Rosa Lee

             Rosa Lee.
             The book "Rosa Lee- by Leon Dash touched me very deeply. I was shocked by how much adversity and affliction she had to bear by slipping deeper and deeper into the vicious circle of drugs, prostitution and crime. .
             Rosa Lee`s parents were black rural share croppers from the South who moved to Washington D.C. in order to escape racial oppression, economic exploitation and segregation and to find a better life and work there. .
             But once in the city they faced barriers in housing, education and employment.
             During her childhood, Rosa Lee was given a hard time by the strong discipline of her mother Rosetta, which was usual for southern rural families during this time. Sometimes her mother would beat her up and slap her right in the face. She also made Rosa Lee responsible for all the household chores to prepare her for a life as a domestic worker. But Rosa Lee hated the idea of cleaning up the houses of white families. .
             Rosa Lee`s father was an alcoholic and there were times when young Roas Lee had to pick him up drunk from a bar and he would lean on her all the way home. .
             When he was drunk, her father beat her mother and her mother would beat her after that, so violence was just passed on.
             At the age of twelve her father died from the consequences of his permanent alcohol abuse. .
             In order to look for love, Rosa Lee turned to boys in the neighborhood and got pregnant with her first child at the age of thierteen. Seven more children followed, most of them from different fathers.
             She moved with and without her grandmother and mother from one low-income housing complex in Washington to another. There were times when there were as many as seventeen adults and children living together in one apartment.
             Her criminal carrer began very early in elementary school when she stole the cooky money from other children. Later she stole clothes in order to look as fancy as the other girls in her class, after she was told that she was not as beautiful as them, because her skin complexion was darker.