“I began life as the child of a mixed-race marriage growing up in a white suburb, treated sometimes as a creature of bad circumstance… Bad things happen until good people get in the way. I learned this life lesson growing up in Smithtown, Long Island, and I see it almost everywhere I go in pursuit of the next big story… My immigrant parents made sure I had the potential to capture my American dream anyway.
I was handed a life of possibilities. That experience left me with the urge to chart how those around us get their chance at life and whether they go on to share their good fortune with others when the time comes.”
-- Excerpted from the Introduction (pg. 4)
“As a young man, my father had been shot by a white policeman, but never spoke about the incident after leaving Alabama and moving north. He never even told my mother. He took the story to his grave… ...
“John and Angelena Rice were extraordinary, ordinary people. They were middle-class folks who loved God, family, and their country. I don’t think they ever read a book on parenting. They were just goo...
