Before I ever entered this world, much of the menu for my life had already been prepared.

The America waiting for me in December 1957 was not a blank canvas. It was a nation still living under the long shadow of slavery, Reconstruction, jim crow, segregation, and generations of beliefs, laws, and expectations that shaped who would be welcomed, who would be tolerated, and who would spend a lifetime fighting simply to be seen as equal.

I didn’t create that world. I inherited it.

Like every child, I entered life knowing nothing about race, poverty, privilege, politics, hatred, opportunity, or discrimination. A newborn only knows warmth, comfort, curiosity, and wonder. He assumes every baby beside him has begun the same journey.

Children don’t enter this world believing they are better — or less — than anyone else. Those lessons come later, spoken and unspoken, absorbed quietly until we don’t even realize we’re learning them.

It wasn’t until much later that I understood the race I had entered. As a child, I assumed it was the same race everyone else was running. Only years later did I realize the race had already been tilted long before I arrived.

Looking back, I often describe it this way: I was born with a weight tied to my leg. Not because of anything I had done, but because of the world that existed before me.

That weight came in many forms — some visible, most invisible. Some through laws, others through expectations. Some through opportunities denied, others through opportunities never presented. Some through words, others through silence.

The greatest challenge wasn’t carrying the weight — it was recognizing it was there.

Before I could truly move forward, I had to separate what belonged to me from what had been placed upon me. That took decades — mistakes, victories, failures, questions, searching, and perspective.