Claude Brown - Childhood

Claude Brown recalls his childhood growing up in Harlem in the 1940's. During this time black people didn't have many rights, and there was a lot of tension between blacks and whites.

Brown and his friends were constantly causing trouble. They were always stealing things, beating up on other people, and they sold fake pot to make money. Brown's dad would beat him every time he did something wrong. By the time he was nine years old he had been hit by a bus and car, thrown into a river, and beaten with a chain. It was a struggle just to stay alive for him and many others within Harlem.

He had been expelled by all of the schools in his area, and had been sent to three different youth centers. At one youth center, Warwick, Brown became interested in books, and was fascinated by stories of successful black people. After he returned home, he began to deal drugs. Drugs became the biggest thing in Harlem after heroin was introduced. People killed each other for drugs, and money to buy drugs.

He bought a gun to protect himself, and he began night school. He moved just outside of Harlem because he knew he couldn"'"t do anything in his life if he was going to stay there. Crimes were happening all of the time in Harlem. Women would sell their bodies to men, and the men would deal drugs to survive. Guns were everywhere. There was one cop, Schoolboy, who raped black girls, and would kill the black boys who were dealing drugs. When a woman went to go complain about the police officer killing innocent young men, she was kicked out of the police station. He began to attend a Coptic church. They believed that in the afterlife that the black race would be the supreme power. He stopped attending the church after four months.

As he got older, many of his friends were killed or put into jail. He began to play the piano, and sometimes he would go back to Harlem to visit his family. His brother and sisters did not have a good relationship with their parents. Their parents grew up in the south, and that"'"s all they ever talked about. It was not a loving family at all, and Brown knew that it would hard for his brother and sister to get out of Harlem. His parents were very critical of other kids in the