Summary

Chapter 9 opens with a description of Dasani as a "feisty" (78) baby. Her grandmother, Joan Joanne Sykes, was born in Cumberland Hospital on November 14, 1953. This hospital would close over thirty years later and become Auburn, the homeless shelter in Brooklyn where Dasani and her family would come to live.

At one time, Brooklyn had been a "land of promise," but when a man named Robert Moses joined the city planning commission, he shuttered many good jobs in manufacturing. Thus, limited financial opportunities led Joanie's family to the Ingersoll projects. Joanie, Dasani's grandmother, was the fifth of nine children. Joanie's father was Wesley Junior Sykes--known as "June" Sykes. He was a member of the 92nd Infantry, an all-Black division that fought in WWII.

Elliott traces the Sykes family lineage all the way back to a white slave owner who purchased a slave in North...