Pamela Mitchell

I said, okay, great, let's go.

So we left and we started walking down the block and we got down to Betty's house and Amy turned to me and she said, well, you can't go in.

Betty's father doesn't like blacks, so you have to stay out here.

And she left me standing on the curb.

Unfortunately, it wasn't much better with the black kids in my neighborhood.

They used to make fun of me because I spoke proper English.

So I pretty much kept to myself.

But when I was 18, I got accepted to college.

And not just any college, I got accepted to Harvard.

And this was an amazing thing for me and my family.

They were so proud.

I mean, my grandparents had barely gotten out of grade school, and here their granddaughter was going to not only the college, but the most prestigious college in the country.

And I was the first, the first person to do this in our family.

But we didn't have very much money, so my mother made a list of things that I would need to go to school, like a dorm refrigerator, dish towels, a typewriter, which will tell you how old I am.

And a family meeting was called.

And all my aunts and uncles came together, my grandparents, and they all took something off that list and bought it for me to send me off to school.

But they were worried because I was going so far away from home.

So they had some advice for me.

My grandmother was pretty blunt.

She said, girl, you better keep your eyes on a book and those legs shut.