Memoirs of a Lumbee Native American Boy

Description

Keep turning, Mama, keep turning the steering wheel!’ I told her. She kept turning the steering wheel until the steering wheel locked. By this time, Papa was wide awake. I turned and looked at him, and his eyes looked like they were going to pop out of the eye sockets. He was desperately trying to sit up on the rear seat. From the time Mama smashed down on that gas pedal, she had not slowed down any whatsoever, and Papa was unable to get up. I thought Mama was going to kill all of us. I don’t know how she managed to miss the corncrib. Now she was headed for the woodpile. I quickly looked at Mama, expecting to see fear on her face like Papa and me. Instead she was sitting there hanging on to the steering wheel with a big smile on her face. She was driving all by herself and making her own decisions. She appeared to be enjoying the ride. Preston Chavis rarely had a dull moment growing up in Robeson County, North Carolina, in the thirties and forties. He taught his mama to drive when he was only seven, adopted a hill of red ants, disassembled his bike in hopes of making it better, and learned about the sanctity of life the hard way. As the son of a Lumbee Indian sharecropper, Preston struggled to overcome racism and poverty. Memoirs of a Lumbee Native American Boy is an inspirational story expertly blended with humor and life lessons.