For Phyllis Bivins, extreme poverty, hunger, and homelessness were just a part of growing up in 1960s Virginia. Her mother could only afford to raise her on a part-time basis, passing Phyllis around to family members and friends while seeking whatever work was fitting for a woman with a sixth-grade education. Some of the impromptu foster homes were nicer than others, but they didn’t quell the revulsions that constantly tormented her from childhood into young adulthood-like the unspeakable horrors of repeated sexual abuse and domestic violence.

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While enduring the devastating traumas of poverty, abandonment, and abuse, Phyllis somehow found solace in her passionate love for education. School was her sanctuary, providing a relief that a life of pain and scarcity had stolen from her. The endearing words of her third-grade teacher implanted a seed of hope into Phyllis’s heart that grew with her, even though her stepfather’s savage beatings and an unexpected teen pregnancy. Phyllis was special with a spirit too bold to be broken, and she was determined to carve out a path for herself that would lead her far away from the only life she’d ever known.