On Martin Luther King day this year, along with service projects, Freedom Fellows completed a short essay answering the question "What are your dreams for yourself and your community?" Second Year Fellow Mykia Clayton answered with the following essay.
My dream is to be a crime scene investigator and a lawyer. I hope that I can serve justice to our country. I want to also give back to my community of Sunflower, Mississippi. I know that a lot of people do not want to turn back to where they came from, but my grandma always said "never forget what you used to get where where you are now."
I also want to travel and have different experiences so I can tell my story to my people. I want to improve where I come from so the burden won't be on the next generation. I think Dr. King had a great dream and it was accomplished. However, my dream will be better. I will not only improve myself, but everything and everyone around me.
I want to state the fact that all people are capable of the impossible, so go and get it. I want children from the years to come to remember me for what I did, but not only that, but also for what I am, what I will become, and where I came from. These are my dreams, no wait! These are things that will happen! All I need is for the time to come.
--Mykia Clayton,
Second Year Fellow
Sunflower, MS
2/17/09
Dear Mykia:
Congratulations! on your excellent essay, and your continued desire to be a positive influence on your classmates, and in your community. I am proud of you for continuing to show what we are made of from Sunflower Couty. Iwas born there in Ruleville in 1948.
Your former Superintendant Thomas Edwards is a close friend. We attended kindergarten on the corner of Weber Street (now Sanders Lane and named afetr my grandmother Sarah Sanders). Both of us also attended Ruleville Colored School before it became Ruleville central. We picked an chopped cotton there.
However, from there I went on to Tougaloo College, Yale University, and Columbia University Graduate of Journalism. I am now a published writer (prose and poetry) and musician. You can "google" me if you like.
I am a published author, and vice president of a national public relations and media firm. see: www.ask.com and enter my full name John Milton Wesley). You can slso go to www.cordyancompany.com to learn about the firm I am with.
Do not be embarassed by, or dwell on whatever happened that caused you to be suspended. You have not been condemned, only convicted. Your job is to learn from what happened, and forgive yourseld. God, who forgave you before it happened will take care of the rest with grace.
Congratulations! and keep up the good work.
John Milton Wesley
Posted by: John Milton Wesley | February 17, 2009 at 01:09 PM