Ricki Fowler
Bedford, VA
While growing up, I spent 5 years in a town hostile to outsiders. I’d always been unlike other children, but there, I was bullied by the kids at school and punished by the adults for being bullied. I’d been reading about the trials of African-Americans during the civil rights movement (then current events) since I was 8. In that place, I envied thos black people because they weren’t all alone in their persecution and it was only a stupid thing (their skin color) which made them unliked, not who they were as a person.
