ABSTRACT
One of my first memories is my father teaching me how to spell my last name; “D-A-N-F-O-R-T-H,” he would say over and over again, and I would repeat the letters until I had memorized them. My last name held a fascination for me. It is sufficiently rare so that I have never met a Danforth who was not in my family. I also was struck by the way that my family used our name; when they spoke it they always changed their tone, as if it was the most special word in the English language. Members of my family have always carried themselves with a certain sense of arrogance, and I do not mean this in a bad light. I have found that America’s most successful blacks are rarely modest. Arrogance or cockiness is used as a sort of drug to combat the sense of inherent inferiority that America places upon blacks. In my experience as a black person who deals in the white world, all of my peers who have demonstrated the so-called virtues of modesty and humility have, in almost every case, failed to achieve their desired goals.
