Healing Old Wounds: One Conversation at a Time

…you an I are the only black in here……I wonder if we will be OK…..

St Patrick's Day 2019 with my parents. About 40 mins from Philadelphia and about 45 minutes from Atlantic City, is the start of the New Jersey Pine barrens. Close enough to commute to PHilly for work, yet feeling far removed. Surrounded by a major military complex is this area full of farms, yet close enough to an major urban area you can have everything at your fingertips just a short drive or bus ride away. ON St Patrick's Day 2019, my parents and I decided to do something 'different'. It ended up being only 10 minutes form the home I grew up in. Sometimes travel is in your own backyard. In this story, I share my family's challenge to address old wounds of racial tension, in an area not all that long ago may not have been as welcoming. This is the same area, where in 1969 my father tried to buy a home and was denied for being black, eventually buying in a housing development priory marketed to minority families. A common form of segregation which went on long after the civil rights act was passed. See how we handle the struggle of wounds so deep, you wonder if they will ever heal. Healing Old wounds, one conversation at a time.