The Struggle.......

“The Struggle….”


Author: Lorrae Richardson
Illustrator: Google




Prologue:

I don’t really know when I was born. My father never returned from war when my mother was pregnant with me, And my mom died while having me. I grew up with my brother and sister. My brother is 1 year older than me, and my sister is two years older than him. We had to live on our own. I was sold as a slave to a white man named Robert Jr. at the age of nine years old. My brother, sister, and I were separated when I was five years old. Growing up in Mississippi was hard. I had to get up before sun rise to go pick cotton until the sun went down. By the time I turned 13, I had cuts and wipes all over my body. By the time I was fifteen, I was raped for the first time. I took it harder than you think, because I had no mother or sister to turn to, and tell me that it’s gonna be ok. I told my self that I’m gonna escape and become a free women. Well I did, but it took me nine years. I was 22 years old when Robert Jr. died and all his slaves were released. I traveled and traveled until I was free. I had a child the next year, lil old Sarah. We had to live in a shelter for three years. Once our time was up for living there, we needed to find a new destination. We final moved to Chicago in 1998. My child was almost four years old, and all ready she’s experiencing the struggle I went through. I let her understand the way life was down south at the time, and how it’s still that way. She was too young to understand everything, but she knows when some one has been treated wrong. By the time Sarah was sixteen, I had my first job. The government seen that the unemployment rate was too high, so he did something about it. Finally my struggling was over and my progress was beginning!!!!




Chapter One
“By passing my struggle”

Should I really call my childhood the struggle? Or the way of LIFE!! I mean during 1962, every body had it hard. Even the white folks. Every were round the United States, there was slavery, violence, and money problems. No body had it good. You needed to have faith in yourself, that you were gonna make it out of slavery, and the poorness. If you had that, then yo dreams came true. Really you didn’t need tha pretty car, or the big house to become successful. Once I had Sarah, my whole life changed. She made me realize that no one is gonna wait on me hand and foot. What every I wanted, I needed to take it!
I want Sarah to grow wealthy, and attend school. I never went to school when I was younger. I want my child to have the best of life! Sarah thinks that I’m happy bout the way life’s going for me. Well at least I’m happy now, but growing up. It was hard. I try to keep my real feelings inside of me, and show happiness on the out side. Don’t get me wrong now, I love Sarah, and the life I have now, but she doesn’t need to know what I’ve been through. She doesn’t need to know that I’ve been beaten, and rapped. Or the fact that I had cuts and wipes all over me from slavery and picking cotton. I felt like she was going to feel sorry for me, and keep on say “I’m sorry momma, I’m so sorry.” Like it’s her fault, and which she had nothing to do with it. But at the end of the day I forget about my past, and realize what a great future I have for myself!



Chapter Two
“The melt down”

I walk in the house and all I could hear is my mom crying and saying, “Why me lord? What did she ever do to you?” As I’m running in the house I’m screaming “What? What? What happened? Momma did we lose the apartment?” But nothing came out, she needed to catch her breath and calm down. By the time she was able to speak, she finally told me what was wrong with her. Her sister who was separated from her, died from AIDS. My mom and she were really close when my grandma had died. My mom was telling me that her life was all wrong. “I didn’t even know her dat long.” I had to calm her down. “Well at least you knew somebody. I don’t have any grandma’s, grandpas, uncles, aunties, or cousins. I don’t have any body.” Cried Sarah. “But you have me, you have me baby.”