Perseverance — Page 6
6 – the story of al-haj Rashid ahmad american satisfying enough to encourage a young man, such as myself, to continue my affiliation with the church. My mother’s health had deteriorated from all the years she had been roaming around. Back then there wasn’t the healthcare we have now, and her health grew worse. She passed away in 1935 from tuberculosis, when I was twelve. I then moved to live with my father. He told me that I could get my breakfast and dinner, and sleep there, but I had to find a way to get my own lunch. Seeing that I was accustomed to wearing tailor made clothes, he told me that he would only buy me clothes that were on sale, but I was free to find my own money to buy more expensive clothes. Chapter 2 – Early Years MY HIGH SCHOOL YEARS During my summer vacations, I would travel out West. There were jobs laying railway track for Union Pacific in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Utah. Black people didn’t frequent these areas. This was culture shock for me. This was the first time I was exposed to segregation. There were different drinking fountains and bathrooms for “colored” and “white” people. When laying track we lived out in the desert and stayed in a boxcar. There was nothing to do out there but eat, sleep, work and gamble. There was no law and order in those areas and everyone lived by the principle that might is right. Weighing no more than 90 pounds I learned this quickly. All of the work I was assigned was physically impossible for me. After being re-assigned several jobs,