Page 247 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

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JIM’S STORY

This physician, one of the earliest members of A.A.’s
first black group, tells of how freedom came as he
worked among his people.

was born in a little town in Virginia in an
I average religious home. My father, a Negro, was
a country physician. I remember in my early youth
my mother dressed me just as she did my two sisters,
and I wore curls until I was six years of age. At that
time I started school, and that’s how I got rid of the
curls. I found that even then I had fears and inhibi­
tions. We lived just a few doors from the First Bap­
tist Church, and when they had funerals, I remember
very often asking my mother whether the person was
good or bad and whether they were going to heaven
or hell. I was about six then.
My mother had been recently converted and, actu­
ally, had become a religious fanatic. That was her
main neurotic manifestation. She was very posses­
sive with us children. Mother drilled into me a very
Puritanical point of view as to sex relations, as well as
to motherhood and womanhood. I’m sure my ideas as
to what life should be like were quite different
from that of the average person with whom I associ­
ated. Later on in life that took its toll. I realize that
now.
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