ABOUT ME
I grew up in Mobile, Alabama during virtually all of the Civil Rights Movement.  My birth year was 1954 and I grew up in Chickasaw, Alabama which was billed on every welcome sign into the 1960's as "The All White City".  There is no doubt in my mind that this is the reason my parents moved there in 1956, just north of Mobile.  My parents were extremely racist, and were extreme conservative fundamentalists relative to politics and religion.  As we watched all of the civil rights efforts on TV, I had to listen to the hateful commentary from my parents, as well as from virtually everyone else around me within my community.  In my 10th grade year, 1969-70, I attended Vigor High School which was completely segregated until just two years earlier.  Even then there were only a few African American students there, and those could be counted on one hand.  The school year 1969-70 was filled with a tremendous level of violence and hatred, most of which was fueled by parents primarily of the European American students.  At times we had national guard members stationed in our hallways to try and control the constant and extreme acts of violence instigated from both sides.
 
I couldn't deal with the violence so I dropped out of school in the summer of 1970 and signed up for a night school program under the Adult and Veterans Division of the Mobile County Public School System.  At age 16 I worked nearly fulltime at Gayfers Department Store while going to school in the evenings at the Murphy High School campus.  This work/school schedule helped me save money for college.  Graduating 7 months early gave me the chance to start college in January 1972, which was still my senior year of high school.  I graduated in 1976 from the University of South Alabama with a BA in English Literature, and a minor in music.  After a divorce in 1980 I moved to South Carolina, then to Georgia where I received two Master of Science degrees in Administration (1986), and General Psychology (1989).  In 1989 I moved out to Los Angeles, California where I completed my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology (now under Alliant International University), along with exposure to a fully multicultural student body.  My primary internship training was in East Los Angeles and Upper South Central Los Angeles.  From LA I moved to Riverside County in 1996 and worked for 9 years in the desert with Riverside Country Department of Mental Health.  My primary focus from 1992 through the end of 2004 was exclusivley focused on gang kids and juvenile offender populations.  Fortunately, my upbringing in the "Deep South" served me well in California.  I knew what not to do, and learned to see things through the lives and eyes, hearts and minds of the people I served.  From there I figured out what I could do for those I served.  My efforts and desire to reconcile my past exposure to complete racism and bigotry resulted in a successful attempt to put all of that behind me.
 
I left California in December 2004 due both to budget problems, and the fact I was literally blocked by all parts of the juvenile justice system and law enforcement because of my awareness of abuses of power and authority made possible by the US Patriot Act.  I currently work under the business name ProKids, Inc. with "pro kids" being law enforcement's criticism of me, and their reason for blocking my access to the kids I had served for nearly 9 years.  I was devastated, but not defeated.  My efforts now in Mobile, and hopefully soon on a national level, are fueled by these roadblocks set up to destroy me.  I will never let that happen.  "I get knocked down, but I get up again!"