Growing up in Jena, Before the Jena Six - Paperback

by Murray K. Douglas (Author)

This book is about my growing up in a small town during the 50's and 60's, attending segregated schools and having to endure some of the demeaning things that came with being colored in the segregated southern town of Jena, Louisiana.

Author Biography

Born and raised in Jena, Louisiana, attended Good Pine High School 1st through 12th grade and graduated in 1965. I attended Southern University 1965 thru 1969 majoring in Industrial Arts Education with minor in Driver Education. . I worked four years as a lab tech in the Biology Department at S.U. and also worked as a barber at The School For Deaf of S.U. where I enjoyed learning American Sign Language. During my senior year at S.U. I did my student teaching at Scotlandville High School . Graduated and got married in Houston, Texas August 9, 1969 to my college sweet heart/soul mate Martha Ann Leger. I was hired by Denver Public Schools and move to Denver, Colorado and started my career as a teacher in September of 1969.I took a sabbatical from teaching in 1977 to finish up my Masters of Arts in Industrial Sciences at Colorado State University in Fort Collins Co. I taught a few years then I finished another Masters in Education Administration from C.S.U. After thirty great years of teaching I retired from education 1999. After retiring I worked 4 and ahalf years as a case manager for Arapahoe House in Denver. I work with a super staff of people on The HIT Team. We worked with adult clients with mental and alcohol and drug abuse issues. I earned my Chemical Addictions Counselor III Degree (CAC III) with this job. I have been volunteering for the last twenty years teaching English as a second language to the Spanish speaking adults at our Church Of The Ascension in Denver's Montbello neighborhood. As I teach these adults students how to read, write and speak English, they are teaching me and I am learning how to communicate in Spanish, ... gracias, clases de Ingeles. It has been fun learning a third language. Well ya'll, I'm gonna stop here and end this volumn. This endeavor has been a long time coming and has taken me the best part of fifteen or so years to complete. This being my first attempt at being an author and I want to sincerely thank all readers. I have to send a special thanks to all who provided me quotes for the memories chapter . Thanks to all who supplied me valuable answers to questions that helped me complete my manuscript. Again, thank you all for the Memories.