Rosetta’s Story
"Literacy opened up the door and gave me a chance to reach for higher dreams."
Listen to Rosetta’s story by clicking on her picture for video download.
Buy a couple of books and tell a couple of friends to do the same, and you will be helping people like Rosetta Harper learn to read this sentence.
Rosetta graduated from high school on the honor roll. She even took extra summer classes all through high school. But after Rosetta Harper’s first year at college when she couldn’t pass remedial English, she decided it was just easier to accept the fact that she couldn’t read and not make a fuss. “I just withdrew and then I decided to just get a job and raise my children and had accepted my life that it was OK, that I could do this and it was fine.”
So she just settled. Ms. Harper did her job and passed on several management opportunities because she knew she’d be “exposed.” She accepted her life for what it was.
But the one thing Harper did not accept was the same lot in life for her children. She took them to the library, got each one a library card, and had her oldest daughter tutor the younger siblings. “One day my son saw a program on TV and he said, ‘Mom, why don’t you go back and let somebody help you.’ I decided, well maybe I can let somebody help figure out what it is I don’t know.”
The tutor at the literacy program Harper entered asked her to read out loud. For Harper, that was an emotional experience and she cried over words she didn’t know. She took it one day at a time, improving with each day, until reading became not a chore, but a hobby. On this trip to the library, Harper got the library card and the books checked out were for her. She found inspiration in the stories of African-American women, whose struggles helped Harper understand “you’re not alone in what you do, but you have to understand from where you came from.”
Harper already has achieved two of her goals-reading a novel and writing her will. She has a third goal-to write for children.
Harper sees big changes in her life since learning to read. “Unless you speak out and let somebody know your story, you trap yourself by keeping everything in. But you free yourself when you open up to others.”
Tags: Proliteracy I Told Two Friends
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