This man used to go to school with his dog. Then they were separated. His dog graduated!
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There were plenty of role models for us. My mother believed in education and she put all three of us through college at Grambling. She did not have a high school education, but it was something she impressed upon us. After I graduated, I left Texarkana for California, because I knew I could not get a job here. I was in business with certification and accounting, so I figured it was best to go out West. So I went there. It was still tough to get in that field, but things opened up for me.
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I graduated pretty quickly. When I was eleven or twelve a close friend of the family got lynched. I guess he was about forty years old, married, and we used to play with his kids. I remember the Saturday night a bunch of white men beat him to death at the Decatur fairgrounds because he sassed back a white woman. They just left him dead on the ground. Everyone in town knew it but never said a word in public. I went down and saw his bloody clothes. They left those clothes on a fence for about a year. Every Negro in town was supposed to get the message from those clothes and I can see those clothes now in my mind's eye.... But nothing was said in public. No sermons in church. No news. No protest. It was as though this man just dissolved except for the bloody clothes.... Just before I went into the Army I began wondering how long I could stand it. I used to watch the Saturday night sport of white men trying to run down a Negro with their car, or white gangs coming through town to beat up a Negro.
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I'm very proud of some things about this team. We have over 70 percent of our players graduate in the last 11 years. And 14 to 18 players on this year's team already have graduated. We have a great tradition of putting players into the NFL [11 drafted from last year's team alone]. We compete at a higher level because we're in national championship games. I do think we have character on this team.
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50% of the high school graduates in this country graduated in the bottom half of their class.
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Tommy Did you hear I graduated Richard Yeah and just a shade under a decade. All right. Tommy You know a lot of people go to college for seven years. Richard I know, they're called doctors.
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If you were graduated yesterday, and have learned nothing today, you will be uneducated tomorrow.
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I just graduated and already I'm way behind.
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