My dad left our lives early

"This is the story that I tell myself: Those are things that I earned, paid for with hard work. I am a high school dropout. My mother is a high school dropout. My father is a high school dropout. My sister is a high school dropout. My first home was in a southern Mississippi trailer park. My mother was pregnant with me at the age of 19. My dad left our lives early. 

"I got my GED. I moved from a community college to the University of Georgia, working as a short-order cook while earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism."

This excerpt is from a series that also includes a separate article on how President Obama and over a hundred others from America's political elite descend from at least one relative who owned slaves.

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