Mr. Deem,
I first want to apologize for not getting to you long before now. I read the beautiful article you wrote about my baby and I just wanted to say thank you. I understood exactly what you were saying. Your words showed what your heart felt and your eyes saw. There is a history in that neighborhood and others who come into that area do not know and they really don't care to know.
My grandfather, Randolph Grier, purchased the first acres of land for our family's homestead. The house that Nikko and I lived in is also where my mother and her siblings were raised. They also attended the school in front of the house. Randolph and Alberta Grier raised 13 children in that home. They had been married 65 years when she passed away in 1981.
My grandfather, his siblings, along with a few church members bought the land for the church at the end of Central Avenue, the United House of Prayer. My family has been in the area for over 100 years. My grandfather built not just the house I lived in, but every home from the railroad tracks all the way down (Holbrooks Road) to the landfill, minus maybe one or two.
I used to sit on my porch and watch the parents coming and leaving (Waymer Center) with their children and they (seldom) acknowledged us. My baby would wave and speak. Sometimes they would speak, but more often than not, they didn't. The tears in my heart would say it's a shame we look at the color of a person and not the content of their character.
The blessing of Nikko being able to go to the summer camp (through a Town of Huntersville scholarship program) changed not only the children's attitude about the people on that side of the tracks, but made their parents look at us differently and acknowledge the neighborhood and the people who live there. So I, as his proud mother, wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart on your beautiful article about my Gift from GOD.
Margretha R. Pinkney
Nikko's MOM
