𝙐𝙉𝙁𝙊𝙇𝘿𝙀𝘿 | 𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐀.

𝙞. Upbringing

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Upbringing.
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I was the first born of fourteen children and thirty-seven grandchildren.

My maternal grandparents, Paula and Mitchell, were high school teachers, born and raised in Cincinnatio, Ohio. My grandmother, Paula's parents were slaves and Mitchell's parents, well his father was the son of a slave owner. His mother was the slave. They share seven children together and four grandchildren

They had met in college. Paula, who I now call Leilei, was a junior and Mitchell was a senior. They began dating some time after Leilei graduated college.

By the time they had their first child, they were married by a justice of the peace on March 3, 1921. My mother was their youngest child, born April 18, 1929 in Saint Paul, Minnesota where they had moved shortly after being married.

Shortly after her birth, they relocated again to California.

My paternal great-grandfather, Isreal Nero Jackson was a slave, born to a slaved girl by the name of Gina and his father, July "Jack" Gale. Nero married Emeline Williams, they went on to have 15 children together. Their son, my grandfather, Samuel or as I call him, Sammy, had met my grandmother, Chrystal King, in a one way school house down in Arkansas. Sammy, then 29, was the teacher and Chrystal, then 15, was the student.

They married in December of 1927, in Ashley County, Arkansas. My father, Joe Jackson, was their first child, born July 26, 1929 in the town of Fountain Hill. 4 more children would follow. My aunt Verna came next, born in February of 1930, seven months after my father. 2 years later, my aunt Lula made the third child, born in 1932 and two boys followed: Lawrence, in 1933 and Martin or as we call him, Luther, in 1935.

Sadly, my aunt Verna died at the age of seven... I never did get to meet her.

After nearly fourteen years of marriage, my grandparents divorced in 1942, when my father was only twelve. Following the divorce, my grandmother moved to East Chicago, taking my aunt and uncles with her and my grandfather, had moved to Oakland, California, taking Joe with him.

In Oakland, is where my parents would meet. They both attended Fremont High school, though my mother had previously went to Oakland High before transferring to Fremont. They shared the same math and arts classes together. Math, is where they had their first encounter.

My grandparents were strict. As a boy, my father was a loner with hardly any friends. My mother happened to be one of the very few friends he did have. As obvious, one thing led to another, and they soon became more than friends.

I was their first and only child together, Born May 29, 1944 at the Highland Hospital in Oakland, California.

My parents were young around the time of my birth. Teenagers, just beginning High school when they decided to have a child at the ages of fourteen and fifteen.

As upset as they may have been, neither side of my grandparents believed in abortions let alone adoption. It was my paternal grandfather, Samuel, who would come up with the idea that my grandmother would take me under her wing. That idea, was one my maternal grandparents surely didn't like.

"And why should she have to live with her?" Paula would argue. It was abundantly clear that neither side of my grandparents ever got along.

"I'd say we take her. So that way, she'd still be in her mother's reach and won't have to travel all that way from Oakland to East Chicago, and back again" Despite her wishes, that is what happened.