A biography that spans a couple years in the life of Cedric Jennings, an inner-city black boy from one of the worst schools in Washington, D.C. Struggling against peers and school administrators who try to bring him down, he finds strength from his mother, his faith in God, and his own intelligence. He earns a place first at an MIT summer program for minorities, and then at Brown University. It's an against-all-odds type story, and it's amazing. Even though the book screams "affirmative action", it does so silently. Only a few times is affirmative action brought up explicitly, and I myself only gave it an occasional, fleeting thought. The book is written so well, I think, that it gives the reader some understanding of Cedric's life, but it doesn't paint a picture of his kind of success being possible for every minority, or of his kind of success being the exception. It's just one boy's story. You read it, and you get invested in Cedric's future.
One of the things that struck me most about Cedric Jennings is the fact that he's just about my age. I think he's one year younger than me. The idea that we lived parallel lives is sobering. Sure, we were both finishing high school and starting college around the same time, but mine was a middle-class Asian-American experience, and his was a poor black American experience. Both Americans, but we might as well have been living in different countries. The fact that he's done as much as he has in his lifetime, it's inspiring.
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