February 15, 2024 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Denisha Allen was born to a teenage mother into poverty in Jacksonville, Florida. Here's her story on how she overcame and succeeded.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next the
story of Danisha Allen, a senior fellow at the American
Federation for Children. Let's get into the story. Here's Denisha.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
All growing up. I remember being a little kid and
seeing vibrants and hearing stories of how the community was
excited and people were engaged and they knew one another.
The east side of Jacksonville where I grew up, it's
called the Urban Chorus. It's right along the Saint John's
(00:48):
where the Jacksonville Jaguars play, so very close to where
city life is. The baseball stadium is maybe like a
couple blocks from there, and I remember or we would
go to the to the football games. We would go
to the back baseball games, not that we could afford it,
but like community members would pass out stuff, there will
(01:11):
be cookouts. People knew each other by name. It was
a place where community members really thrived. My godmother, she
would tell me stories like, oh, yeah, uncle Cox, he
used to have a barber shop right here. Uh yeah,
this place right here, which n Looking at the buildings,
you would never think that it was a business of
(01:33):
any sort because it was just an abandoned building. But
there was this this culture and all of a sudden
that stuff stopped.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We're top story tonight that deadly shooting on the East
Side area. Nightclubs and bars are where law enforcement is
finding a younger generation of people in possession of a
new drug called n ndimeta pensylon hydrochloride.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
People stopped having those cookouts. Drug and alcohol abuse started
to increase, and more people, instead of going to work,
were just walking around the neighborhood aimlessly looking for where
they can I guess, get their next hit. Gang violence increased,
and my family was, uh, I'm assuming a part of that.
(02:21):
I would walk around the neighborhood and people wouldn't know me,
you know, they would say, oh, that's such and such
a little daughter. You don't mess with the Merriweathers. They're
gonna get you. I wore my last name Merriwether as
a badge of honor because everybody knew who I was.
Everybody knew my family, and I didn't think it was
you know, I thought it was great, but unfortunately it
also followed me other places. It followed me into like
(02:44):
the after school program. It followed me into school. People
knew the Merriweathers and not in a good way. How
I grew up. You don't aks adults questions, yea, you
just say okay, you know, like, you don't ask them questions.
(03:05):
If things are happening, you just you know, you you
just go along with what's happening. So I never really
asked too many questions about what was happening around me.
I just observed a lot of things and put my
head down and say, yes, ma'am. So my biological dad,
I didn't ask a lot of questions about him. But
(03:28):
supposedly the dad that I grew up with was not
my biological father. I heard stories about how she just
went to problem with this nice young man. He was
so nice and now here you are. And I was
(03:48):
just like always intrigued about this story because I never
heard much about him. But supposedly, at one moment his
name was Ernest, then at another moment his name was Dennis.
So I I I my biological dad. Up until even today,
I'm it's still very cloudy and blurry. I'm not sure,
but I do remember this one scene of a guy
(04:09):
showing up at our house. It was the hotel, showing
up at the hotel, and he brought me a necklace
and I was like, thanks, you know, went back to playing.
And my mom said, oh, that was your biological dad,
but you better not tell your stepdad that he showed up.
And I was like, yes, ma'am, because you do not
(04:34):
aks questions about what is going on. So I lived
all growing up with my stepdad, who I thought up
until that moment was my biological father. Yeah, we all
moved from hotel room to this room. On the weekends,
(04:55):
I would go with my godmother, who was actually friends.
Her daughter were friends with my mom at sixteen in
high school, they were all friends. The story gets very
confusing most times when I tell people this story, they're like, wait, what,
how did you meet your godmother? Well, my mom had
(05:15):
me at sixteen. She obviously had friends, and she still
wanted to party so she could go and kind of
reclaim her childhood, and so she left me with one
of her friend's mom And so that's how I became
in the realm of this miraculous woman who I call
(05:35):
my godmother. Head was not christened, and she was not like.
This was a very informal relationship, like here's a baby,
can you take care of this baby? And it wasn't
until I was about round one. My godmother told my
biological mom, listen, just leave her here, go out and
(05:57):
have your life. Go out and do what you want.
But coming in at three in the morning to pick
her up, this in and out is not gonna work,
So just leave her here, come back when you're ready
to get her, and we'll go from there. And she did,
and she didn't show back up until like maybe a
(06:19):
few years later, wanted to take me back. They went
to court. They had joint custody of me. MM. So
I was going back and forth between my godmother's house
and my biological mother's house, back and forth, back and forth,
back and forth. I remember crying all the time because
(06:42):
I did not want to go back to my mom's house.
Every Sunday, I just would ball. By the time I
would get home to my mom's house, she would beat
me and tell me just stop crying, just be quiet,
You're not gonna go back. And it had gotten kind
(07:02):
of bad that I would skip weekends of not going
to see my godmother because the previous weekend had just
been so bad, and I would not want to come
back to live with my biological mom. So she would
say you're gonna skip the next weekend as punishment for
not wanting to come back at my godmother's house. I
(07:24):
was pretty much the only child. Her kids were grown,
her kids were off in the military and college, and
I had everything. I was spoiled. It was fantastic, went
to church, had stability, just she had a set of goals.
She held me to her standard. She had a parenting skill,
(07:46):
she was a mother. So I was moving, moving, moving
back and forth, back and forth, and at thirteen, I
was by that time, i'd failed the third grade twice,
so it was it was pretty bad. But my favorite aunt, she,
what I didn't know, was pretty much the orchestrator of
(08:06):
getting me into my godmother's home and helping out with
the courts. She was a security guard at the courtroom
and she knew everyone there, and so she was pretty
much the behind the scenes advocate for me, and I
didn't know that. When I was thirteen, she told me,
you know, you don't have to stay with her, you
can leave. And I looked at her, I'm like, she's
(08:30):
my mother, Like what am I gonna do? I can't
just not stay with her? She said, you can, you can,
and something happened. I can't even remember to this day what.
But I looked at my biological mother like right in
the eye. She made me so upset one day and
I told her I am not coming back. I am
(08:53):
not coming back here. I do not wanna stay with
you anymore. And she cursed me out and she told
me to leave, like don't come back, okay, leave And
it was the best thing that could have ever happened.
I felt so liberated. This is at thirteen, Like I
(09:13):
can't imagine any thirteen year old. I looking back, Ihna,
it was thirteen, but I want it better, like I
want it more. I saw on the weekends, just two
days sometimes out of a week, how other people lived,
and I was jealous, absolutely jealous.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And you've been listening to Danisha Allan tell her story.
She grows up in a tough part at Jacksonville. Biological
dad out of the picture, biological mom out of the
picture for a long time, comes back into her life
after leaving her daughter with a quote godmother who actually
became the mother, well, the mother that Danisha deserved. When
(09:53):
we come back. More of Danisha Allen's story here on
our American stories and we returned to our American stories
in Denisha Allen's story. When we last left off, Denisia
(10:15):
was telling us about her rough childhood in the city
of Jacksonville, Florida. Venisia now turns to her education. Let's
return to her story.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I was a well I wouldn't say terrible, but I
would not want me as a student. My first education memory,
I think I was in about the second grade and
(10:47):
I had to use the restroom. And I asked my teacher,
like can I go to the restroom? And she said no,
And I was like, excuse me, Like so I'm sitting
there and like raising hand. I'm like, okay, maybe this
is the type of teacher. She's like lame and she
wants you to raise your hand. I remember like thinking
these as a second girl, like okay, i'm'a raise my
(11:08):
hand so I can go to the restrooms. I'm raise
my hand, wiggling in my seat, trying to get this
lady's attention, and she did not answer my hand, and
I yelled again, I have to go to the restroom,
and she said no. When I ask you to do something,
you don't do it. But now you want me to
do something for you and so, no, you're not going
(11:31):
to the restroom, and I walked out. I walked out
of the classroom. I was like peace like. I stayed
in the restroom for like maybe ten fifteen minutes. Came
back strutting, like can't tell me what I'm not gonna
do a stupid teacher, and I sat down. She told
me get out and I was like no. She's like,
(11:51):
get out and go to Bertha blah. I was like no,
and she would pick me up and started to like
try to pull me out of the class. I remember
like grabbing onto the table, grabbing onto the wall, like crying, screaming,
kicking her, trying to stay in class, and she won.
She like took me in principal's office. I spent most
(12:12):
of my time in the principal's office. But yeah, that's
my earliest memory of school. We didn't really go to school.
If my mom was tired, she didn't tug us to
the bus stop and we would just sleep in it
like cool. If it was raining outside, we didn't go
(12:33):
to school. If it was too hot, we didn't go
to school. So we weren't really in school a lot.
I remember my mom she went to jail a couple
times because we weren't going to school. I r I
remember that because then all of a sudden it was like,
get y'all home, you know, bleep the bleeps out of here,
and just go just walk to school. I don't care.
(12:56):
I wasn't really in school, and when I was in school,
I hated being there. We changed so much that there
was never any significant reason for me to make friends
like my teachers. And the teachers didn't like didn't like
us at all. They heard Merriweather was coming through the
(13:17):
door and they were just like, sit down, you know,
at least that's how it seemed. Uh So, the the
standard was very low for me to do well, and
I didn't do well. I was very behind. I remember that.
I remember getting picked on. I remember trying to read
(13:38):
and having kids laugh at me, and I remember a
lot of laughing at me. So by the third grade,
there's the test, third grade tests that you have to
take in order to pass to the next grade in Florida,
and I failed the test, and so that meant I
had to either do summer school or repeat the third grade.
(14:01):
To do summer school, all that was required was for
my guardian, my mother to sign a piece of paper.
I would still be able to take the bus, I
would still be able to eat. School launch just literally
school during the summertime. She didn't sign papers, just didn't sign.
(14:27):
So I failed third grade. That next year I failed
again from the same thing. Just didn't get a piece
of paper signed, couldn't read. It was a low in math.
And fourth grade, I was accepted into what was called
the Star program, and it's some acronym for something, but
basically students getting into their right grade program. And I
(14:52):
was in a classroom with people who were three and
four grades behind. And this is in fourth grade. We
were the special population, were the special kids in the school.
And so in the fourth grade, I was like, I
have to do this, you know, I have to do well.
And there was this talent show. It was a talent show.
(15:12):
I wanted to participate. I remember I wanted to sing
this song by Yolanda Adams and I practiced so much.
I was also very bad. So my teacher would threaten me, Denisha,
if you do not do well, if you do not
be good, you're gonna get kicked out of the talent show.
I would write myself notes deniseha do not talk in class, deniseha,
(15:36):
do not talk, be good, just pages and pages and pages.
I failed, obviously. When the time came, right before I
was gonna go on, he told me, no, what you
thought you were gonna participate in a talent show? No
you you you were terrible? Like absolutely not hm I
(16:00):
W I was distraught, and from that moment, I just
remember this click going off in my head of just anger,
frustration at every single last teacher. No one seemed to
really want to help me. Everyone just seemed to just
criticize me all the time. From early on, when I
(16:21):
would just walk in the classroom and sigh, nobody was
really like actually trying to help. It was just because
of your actions these uh consequences. We're not gonna try
to figure out why you acting like this. Just no.
I think that was the moment in my mind when
I was like, these crappy teachers, These people don't care.
(16:43):
They don't really care about me, So I don't care either.
And by the end of that year and fourth grade,
I didn't pass the program. I wasn't able to go
to my right grade again. I was just so frustrated,
and that was when I was like, you know, this
(17:05):
is just some place I have to be so that
my mom doesn't go to jail. My mom dropped out
of high school. I have many many family members who
dropped out of school, and I was beginning to see
why in the summer before my sixth grade year. That
(17:26):
was during the same time when I told my mom
that I did not wanna stay with her anymore. Things
at home had just gotten so terrible and I could
live with my godmother. And my godmother was She's just
my heart. She wanted to find a good place for
(17:49):
me all the way around. That year was probably the
best time of my life. She wanted me to go
to the church's school. By that time, the church, my
childhood church, the church that we had been attending i'd
come to with her on the weekends, they built a
school and she wanted me to go to that school.
(18:09):
Of course, she didn't have no way to pay for
that school. We got a scholarship, and the summer before
I started, I had to take a test to see
what level I was on. I was very low, needless
to say, and one of my teachers she agreed to
meet with me. I was not just low in reading,
(18:30):
I was low in math. I didn't know my times tables.
She met with me one on one. I would go
to her house during the summer. I would stay after
school when she was setting up for the school year.
It was very different.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
And you're listening to Denisha Allen, a senior fellow at
the American Federation for Children, and you're beginning to understand
why she works at a place with that name. Education.
She was so important in her life when it became important,
but for much of her early life it wasn't. She
was left behind, left behind, failure of filling out paperwork
(19:10):
by a mom. What just wretched circumstances for a kid
to find herself. And then that godmother, that godmother who
saved her. When we come back more of Danisha Allen's
story here on our American Stories. And we returned to
(19:39):
our American Stories and the final portion of Danisha Allen's story.
When we last left off, Tanisha was telling us about
her early education in the public schools of Jackson, Florida.
Things simply put, were not good until people started to
pour into her. Let's get back to the story here again.
He's Denysha Allen.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I thought it was just going to be a much
funny games, to be honest, but we really she really,
I don't know what it's saying. Is crack the whip?
I don't know. But we'd studied and I learned my
times tables I was reading. She did not let up.
She was a student at Jacksonville University, and I remember
(20:19):
going with her to her classes too. That was my
life during the summer. Although I was still kind of
nervous about the start of the year at this new school,
I was kind of used to going to a new school,
though I knew the parade, how things were gonna play out.
The teachers were gonna act like they were so happy
(20:40):
to be there, and they would smile greet us. The
classrooms would be so beautiful with the freshest, you know, decorations,
but it would wear off. That was just how it went.
Sure enough, on my first day of school, the teachers
were there greeting us with big smiles, hugging everybody. The
classrooms were and I was like, yeah, I know this
(21:03):
song very well, and the song is gonna end. The
song never ended. Literally every day until I graduated, teachers
were doing the same thing. I was always very shocked,
even til I graduated, it was still a bit unsettling
(21:26):
that it never stopped. I was in a class with students,
of course, who were all younger than me, and I
had my guard up because I knew what was gonna come.
Teacher would call me to read. They would laugh at me,
and I would have to claim my space and let
(21:48):
people know that I am nothing to mess with, like,
do not mess with me. I remember my teacher calling
on me to read, and I s was still stumbling.
Nobody laughed. I looked around and was waiting, like waiting
to cut someone, you know, with my eyes and like
(22:12):
get ready for the playground, Like I was trying to
figure out who the big dog in a class was
so that I could like bring them down. Nobody laughed
at me, even a couple students. They would voluntarily like
(22:33):
try to help me. My sixth grade teacher, though she
invested as much or probably more in me as well students.
Typically how school goes if people forgot, a teacher will
open up the book and say who wants to read
Chapter one. The students will then raise their hand, and
(22:55):
the teacher will pick from the students who raised their
hand to read the paragraph in the book. I never
rose my hand. She would always call on me. So
every time we had to read, she would call on me.
I would stumble, stumble, stumble, stumble, until one day I
(23:20):
did it. And this was literally like the first nine weeks.
It seemed like my life took a one eighty turn.
The name of the school is Expirit of Course Center
for Learning. We're learning is a joy. Excellence is the norm,
(23:40):
and superiority is our goal. That's the school's model. We
literally like had to recite it all the time. We
had a spirit of Excellence. We also had demerits, which
I was like, what are these? You know where I
come from, anything that's different from normal? We say, what
is this white people's stuff? You know? The culture was different.
(24:03):
I wasn't used to the culture. They held you to
a standard. Every kid in my class. It was a
very small C school. I think I had about seven
or eight kids in my sixth grade class. All of
them were on honor roll. I was like literally the
only dumb kid, and I was like, I cannot be
the only dumb kid. Whereas where I was at, everybody
(24:24):
was feeling. The teachers expected for everyone to be if
you gotta see you were like you need to be
more like him, you know. It was just it was
so different. And so these kids, they were all very smart,
they were all very nice and kind, and I was
like this, you know, pit bull dog who just came
(24:44):
off the street. And they they didn't look at me
like I was weird, but they I think they knew
in their mind like we came here like that too,
you know, like you will change, you know, kind of
this weird environment. But this one time I was in
ISSP in school suspension. The guy who was over it
(25:10):
this time, he was also part of the church. He
was a fireman and I think he was in the
reserves or something. But this was this big black guy.
He was in the military and a firefighter. I didn't
understand how he did them both, but that's what he
(25:30):
told us all. And I just knew he was big, intall,
just towered over over me. He was in charge of
giving me my work and just checking in on me
that time, and in school suspension, he came to me
and he said, Denisha, when is this gonna stop? When
(25:52):
are you gonna change this? When when are you gonna
stop acting like this? Do you wanna be in jail?
Do you wanna go to jail. I forget how you
phrased it, but it it was something along. It was like,
do you wanna go to jail? Do you wanna be
in jail? And I like started crying. I was like
(26:14):
nothing before it had got to me. You know, I
don't care. You can drag me out of the classroom,
you can s send me home, call me stupid, fail me,
fail me again, take away something that's so important to me.
My life is crab, you know. I n I D
(26:35):
D didn't see the meaning in at thirteen, My life
was just very meaningless and I was just taking part
in whatever it through because I had to. I had
no control. And in that statement, I remember even like now,
I'm like huh, because I realized that I guess I
(26:59):
I I didn't have to go to jail, that was
the norm. And he was asking me, do you want
to do you want to be in jail because of
how you're acting? And I think that was like the
first time that I realized that my actions, like my
(27:21):
actions like can determine my outcome, not because of everybody else.
And he was basically telling me that how I decided
to act all these many many years I would end
up being in jail, and I was like, no, that's
not what I canna, very like childish. I don't wanna
go to jail. No, I don't wanna go to jail.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Like no.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
And that's when I decided to lay off the crap
and to take ownership of my of my behavior to
do better. And I tried really hard. I tried to
do better. I I would listen to my teachers, I
would get help, and by the first nine weeks, my
(28:07):
grades had risen. I went from making d's and f's consistently,
maybe a C here and there, just like that. That year,
my seventh grade year, when I was supposed to be
going into the eighth grade, I did not go to
the eighth grade class. I went into the ninth grade class.
I skipped the eighth grade, and that ultimately led to
(28:30):
me graduating from high school. I don't think I would
have graduated from high school if I had stuck with
the district public school. I had seen so many of
my family member's friends who dropped out. I think I
would have dropped out too. I would have had a baby,
and I would have probably been working at a McDonald's,
some fast food place that would have been my ultimate
(28:55):
success story. Education literally saved my life. I became the
first in my family to graduate from high school. I
got a college degree, I went away to college, and
then I moved to DC to work at the US
Department of Education. I lived a fairytale life compared to
(29:18):
other members in my family, and it would not have
been possible if I didn't receive people who were really
invested in my life and in my education.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to
Danisha Allen for sharing her story. She works at the
American Federation for Children and now we know why. Also
a special thanks to the Philanthropy Roundtable the folks there
for turning us onto the story. In the Philanthropy Roundtable
(29:52):
is America's leading advocate is support the causes we all
believe in. And my goodness, what a story. What is
it to tell you about the power of one adult
to love a kid. All of us can have that effect. Folks,
mentor and help a kid who might not have a dad,
who might not have a good influence in their life.
The story of Denisha Allen hear on our American stories,
And we returned to our American stories. Up next the
story of Danisha Allen, a senior fellow at the American
Federation for Children. Let's get into the story. Here's Denisha.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
All growing up. I remember being a little kid and
seeing vibrants and hearing stories of how the community was
excited and people were engaged and they knew one another.
The east side of Jacksonville where I grew up, it's
called the Urban Chorus. It's right along the Saint John's
(00:48):
where the Jacksonville Jaguars play, so very close to where
city life is. The baseball stadium is maybe like a
couple blocks from there, and I remember or we would
go to the to the football games. We would go
to the back baseball games, not that we could afford it,
but like community members would pass out stuff, there will
(01:11):
be cookouts. People knew each other by name. It was
a place where community members really thrived. My godmother, she
would tell me stories like, oh, yeah, uncle Cox, he
used to have a barber shop right here. Uh yeah,
this place right here, which n Looking at the buildings,
you would never think that it was a business of
(01:33):
any sort because it was just an abandoned building. But
there was this this culture and all of a sudden
that stuff stopped.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We're top story tonight that deadly shooting on the East
Side area. Nightclubs and bars are where law enforcement is
finding a younger generation of people in possession of a
new drug called n ndimeta pensylon hydrochloride.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
People stopped having those cookouts. Drug and alcohol abuse started
to increase, and more people, instead of going to work,
were just walking around the neighborhood aimlessly looking for where
they can I guess, get their next hit. Gang violence increased,
and my family was, uh, I'm assuming a part of that.
(02:21):
I would walk around the neighborhood and people wouldn't know me,
you know, they would say, oh, that's such and such
a little daughter. You don't mess with the Merriweathers. They're
gonna get you. I wore my last name Merriwether as
a badge of honor because everybody knew who I was.
Everybody knew my family, and I didn't think it was
you know, I thought it was great, but unfortunately it
also followed me other places. It followed me into like
(02:44):
the after school program. It followed me into school. People
knew the Merriweathers and not in a good way. How
I grew up. You don't aks adults questions, yea, you
just say okay, you know, like, you don't ask them questions.
(03:05):
If things are happening, you just you know, you you
just go along with what's happening. So I never really
asked too many questions about what was happening around me.
I just observed a lot of things and put my
head down and say, yes, ma'am. So my biological dad,
I didn't ask a lot of questions about him. But
(03:28):
supposedly the dad that I grew up with was not
my biological father. I heard stories about how she just
went to problem with this nice young man. He was
so nice and now here you are. And I was
(03:48):
just like always intrigued about this story because I never
heard much about him. But supposedly, at one moment his
name was Ernest, then at another moment his name was Dennis.
So I I I my biological dad. Up until even today,
I'm it's still very cloudy and blurry. I'm not sure,
but I do remember this one scene of a guy
(04:09):
showing up at our house. It was the hotel, showing
up at the hotel, and he brought me a necklace
and I was like, thanks, you know, went back to playing.
And my mom said, oh, that was your biological dad,
but you better not tell your stepdad that he showed up.
And I was like, yes, ma'am, because you do not
(04:34):
aks questions about what is going on. So I lived
all growing up with my stepdad, who I thought up
until that moment was my biological father. Yeah, we all
moved from hotel room to this room. On the weekends,
(04:55):
I would go with my godmother, who was actually friends.
Her daughter were friends with my mom at sixteen in
high school, they were all friends. The story gets very
confusing most times when I tell people this story, they're like, wait, what,
how did you meet your godmother? Well, my mom had
(05:15):
me at sixteen. She obviously had friends, and she still
wanted to party so she could go and kind of
reclaim her childhood, and so she left me with one
of her friend's mom And so that's how I became
in the realm of this miraculous woman who I call
(05:35):
my godmother. Head was not christened, and she was not like.
This was a very informal relationship, like here's a baby,
can you take care of this baby? And it wasn't
until I was about round one. My godmother told my
biological mom, listen, just leave her here, go out and
(05:57):
have your life. Go out and do what you want.
But coming in at three in the morning to pick
her up, this in and out is not gonna work,
So just leave her here, come back when you're ready
to get her, and we'll go from there. And she did,
and she didn't show back up until like maybe a
(06:19):
few years later, wanted to take me back. They went
to court. They had joint custody of me. MM. So
I was going back and forth between my godmother's house
and my biological mother's house, back and forth, back and forth,
back and forth. I remember crying all the time because
(06:42):
I did not want to go back to my mom's house.
Every Sunday, I just would ball. By the time I
would get home to my mom's house, she would beat
me and tell me just stop crying, just be quiet,
You're not gonna go back. And it had gotten kind
(07:02):
of bad that I would skip weekends of not going
to see my godmother because the previous weekend had just
been so bad, and I would not want to come
back to live with my biological mom. So she would
say you're gonna skip the next weekend as punishment for
not wanting to come back at my godmother's house. I
(07:24):
was pretty much the only child. Her kids were grown,
her kids were off in the military and college, and
I had everything. I was spoiled. It was fantastic, went
to church, had stability, just she had a set of goals.
She held me to her standard. She had a parenting skill,
(07:46):
she was a mother. So I was moving, moving, moving
back and forth, back and forth, and at thirteen, I
was by that time, i'd failed the third grade twice,
so it was it was pretty bad. But my favorite aunt, she,
what I didn't know, was pretty much the orchestrator of
(08:06):
getting me into my godmother's home and helping out with
the courts. She was a security guard at the courtroom
and she knew everyone there, and so she was pretty
much the behind the scenes advocate for me, and I
didn't know that. When I was thirteen, she told me,
you know, you don't have to stay with her, you
can leave. And I looked at her, I'm like, she's
(08:30):
my mother, Like what am I gonna do? I can't
just not stay with her? She said, you can, you can,
and something happened. I can't even remember to this day what.
But I looked at my biological mother like right in
the eye. She made me so upset one day and
I told her I am not coming back. I am
(08:53):
not coming back here. I do not wanna stay with
you anymore. And she cursed me out and she told
me to leave, like don't come back, okay, leave And
it was the best thing that could have ever happened.
I felt so liberated. This is at thirteen, Like I
(09:13):
can't imagine any thirteen year old. I looking back, Ihna,
it was thirteen, but I want it better, like I
want it more. I saw on the weekends, just two
days sometimes out of a week, how other people lived,
and I was jealous, absolutely jealous.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And you've been listening to Danisha Allan tell her story.
She grows up in a tough part at Jacksonville. Biological
dad out of the picture, biological mom out of the
picture for a long time, comes back into her life
after leaving her daughter with a quote godmother who actually
became the mother, well, the mother that Danisha deserved. When
(09:53):
we come back. More of Danisha Allen's story here on
our American stories and we returned to our American stories
in Denisha Allen's story. When we last left off, Denisia
(10:15):
was telling us about her rough childhood in the city
of Jacksonville, Florida. Venisia now turns to her education. Let's
return to her story.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I was a well I wouldn't say terrible, but I
would not want me as a student. My first education memory,
I think I was in about the second grade and
(10:47):
I had to use the restroom. And I asked my teacher,
like can I go to the restroom? And she said no,
And I was like, excuse me, Like so I'm sitting
there and like raising hand. I'm like, okay, maybe this
is the type of teacher. She's like lame and she
wants you to raise your hand. I remember like thinking
these as a second girl, like okay, i'm'a raise my
(11:08):
hand so I can go to the restrooms. I'm raise
my hand, wiggling in my seat, trying to get this
lady's attention, and she did not answer my hand, and
I yelled again, I have to go to the restroom,
and she said no. When I ask you to do something,
you don't do it. But now you want me to
do something for you and so, no, you're not going
(11:31):
to the restroom, and I walked out. I walked out
of the classroom. I was like peace like. I stayed
in the restroom for like maybe ten fifteen minutes. Came
back strutting, like can't tell me what I'm not gonna
do a stupid teacher, and I sat down. She told
me get out and I was like no. She's like,
(11:51):
get out and go to Bertha blah. I was like no,
and she would pick me up and started to like
try to pull me out of the class. I remember
like grabbing onto the table, grabbing onto the wall, like crying, screaming,
kicking her, trying to stay in class, and she won.
She like took me in principal's office. I spent most
(12:12):
of my time in the principal's office. But yeah, that's
my earliest memory of school. We didn't really go to school.
If my mom was tired, she didn't tug us to
the bus stop and we would just sleep in it
like cool. If it was raining outside, we didn't go
(12:33):
to school. If it was too hot, we didn't go
to school. So we weren't really in school a lot.
I remember my mom she went to jail a couple
times because we weren't going to school. I r I
remember that because then all of a sudden it was like,
get y'all home, you know, bleep the bleeps out of here,
and just go just walk to school. I don't care.
(12:56):
I wasn't really in school, and when I was in school,
I hated being there. We changed so much that there
was never any significant reason for me to make friends
like my teachers. And the teachers didn't like didn't like
us at all. They heard Merriweather was coming through the
(13:17):
door and they were just like, sit down, you know,
at least that's how it seemed. Uh So, the the
standard was very low for me to do well, and
I didn't do well. I was very behind. I remember that.
I remember getting picked on. I remember trying to read
(13:38):
and having kids laugh at me, and I remember a
lot of laughing at me. So by the third grade,
there's the test, third grade tests that you have to
take in order to pass to the next grade in Florida,
and I failed the test, and so that meant I
had to either do summer school or repeat the third grade.
(14:01):
To do summer school, all that was required was for
my guardian, my mother to sign a piece of paper.
I would still be able to take the bus, I
would still be able to eat. School launch just literally
school during the summertime. She didn't sign papers, just didn't sign.
(14:27):
So I failed third grade. That next year I failed
again from the same thing. Just didn't get a piece
of paper signed, couldn't read. It was a low in math.
And fourth grade, I was accepted into what was called
the Star program, and it's some acronym for something, but
basically students getting into their right grade program. And I
(14:52):
was in a classroom with people who were three and
four grades behind. And this is in fourth grade. We
were the special population, were the special kids in the school.
And so in the fourth grade, I was like, I
have to do this, you know, I have to do well.
And there was this talent show. It was a talent show.
(15:12):
I wanted to participate. I remember I wanted to sing
this song by Yolanda Adams and I practiced so much.
I was also very bad. So my teacher would threaten me, Denisha,
if you do not do well, if you do not
be good, you're gonna get kicked out of the talent show.
I would write myself notes deniseha do not talk in class, deniseha,
(15:36):
do not talk, be good, just pages and pages and pages.
I failed, obviously. When the time came, right before I
was gonna go on, he told me, no, what you
thought you were gonna participate in a talent show? No
you you you were terrible? Like absolutely not hm I
(16:00):
W I was distraught, and from that moment, I just
remember this click going off in my head of just anger,
frustration at every single last teacher. No one seemed to
really want to help me. Everyone just seemed to just
criticize me all the time. From early on, when I
(16:21):
would just walk in the classroom and sigh, nobody was
really like actually trying to help. It was just because
of your actions these uh consequences. We're not gonna try
to figure out why you acting like this. Just no.
I think that was the moment in my mind when
I was like, these crappy teachers, These people don't care.
(16:43):
They don't really care about me, So I don't care either.
And by the end of that year and fourth grade,
I didn't pass the program. I wasn't able to go
to my right grade again. I was just so frustrated,
and that was when I was like, you know, this
(17:05):
is just some place I have to be so that
my mom doesn't go to jail. My mom dropped out
of high school. I have many many family members who
dropped out of school, and I was beginning to see
why in the summer before my sixth grade year. That
(17:26):
was during the same time when I told my mom
that I did not wanna stay with her anymore. Things
at home had just gotten so terrible and I could
live with my godmother. And my godmother was She's just
my heart. She wanted to find a good place for
(17:49):
me all the way around. That year was probably the
best time of my life. She wanted me to go
to the church's school. By that time, the church, my
childhood church, the church that we had been attending i'd
come to with her on the weekends, they built a
school and she wanted me to go to that school.
(18:09):
Of course, she didn't have no way to pay for
that school. We got a scholarship, and the summer before
I started, I had to take a test to see
what level I was on. I was very low, needless
to say, and one of my teachers she agreed to
meet with me. I was not just low in reading,
(18:30):
I was low in math. I didn't know my times tables.
She met with me one on one. I would go
to her house during the summer. I would stay after
school when she was setting up for the school year.
It was very different.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
And you're listening to Denisha Allen, a senior fellow at
the American Federation for Children, and you're beginning to understand
why she works at a place with that name. Education.
She was so important in her life when it became important,
but for much of her early life it wasn't. She
was left behind, left behind, failure of filling out paperwork
(19:10):
by a mom. What just wretched circumstances for a kid
to find herself. And then that godmother, that godmother who
saved her. When we come back more of Danisha Allen's
story here on our American Stories. And we returned to
(19:39):
our American Stories and the final portion of Danisha Allen's story.
When we last left off, Tanisha was telling us about
her early education in the public schools of Jackson, Florida.
Things simply put, were not good until people started to
pour into her. Let's get back to the story here again.
He's Denysha Allen.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I thought it was just going to be a much
funny games, to be honest, but we really she really,
I don't know what it's saying. Is crack the whip?
I don't know. But we'd studied and I learned my
times tables I was reading. She did not let up.
She was a student at Jacksonville University, and I remember
(20:19):
going with her to her classes too. That was my
life during the summer. Although I was still kind of
nervous about the start of the year at this new school,
I was kind of used to going to a new school,
though I knew the parade, how things were gonna play out.
The teachers were gonna act like they were so happy
(20:40):
to be there, and they would smile greet us. The
classrooms would be so beautiful with the freshest, you know, decorations,
but it would wear off. That was just how it went.
Sure enough, on my first day of school, the teachers
were there greeting us with big smiles, hugging everybody. The
classrooms were and I was like, yeah, I know this
(21:03):
song very well, and the song is gonna end. The
song never ended. Literally every day until I graduated, teachers
were doing the same thing. I was always very shocked,
even til I graduated, it was still a bit unsettling
(21:26):
that it never stopped. I was in a class with students,
of course, who were all younger than me, and I
had my guard up because I knew what was gonna come.
Teacher would call me to read. They would laugh at me,
and I would have to claim my space and let
(21:48):
people know that I am nothing to mess with, like,
do not mess with me. I remember my teacher calling
on me to read, and I s was still stumbling.
Nobody laughed. I looked around and was waiting, like waiting
to cut someone, you know, with my eyes and like
(22:12):
get ready for the playground, Like I was trying to
figure out who the big dog in a class was
so that I could like bring them down. Nobody laughed
at me, even a couple students. They would voluntarily like
(22:33):
try to help me. My sixth grade teacher, though she
invested as much or probably more in me as well students.
Typically how school goes if people forgot, a teacher will
open up the book and say who wants to read
Chapter one. The students will then raise their hand, and
(22:55):
the teacher will pick from the students who raised their
hand to read the paragraph in the book. I never
rose my hand. She would always call on me. So
every time we had to read, she would call on me.
I would stumble, stumble, stumble, stumble, until one day I
(23:20):
did it. And this was literally like the first nine weeks.
It seemed like my life took a one eighty turn.
The name of the school is Expirit of Course Center
for Learning. We're learning is a joy. Excellence is the norm,
(23:40):
and superiority is our goal. That's the school's model. We
literally like had to recite it all the time. We
had a spirit of Excellence. We also had demerits, which
I was like, what are these? You know where I
come from, anything that's different from normal? We say, what
is this white people's stuff? You know? The culture was different.
(24:03):
I wasn't used to the culture. They held you to
a standard. Every kid in my class. It was a
very small C school. I think I had about seven
or eight kids in my sixth grade class. All of
them were on honor roll. I was like literally the
only dumb kid, and I was like, I cannot be
the only dumb kid. Whereas where I was at, everybody
(24:24):
was feeling. The teachers expected for everyone to be if
you gotta see you were like you need to be
more like him, you know. It was just it was
so different. And so these kids, they were all very smart,
they were all very nice and kind, and I was
like this, you know, pit bull dog who just came
(24:44):
off the street. And they they didn't look at me
like I was weird, but they I think they knew
in their mind like we came here like that too,
you know, like you will change, you know, kind of
this weird environment. But this one time I was in
ISSP in school suspension. The guy who was over it
(25:10):
this time, he was also part of the church. He
was a fireman and I think he was in the
reserves or something. But this was this big black guy.
He was in the military and a firefighter. I didn't
understand how he did them both, but that's what he
(25:30):
told us all. And I just knew he was big, intall,
just towered over over me. He was in charge of
giving me my work and just checking in on me
that time, and in school suspension, he came to me
and he said, Denisha, when is this gonna stop? When
(25:52):
are you gonna change this? When when are you gonna
stop acting like this? Do you wanna be in jail?
Do you wanna go to jail. I forget how you
phrased it, but it it was something along. It was like,
do you wanna go to jail? Do you wanna be
in jail? And I like started crying. I was like
(26:14):
nothing before it had got to me. You know, I
don't care. You can drag me out of the classroom,
you can s send me home, call me stupid, fail me,
fail me again, take away something that's so important to me.
My life is crab, you know. I n I D
(26:35):
D didn't see the meaning in at thirteen, My life
was just very meaningless and I was just taking part
in whatever it through because I had to. I had
no control. And in that statement, I remember even like now,
I'm like huh, because I realized that I guess I
(26:59):
I I didn't have to go to jail, that was
the norm. And he was asking me, do you want
to do you want to be in jail because of
how you're acting? And I think that was like the
first time that I realized that my actions, like my
(27:21):
actions like can determine my outcome, not because of everybody else.
And he was basically telling me that how I decided
to act all these many many years I would end
up being in jail, and I was like, no, that's
not what I canna, very like childish. I don't wanna
go to jail. No, I don't wanna go to jail.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Like no.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
And that's when I decided to lay off the crap
and to take ownership of my of my behavior to
do better. And I tried really hard. I tried to
do better. I I would listen to my teachers, I
would get help, and by the first nine weeks, my
(28:07):
grades had risen. I went from making d's and f's consistently,
maybe a C here and there, just like that. That year,
my seventh grade year, when I was supposed to be
going into the eighth grade, I did not go to
the eighth grade class. I went into the ninth grade class.
I skipped the eighth grade, and that ultimately led to
(28:30):
me graduating from high school. I don't think I would
have graduated from high school if I had stuck with
the district public school. I had seen so many of
my family member's friends who dropped out. I think I
would have dropped out too. I would have had a baby,
and I would have probably been working at a McDonald's,
some fast food place that would have been my ultimate
(28:55):
success story. Education literally saved my life. I became the
first in my family to graduate from high school. I
got a college degree, I went away to college, and
then I moved to DC to work at the US
Department of Education. I lived a fairytale life compared to
(29:18):
other members in my family, and it would not have
been possible if I didn't receive people who were really
invested in my life and in my education.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to
Danisha Allen for sharing her story. She works at the
American Federation for Children and now we know why. Also
a special thanks to the Philanthropy Roundtable the folks there
for turning us onto the story. In the Philanthropy Roundtable
(29:52):
is America's leading advocate is support the causes we all
believe in. And my goodness, what a story. What is
it to tell you about the power of one adult
to love a kid. All of us can have that effect. Folks,
mentor and help a kid who might not have a dad,
who might not have a good influence in their life.
The story of Denisha Allen hear on our American stories,
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