Hard Times and Survival; the Autobiography of an African-American Son

Hard Times and Survival: The Autobiography of an African American Son is my story. It is how I overcame all the heartbreaking brutal and horrendous circumstances that I was born into in 1947. I saw it all in my first sixteen years: unbridled lust gross immorality damning lies and terrible brutality by my father against me and my mother. He tried to kill me once but kept up a constant campaign of horrible abuses of my mother until I left home at sixteen. However success is the best revenge! After three years of alcoholism I pulled myself together and went back to school on my own. That was after I spent a year in Job Corps from 1966 to 1967. From 1975 to 1977 I went to Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville. From 1977 to 1980 I attended Virginia State University in Petersburg. I earned my BA and MA degrees. I studied above a masters at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville from 1980 to 1983. I did not graduate but I learned valuable life lessons. I started to write in 1993 about what had happened to me over the years and how I used my dire circumstances as motivation to pick myself up and make my life better. I hope I am an example that will help others who are suffering through similar atrocities to be motivated to not give up but persevere and that they will as I did overcome anything they are being faced with.