I’m Robert Coleman. I was born in Lambert, Mississippi, in 1958. Have you heard of Lambert? That’s the home of Big Jack Johnson, one of the best blues guitarists ever to come out of Mississippi. Lambert nowadays is a thriving community, but not when I was growing up. It was a very poor farming community. It was about the size of Alexandria, Indiana, but not as friendly and welcoming.

I am the 9th child in a family of 11 children. My dad was a hard working farmer, my mom, a fully dedicated homemaker. We also raised cows and chickens when I was little. My dad was more than twenty years older than my mom. He had a family and four children, and then his wife passed away. He was on a trip to Memphis, Tennessee, when he met my lovely mom and, as they recalled it, it was love at first sight. He was older in age but you couldn’t tell. He was in great shape, worked in the field all day, and played sports with us boys – we are seven boys and four girls - until he passed away in 1971, in his late 70’s. We just lost our mom, last year. She was 82.

I told you the year I was born so you know that I was fully aware of the segregation and the civil right movements at that time. Quang tried to understand why the black people didn’t do anything about it, sooner. That was just the way back then. Our complaints to the authority would fall on deaf ears. That was the law of the land. We learned to drink water from the fountain designated for “colored people”, and to sit in the back of the bus; we learned not to bother to want to go to the public swimming pool, and so on. I remember how once we dip our toes in the public swimming pool just so the white folks would have to drain the whole thing and scrub it! I have been asked if I preferred to be called Black or African American. I would prefer Black over African American, because I was not from Africa. But I’d rather be called Robert. My dear old mom taught us never pay attention to anybody’s skin color, just see them all as people and treat everybody as you would want to be treated.

We used to walk to school, about the distance between CHA and St. John. We didn’t get to use the school bus – the back of the bus to be exact - until my year in 10th grade. That was the year when I started school with white kids and experienced the deep sadness of being discriminated against because of my skin color. My teacher in 10th grade told us black kids that we would amount to nothing, to not bother thinking about going to college. My own teacher told me that. It was also a year of turmoil. We would be told that there was bomb threat so there was no school two, three times a week, all year long.

After my father passed away, my older sister, who has moved to Anderson, suggested that we moved there. My mom packed us up, her five remaining kids and we moved to Anderson. That was the year of 1976 and the blizzard hit us southerners hard. It was so cold we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. But we loved Anderson and its so much friendlier people. I started my 11th grade at Madison High and recalled with great surprise at how the kids there referred to the teachers by their names. Down South, we always referred to them as “yes, mam” or “yes, sir”.

I started working at Community Hospital of Anderson right after high school in 1978 and have stayed since. I love CHA and its people, from Dr. Van Ness down to every body. A great turning point in my life was when Jeanne Atkinson asked me to work with Doug Townsend. Doug is a great influence on who I have become. He is an inspiration to me on how to be kind to everybody and be very fair at the same time. He has supported me – and others – in all my highs and lows. I could always depend on his willingness to help and unconditional support. He was named Employee of the Month once. I emulated him and won my Employee of the Month award a few months later. I owed my being Hot Shot of the Month a few years back to him. I model after him on how I treat the elderly folks I serve every day in my Med Express runs. He is my big white brother I never had. The people here have been so great to me and to my family. Last year when I was sick, it seemed like the whole hospital called me at home to see how I was doing. I was so overwhelmingly happy being sick! It’s like a big extension of my own family which includes my wife whom I married in 1981, four boys (ages 24, 23, 19, and 13) and four grand kids. I’m in my forties and already a grandpa.

Thanks God, life has been so good to me.