My mother was a schoolteacher. She taught me to read before I started kindergarten. She instilled in me a life-long curiosity and desire to learn.  Once I started school, she took advantage of the push to integrate schools and enrolled me in the best public schools. Through her colleagues, she identified a scholarship fund that placed minority youth in top private schools. As a result, I became a boarding student at the Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Ga. in the ninth grade. It was co-ed, it was not a military school and I was not sent there against my will or to straighten me out. Per my parents, I told them I wanted to go and that I wanted to be my own man – at the age of 14!