Unlike everyone else, it seemed. First there was my brother, throwing away what little remaining potential he had for change and a candy bar. Then a year later Dr. King was killed, and then Bobby Kennedy, and then I knew. I knew that the work of protesting and leafleting and picketing was pointless. That while much had been accomplished, no more would be accomplished this way. I cut my full, aggressive Afro to a modest length and girded my loins with knowledge. I began to read more widely in the classics. I posted on my bulletin board the words of Catullus that I write on the blackboard at the beginning of each year: “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?” I didn’t date anyone. My hands were the only ones to touch me the rest of my college career. And on graduation day, as my mother sat weeping tears of joy in the audience, Isaiah already in jail, I made a quiet vow to myself that I would make change through my own superiority That was how I would overcome.