I love seeing family reunion t-shirts and looking at the names wondering if I shared a common ancestry or whether my ancestors shared the trials and tribulations of slavery with their ancestors.

You should break free of the slavery of the mind that says you can’t make it unless Uncle Sam breaks down the barriers for you first.

If you only look around, you will find plenty of those who have done so, w/o the benefit of Affirmative Action.

By the time Brown vs Brown rolled around, my dad had just received his 2nd degree, in spite of a “double-handicap” (Black & Deaf) and was enrolling in yet another “white” university to go for his 3rd. What opened doors for him was ambition, attitude and faith in God.

The opportunity for quality education has always been there, reversing the separate-but-equal only served to make integration universal as a matter of policy.

As Dad would always say, where there’s a will, there’s a way. No one can hold you down, unless you allow them to.

Ironic then that nowadays, “equal” education is available everywhere, yet the quality has gone downhill. Perhaps quality education has something to do with the challenge rather than the ease in getting that sheepskin.

That’s a great comment.

Although to all intents and purposes we are whites, about 10 years ago my sister did some investigating into genealogy, and discovered some very likely black anscestry. I was so happy. I felt a little like a wall coming down, like “yes, we’re really brothers.” I knew I didn’t have any right or reason to consider myself black. It’s so far back it isn’t apparent, and most importantly, I’ve never had the experience of being black in America. But it still made a difference to me. Unfortunately I picked up a book called “The Sweeter The Juice” about a black woman’s search for her family that had disappeared to pass as white. By the end of the book it was evident that she had only wanted to find them so she could establish that she was the better, and there was no love involved. I finished the book, but I felt the walls go up a little bit again. That’s the way the world is. But still, I know those great African songs and art and culture are mine too.

On my dad’s side, his parents came over from Poland in the early twentieth century. Lord alone knows if there’s any Polish records extant; last century was less than kind to Poland.

In addition, I’ve been working on quite a bit, and found that my father’s African family may have come from Morocco — I’m still working on that.

On my mother’s side, one cousin has been able to trace our heritage back 500 years to Chief Tuskaloosa of the Chocktaw (and who Tuscaloosa, AL is named for).

My wife’s family has been traced to a single freed slave in Macon, GA, Alexanderson Redding. I’m also working to move backward from there as well.

In any event, I’ve found background in my family from England, Scotland, France, Spain, North America and most likely Morocco. I, too, am a mutt who is proud of all of it. I’ve still got quite a bit of work to dig through though.

How important is it to know my roots? For me, what I know is enough – that many of these people had very hard lives, leaving their homes far away, working on plantations. They never looked back and they passed on their traditions and values to their progeny. They made the best of things and I remember most of them as loving people. I am blessed to have their blood running through my veins.

Okay. Coolness amended. Agreed however, the camera is not as good to some. It’s not good to me either and therefore I will take solace in your observations about Mr. Burton.

I didn’t think he was so hot either until I met him. A camera doesn’t do some people justice. Levar’s one of them. It helps that he has none of that actor attitude, also (a very nice man).