The American Dream

The 2012 Republican National Convention and Democratic National Convention showcased
speaker after speaker who recounted and celebrated their American Dream. Their inspiring
stories prompted me to reflect on my family American Dream.

The American Dream is about liberty, inalienable rights, the pursuit of happiness. "If you were
white willing to work, you stood a chance of transcending the circumstances of your father
and his father." The status of your birth did not determine your future.

My parents were ordinary people. My mother was eighteen when I was born; my father
twenty-one. It was the middle of the Great Depression. Neither had a high school education.
They were tenant farmers. They were young, optimistic, resilient, and hardworking in
the face of extraordinary obstacles of Jim Crow. Everyone did not get a fair chance. Neither
were the rules fair, especially for African-Americans. It would take the Civil Rights Revolution
to improve opportunities, justice, and a chance for the American Dream.

My parents became part of the labor class of World War II. My mother worked as a munitions
handler at the Pine Bluff Army Arsenal (bomb assembly). My father laid railroad tires
at the same facility before going to work thirty years as a stowman for the St Louis
Southwestern Railway, the Cotton Belt.

My parents' American Dream was to see an end to Jim Crow, a living wage job to take
care of their family, an education for their daughter, a home of their own, and an
automobile.

My parents were extraordinary in their sacrifice for an education for me. They valued
education, believed it was the pathway to a better life, and held intrinsic attributes,
something no one could take away from you. In the fourth grade they enrolled me in
in St. Peter's Catholic School. They paid tuition and bought books for two daughters.
At seventeen, I graduated from J. C. Corbin High School, the laborotory school of
AM&N College, and entered A.M&N (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff).
My parents paid all tuition, collegiate fees, and books. For four years, I drove their car
five days a week to commute to campus. They provided the gas, maintenance and a
daily monetary allowance while providing for my basic needs, food, housing, clothing,
and health care. They paid the fees for me to join a sorority.

At the time, there were no Pell Grants or Federal Student Loan Program. My parents
were committed to my college education "as long as she wants to go." They expected
me to do my part. I was diligent in my studies, not to disappoint or let them down. I
graduated in four years with a BA degree in Sociology in 1957. That same year, I
received a Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation grant to pursue the Master of Social
Work degree at Atlanta University (now Whitney M. Young, Jr. School of Social Work).

I am forever grateful for my parents' sacrifices for the gift of a college education that
put me on the pathway to my American Dream. I am forever grateful for the government's
investment in my graduate education which enabled my professional education as a social
worker to be realized.

I am forever grateful to the change agents, the Civil Rights warriors, known and unknown,
who believed that the chance for the American Dream should be extended to all Americans.

Source:
Gladys Turner Finney Recollections
The History Of The American Dream: Is it still real? Time Magazine, June 2, 2012.