My Early Years | Mount Vernon, Virginia
I was born in Washington, DC, but I grew up in the Virginia suburbs of Mount Vernon. Living a couple of miles from Mount Vernon Plantation, I was raised in the land of America’s early political history. An avid runner since the age of thirteen, I often took for granted the ability to run regularly past a place with such historic, national significance. Home to the first U.S. President, this was beautiful country, steeped in a past that was both venerated and reviled. I often contemplated what life must have been like for those held captive as slaves, living on George Washington’s plantation. Who would have imagined that two centuries later, a black and mixed-race girl would be free to jog a regular running route through the wooded trails adjacent to Mount Vernon Parkway, along the Potomac River? I often wondered what kind of story those old oak trees might tell if they could talk. A child of the late 20th Century, I was allowed to run for pleasure; I sometimes wondered how many enslaved women and men in the 1700s might have run through the same woods not for health and wellbeing, but for life and freedom. The significance of my nearness to history during those teenage “freedom” runs—and how it helped to mold my philosophical perspective—would later help to shape my thoughts about race and ethnicity in America.
*Photo credit: Mount Vernon Bike Trail | Photo by Ser Amantio di Nicolao
