“I tried to live my life as a model that you can be successful regardless of where you came from,” she said, having dreamed of becoming a lawyer and even a Supreme Court justice. “It’s hard to tell my little brother and sister they can do better when I’m sitting in prison. I feel like I’m a failure to them.”
When she was 8, Moody was featured in a Time magazine article that chronicled her mother’s efforts to give up her life on the streets with the help of Genesis House, a drug recovery center on the North Side. Thirteen years later, Moody barely remembers the visit, during which she drew a portrait of her mother and added a caption describing her as “the best mom I’ve ever had.”
In the years that followed, Moody set out to prove that growing up in a rough environment didn’t mean she was destined to follow the path of her mother and two older siblings, who drifted in and out of trouble.
Moody and her four siblings were raised by their two aunts and grandmother, who worked as a maid after migrating to Chicago from Arkansas when she was 20. The family moved around, living in small apartments in Bronzeville and Roseland. Teachers, counselors and friends reached out to help Moody along the way.
She stood out at Percy L. Julian High School, making nearly perfect grades while playing cymbals on the drum line and oboe in the concert band.
Her family kidded her about being “odd,” a loner who would rather stay home and read than go to parties. For her senior prom, she accepted a date with a young man in a wheelchair.
“Julian at the time was really a school of a lot of fighting. A few kids were killed that year,” said Derrick Shelton, Moody’s high school counselor, who wrote a letter to the Arkansas court lauding her ambition and stellar character. “She wanted to get away from that by going to college.”
She secured scholarships, grants and student loans to pay for college and headed south, far away from her gritty life in the big city.
“I came to Arkansas trying to escape life in Chicago,” said Moody, a soft-spoken woman with a girlish smile. “I wasn’t happy in Chicago because my family was so dysfunctional. I figured if I got away and started over on my own accord, I could be happy.”
Outwardly, Moody appeared to be on track, maintaining a B-plus average during her four years in college. But inside, she quietly struggled to find her place in the new world that was opening up to her. After moving off campus, she found herself drawn to neighborhoods in Pine Bluff that were similar to the one she had left in Chicago.
“I was in a rush to grow up,” Moody said. “I lived in this little fantasy world where I felt like I would come to Arkansas, get married and have kids. I was moving too fast, me and the boy I was with.”
Moody’s life took a drastic turn on a Sunday afternoon in June 2011, when she shot Vanessa Bearden in front of onlookers at a Pine Bluff apartment complex. Moody did not know Bearden, but she was a friend of the young woman who was dating Moody’s former boyfriend.
The dispute between Moody and the new girlfriend escalated on Facebook. An hour before the shooting, according to testimony in the three-day trial, Bearden had been among a group of women who physically attacked Moody on a street and then followed her home. They didn’t know that Moody had armed herself with a 9 mm pistol given to her by a friend for protection.
Original Source: Read Here
Reading this story I learned Ms. Olivia Moody and her siblings are VICTIMS of America’s current [MUCH IGNORED] National HEALTH CRISIS, aka America’s potentially life scarring Culture of African American Child Abuse, Emotional Neglect and Maltreatment that evolved from America’s multi-generational, ignorant, once legal Culture of Racism.
I also learned Ms. Olivia Moody and her siblings are among the countless “EVERYONES” the late American urban story-TRUTH-teller Tupac Shakur speaks about in his (often misinterpreted) #T_H_U_G_L_I_F_E Child Abuse, Emotional Neglect, Abandonment and Maltreatment *AWARENESS* concept:
“The Hate U Give Little Infants Fvvks *EVERYONE*” ~Tupac Shakur
“We need more people who care; you know what I’m saying? We need more women, mothers, fathers, we need more of that…” ~Tupac Shakur
Peace.
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American *(Children’s)* Lives Matter; Take Pride In Parenting; End Our National Health Crisis; Child Abuse and Neglect; End Community Violence/Fear, Police Anxiety & Educator’s Frustrations
Tagged: #JamylaBolden, #TyshawnLee, #KingstonFrazier, #AvaCastillo, #JulieDombo, #FredrikaAllen, #EthanAli, #LavontayWhite, #NovaMarieGallman, #AyannaAllen, #TrinityGay, #T_H_U_G_L_I_F_E >>>REMEDY>>> #A_F_R_E_C_A_N
*”America’s Firm Resolve to End Childhood Abuse and Neglect”*