be a good ending to have a graduation ceremony for the
sixth graders who were leaving the elementary level and going on to Junior High in the fall. A
celebration of your accomplishment and the beginning of your pre High School years the excitement
was in the air. Every student that was graduating and that was every student to my recollection. Our last
year at Jones elementary had been a great. My home room teacher Mrs. Silverman was a Jewish woman
so we knew about some of the holidays that she celebrated in her culture. She taught us our basic Math
Writing and Reading skills and she was adamant about learning she cared and you could sense her
genuine nature. We performed a play on stage two times a day for a week for the whole school called
the invisible man. (Yolanda Wyche 2014). The School curriculum included Art, Music and Gym
classes. One of the perks back then was that at lunch time you could go home for lunch or stay at school
to eat lunch. I would choose to go home sometimes to have lunch with my mother because lunch was
not free for me at that time. Once it started being free for me I stayed at school more but I still enjoyed
going home to check on my mom who seemed to be in a state of depression on some days. I knew that
my neighborhood was filled with all kinds of people some were hard working men that had families
some women were homemakers and others were career women. Some people were drug addicts and
some were into religion groups like the Muslims that owned the local neighborhood stores. These
families were the Black Muslims and corner store mom and pop stores.
At graduation from sixth grade my teacher had us sing Memories by Barbara
Streisand and Swing Low Sweet Chariot It was a time of great expectations to go on

and have more accomplishments . Transitioning was happening that year of 1976 it felt
uncertain yet anticipation for what Junior High School would be like was a major factor
along with the feeling of anxiety so I decided to enjoy my summer to relieve the anxiety
According to (Leroy and Ashford 2013 p.46). Transitions are clearly an inevitable part
of any persons life. Until death stops it all, human lives are all always in transition.
The summer was a good time. I made a new friend at school. Valarie was my new friend
she lived close to Indian Village she started late in the year but her stepfather was my
Art teacher who was a really nice man. He came up with cultural objects for his Black
students to make we would make hair picks out of wood so he was viewed as being a
Kool teacher. This was my first encounter with an interracial family because my Art
teacher was white and my new friend Valarie was black and so her mother had married
a white man. This was interesting to me the other kids in the class just seem to not know
this fact about Valaries life yet, she told me right away. She came over to my
neighborhood on her ten speed bike. I thought how cool is that I did not have a bike to
ride with her so one of my neighbors would let me borrow his bike so that I could be
with my friend. I realize now that most of my friends had more toys or just access to
more things than I. My mother was a single parent at this time in her life therefore, all
the things that two parent families could afford became, apparent to me. I chose friends
that came from two-parent families at this time in my life not on purpose. I found
myself gravitating to these situations maybe because those family structures were so
different from my own.
In some ways the operant conditioning theory was taking a role in my decision to be
friends with my neighbors and schoolmates that had more things to do and more

resources. I enjoyed going places with other families. My mother did not have a car so
simple things like going to the Belle Isle park was not possible. The neighbors would let
their childrens friends come along as long as they displayed good manners and home
training. The reward in being a good friend and displaying good behavior could be a trip
to the park or somewhere really nice. Reinforcement refers to anything that follows a
behavior and increases the likelihood of that behavior, (Ashford and Lecroy 2013). The
outings with the other families was a positive experience for me therefore, the
consequences were positive.
As the summer began to fade away and the fall and new semester began to come
into focus I was surprised that my anxiety began to fade. The new school was three
times the size of my old school with three times as many students. The new school had
three levels .I found it difficult to navigate through the hallways to the other classes .My
classes were not all on the same floor. It was really overwhelming to me in the
beginning.
I often wondered why it was so chaotic and who said that this was a good environment.
Days later I heard about fights going on after school and someone getting hurt. I knew
at that point that I need some friends to walk home with. Valarie the friend that I had
from the sixth grade did not attend Barbara Junior High School she ended up going to a
catholic school near her home. I could not find most of the girls that was in my sixth
grade class they all went to another school or either they moved away. I felt so alone. I
knew girls from my own neighborhood that were a little older than me but they were in
a gang. One girl actually lived across the street from my aunt Loren. My aunt was a
Jehovahs Witness and I went with her to some of her meeting and I just did not feel

right being a part of a gang eventual, I understood why the girls chose to do this they
felt safe in a group oppose to being alone in a school of that size. I did not join the gang
but I felt like I know people in that gang so if I have any problems I will not hesitate to
let my older neighborhood friends know. I had a health class that was so scary. I could
not believe it. This class was about sexual diseases and how you could get these horrible
diseases. It taught how to prevent these problems and issues but it was uncomfortable to
me. The class was about pregnancy and the menstruation cycle which was the only topic
that was not overwhelming or embarrassing to me. I would have rather just went to a
typing class.
I found a friend to walk home from school with she was a quiet girl who just
wanted to make it home in one piece. She was nice and we would talk about all the kids
that was enrolled at this school and how overwhelming it was. It really was not that
much more to talk about .She came from a single parent home .She had a couple of
sisters that was never home. I met her mom one time. Her family resembled mines in
some ways. A quiet home with not a lot to do. My friend name was Carmen. I began to
feel safe walking to and from school with her. It was just us but I could depend on her to
meet up with me at the same time every day at the same place the corner of my block.
My mother was so picky she really did not like Carmen and I thought that was a pretty
mean way to act towards her so I told her not to treat her in a critical way. It was a trait
of hers to criticize people that she did not know.
Everyone was looking forward to the Christmas holiday and the holiday break but
something felt very different it was a strange feeling that was lurking in the atmosphere.
So my mother said would you like to go to Virginia for Christmas. I said well I do not

know. I was really always excited to go back home to be with my whole family aunts
,uncles and cousins but why now was this really a good time to go .I contemplated on
every day until it was time to leave . I went on a plane alone .I left my sisters and
mother behind .I did not feel good about leaving them at Christmas but it was chance to
see my father and other relatives .I always loved Virginia it was my favorite place in the
world at that time in my life. I left for what was suppose be a Christmas vacation and
my father talked my aunt into letting me stay this was the beginning of a back and forth
living arrangement that ultimately was not good for me. I felt guilty for leaving my
siblings and mother in Detroit. I called them often .I could not deny feeling less anxiety
about the school because it was much smaller and the counselors worked with you on a
micro level to really help you know your strengths and weaknesses. I was happy there I
just wanted my family to come down to Virginia to live my mom would never consider
it she rather stay in Detroit and be a single mother without the support of her family.
She would say that she was the black sheep in her family she suffered from low selfesteem that made her feel less than what her true possibilities were. She was a sixties
teenager that generation were hippies and so was she .They experimented with life in
general not just recreational drugs. The seventh grade was a little rocky. The next year
my grades were a lot better .I fell in love with basketball and started working out for the
team my gym teacher was the coach for the girls J.V and Varsity she asked me to try out
for the team for the following year which would have been my 9 th grade year. I was so
excited I had been looking for something special to do in my High School years
.Something to belong to something to make school more interesting. I had made the
adjustment of coming from Detroit to Virginia. My counselor call me and she made out

my schedule for the following year. I had plans basketball and my last year in junior
high school.
I was living with my aunt Blanche during this time. She was having some marital
problems so she was not interested in my High School plans. I had tried out for the flag
girl team and made it. My plans were concrete and solid. I was feeling good about my
future.
My aunt had plans. She waited until August of that year to reveal them to me she said I
need privacy and time to fix my marriage She said can you go back to Detroit while I
try to savage whats left of my marriage. The second blow that struck was when my
father died several months before she sked me too leave. I was devastated when my
father died so I did not think she was going to bring up my leaving .I was so nave to
think that everything would be alright. She was only letting me stay because my father
had asked her now he was not alive so why did she want to accommodate me. I felt
betrayed
I was so shocked I tried to deny that it was really an idea. I had too many plans for this
to be a reality I was upset and then sad and then rebellious. I left Virginia in 1977
returning to Detroit to a neighborhood that was not as good as the one I lived in before I
went to Virginia. I did not know anyone at all. My mother started working in a local
factory the midnight shift. I was afraid to be left alone to babysit my siblings overnight.
I started making friends and the first wave was from a two parent home. They were
older girls .One of the girls had graduated from Denby High School. They moved after
one year.

My other friends came from broken homes. One friend who was really smart in school
Had a mother that was in jail. She was living with her grandmother. The second friend
mother was a drug addict and her had abandon her and her siblings .I liked my friends
they was smart in school we just lived in an environment that did not have many
resources to help young women stay focused on positive things. I was starting to feel
pressure to get a job to help my mother. Social learning theory was being active at this
point in my life. I was hanging around girls that were struggling to appear as if
everything was normal in their home and it was not. I learned how to fit in to have
friends and not be and outcast. I tried to join the basketball team at the new school. It
did not work out
Practice was too late in evening. I had no transportation and the school was too far
away.
This upset me more. My mother did not have a car and no one to assist with
transportation.
The man in her life was not helpful to us as a family even thou she was having another
baby. I did not do drugs .I tried alcohol I had too many drinks one day trying to forget
about my unhappiness of being back in the city. It made me sick to my stomach for two
days.
My sexuality was a female that loved sports my peers said that I was a tomboy. I was
always attracted to boys my age. In the city men that were a lot older always tried to
talk to young women. It was an awkward situation to be in my friends would say if you

do not want the attention just hurt their feelings. They would say talk real smart and
sassy to turn them off.
During these years of High School designer clothes were fashionable and some of my
peers would judge you by the outfits you had to wear or the ones you did not have to
wear. My body image was as a slender girl with athletic look. I finally started to feel
alright with being in the city my adjustment was slow but steady. I was learning not to
succumb to peer pressure and how to adjust my own identity to people that like doing
the things that were important to me like graduating from high school and getting a job
and career.
My mother lost her two family flat home. She was not buying the place only renting it.
The landlord said that she did not tell him exactly how many children she had so she
was evicted for not paying him on time. This was a real bad break .I had just started my
job at McDonalds at sixteen years old as a cashier and food handler.
My mom then said she wanted to move to Virginia by this time I was in the 11th grade. I
could not believe this was happening. We moved back and I had to start over again this
cycle was wearing on me. This had a not so good effect on me. I do not like moving
around as an adult it makes me feel unstable. I do not put faith in people to always do
what is in your best interest. I trust more in God than people.
I am a diverse person because I believe in all people being a part of the human race and
I know that a variety is a good thing.

References
1. (Yolanda Wyche 2014)
2. Florence Clarke 2014)
3. Ashford and Lecroy Human Bahavior and the Environment 2013)
.