“I left fifty years ago. Why would I want to come back?”

I am back in North Carolina, remembering when I was back in North Carolina and dreamed of coming home.

After running away from my hometown for most of my life, I can’t believe I dream of going home every day. My family abandoned our home many years ago. Like many American blacks born in the ’40s and ’50s, we left southern towns seeking respite from the notion that we deserved less because we happened to be of darkened hue.