Page 59 - Senior Link Magazine Spring 2024 - Online Magazine

SENIOR 2 SENIOR

Article Submitted by
Satchel Harper Collins CORONADO HIGH

Satchel Harper Collins is a senior at Coronado High School. Her parents are Cheryl Wood
and Patrick Collins. After high school, she hopes to attend Colorado State University or
Pace University to study apparel design and merchandising and film studies.

He faced barriers that, to many people, sound These lessons and stories are woven into the tapestry
insurmountable, and his experiences will forever be of my identity. His stories are not just pages in a
engraved in the scars of discrimination. As a young history book, they are demonstrations that there is
child, he was kept separate from buses, schools, strength to be found in the human spirit. He never
and restaurants just because of the color of his skin. once gave up on the world around him and never
He could have allowed this to change his character, stopped looking for the good in people. The sacrifices
but it never did. He always stayed kind and, from that he made echo through our history, and I can only
his experiences, found strength and courage within hope that one day I will learn to be as selfless and
himself. forgiving as he is.

When I was younger, his stories were fascinating,
but as I have grown up, my fascination turned into
admiration. His visits to Virginia are limited as his
wounds of discrimination cut too deep and are hard
to revisit, but this past summer he took my family
to Virginia. We drove through the places of my
grandfather's childhood. His home, now replaced
with fields and vegetation, was just a tiny house at
the dead end of a dirt road when he had visited last.
We walked into restaurants that he and his friends
were violently shut out of nearly seventy years ago.
My heart ached knowing that my grandfather, the
most loving person I know, had to wait until he
was eighty-eight years old to finally feel peace in Lubbock RSVP
the town of his childhood. He never viewed it that “Retired & Senior Volunteer Program”
way though; he never showed bitterness, but instead
took comfort in knowing that his children and VOLUNTEERS NEEDED:
• Age 55 or older
grandchildren would never know the segregation • You choose how you want to give back
that he once did. • Volunteers work as much or as little as they desire
• Annual Recognition Event
As a seventeen-year-old girl, his advice is the most
powerful that there could ever be. In this lifetime, I Questions, call or email:
will experience the bad, but my grandfather taught T: 806.743.7787 (RSVP)
me to believe that no matter how engulfing the bad E: rsvp@ttuhsc.edu
may seem, there is always good. There is always
reason to stay hopeful, and the experiences you face,
no matter how difficult, should be walked through Serving the Lubbock
with kindness. community since 1979

Lubbock Senior Link 59