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Tell us what's
happened to you since high school
(Feel free to tell us THE WHOLE STORY):
I went to
Palomares Junior High and was scheduled to go to Pomona High with
all my friends but due to the racial unrest at the time, my parents
enrolled my sister in me at Western Christian High School, where I
actually graduated. I'm still friends with several folks who
graduated PHS in 1972 and other years.
I moved to Oregon to attend college in Eugene. I'm a graduate of both the
University of Oregon and Northwest Christian College. After
graduation I moved to Bend in Central Oregon to manage, and later
own, movie theaters, a restaurant, and a video rental store. I later
entered local politics and served on our local city council, county
commission, and the state of Oregon Arts Commission.
In 2001 I was invited to participate in an extended family project. I
found out I was related to the largest slave-trading dynasty in U.S.
history. A distant cousin of mine, Katrina Browne, produced,
directed, and wrote the Emmy-nominated, PBS documentary of our
journey, Traces of the Trade. It premiered at the Sundance Film
Festival. I wrote the companion book for the film. Inheriting the
Trade was published by Beacon Press in 2008.
I still live in Oregon, continue to write, and enjoy life's blessings.
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Career? Job?
I'm a public speaker at colleges,
conferences, and other venues with a focus on racism, intolerance,
and understanding the present-day impact of historic, unhealed
trauma. I'm a published writer. My second book is co-authored with
Sharon Morgan. Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a
Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade will be published
by Beacon Press in October 2012.
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