MY MENTORS

Any way you look at it, people in my life mattered hugely! Ordinary relationships that were loving, compassionate and nurturing that assured my survival while growing up Black in Jim Crow Deep South, guiding me through difficult coming of age experiences, and prepared me for a future I could not imagine as University President and America’s first Black professional tuba player. This is a book of related short stories, each featuring a mentor, that portrays entangled inter-generational and interracial relationships, shaped profoundly by the historical times and vibrant places we lived. The stories encompass biography (memoir), autobiography, history, race, education, music, sociology, spirituality and relationships. They express the human experience.