James C. Thomas was born in Mississippi in 1941 to an 18-year-old sharecropper. He didn't know his biological father until he was 15. A high school dropout, he grew up in dire poverty in the pre-Civil Rights south, chopping and picking cotton for ten hours a day, eight months of the year. Yet Thomas overcame these difficult beginnings to enjoy a successful career in government service and business. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison at age 33, went to work for the Madison city government as the first black assistant mayor in the city's history. He later opened Madison's first African-American art gallery and with his family started a multi-service pain management and treatment center in metropolitan Milwaukee. Thomas and his wife Yvonne, married for 52 years, have four children, eight grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. This book is an honest look at being black in this country. Thomas faced many hardships as a poor boy growing up in 1950s Mississippi, and his struggles didn't end when he moved to the north and began his professional career. But this is also a story of hope and perseverance-about how one man never gave up, overcame tremendous odds, and achieved the American Dream.