Name: Kevin Walters

Class Year: 1985

Best Contact: [email protected]

Inspired By: Norma Kirkland (Mother)

Inspired to Write By: Ms. Hortense Ford (Friend)

 
Her spirit knew that she would teach me to continue on her path; and, her energy would agitate my inquiry for things unseen; to see through my eyes and not with my eyes; to be a free dreamer who weaves dreams into quilts, which would inspire me to keep my fire burning, inside.
 
My mother was the ultimate educator, whose dreams manifested into reality and a street honorary PhD.  I saw her showered in sweat in a sweater production factory, it taught me perseverance.  She taught me independence, how to shop for the family food by age nine.  Now, fifty nine, I shop for thousands as owner of Nostrand Social Restaurant.
 
She had given me the house key and called it responsibility. The key would open the apartment’s door for my siblings and me, then five, and lock us into safety until my mother arrived safely. My siblings grew to many, 14, only six who came through my mother.  My mother was a mother of mothers, always a role model, mentor, and an advisor.  And now I serve as a role model, mentor and advisor as a professor of business.
 
She led her friends and family out of the public housing industrial complex.  She weaved over twenty friends and family to go to Illinois to support me while earning a MBA from the University of Chicago.  After her transition, she let me know that she is my guardian angel.  I am still on the Path.

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