Monroe Dispatch - No Struggle, No Progress

Where do I begin, as a young “gifted” black girl growing up in the South, things can be rough. I hesitate to say the word gifted simply because I am not big on labels. I used to put my head down whenever my mom would tell people I skipped kindergarten and was making straight A’s. I am not sure if I was hesitant about letting others know my educational gifts because it made me a target or simply because I wanted to keep it to myself. Growing up in a small town in the south, it was something that I couldn’t hide from others. Here I am almost sixteen and I am just now finally proud and...