Palm Beach County residents were asked:
Please tell us about an important moment in your life that would help someone understand what it’s like living in your neighborhood.
The stories and micro-narratives they submitted (as part of the We Are Here SenseMaker project) are listed below. Click ZOOM IN to learn more about the community member and how they interpreted their submission. NOTE: Some stories were partially transcribed by volunteers who shortened the narratives and referred to the storytellers in the third person (e.g., “her experience was” instead of “my experience was”).
We came closest to integration in 1988, when nearly half of all African-American children attended majority white schools. Since then, districts have been casting off federal court orders like rusted shackles. The result, a Government Accountability Office report found in the spring of 2016, the number of African American and Hispanic students attending segregated schools is rapidly growing.
Growing up in Delray Beach Fl I was always a problem child I brought disappointment to my mom and family than that made me realize that what I did shouldn’t be happening anymore , my mom told me. “Baby don’t do that no more “ that’s the day I smiled remember it like it was yesterday
I’m Boynton Beach I didn’t have work I had to pick up things people threw out that they didn’t want any more So I used to take it to the Junk yard to get paid because I couldn’t get a real job because the people I was gonna work with didn’t like the colored folks .
The neighborhood was a family, every child was each other’s, whenever there were needs, the others would help. My mother died in 1977, my neighbor had 4 girls but made sure we had decent clothes to wear. Born one of thirteen children, dad worked on the farm, woke up at 3 am and came home late. Mom was authority figure, caring for one another. Did not have much but made sure we had enough. We didn’t see ourselves as being poor. If someone was sick, we helped each other.
In high school when i received a full ride to UF.
I remember one night returning home and my mom looked puzzled when I looked out the window I seen this someone was breaking into my dad’s truck my dad immediately got out of the car and begin to taste the person about the person got away and the police took