Mother's Son

About the Book

Mother’s Son is a passionate story of a young man’s life; told from the heart and mind of his grandmother. She held him gently as pain griped his body. A child born with Sickle Cell Anemia Disease; only his grandmother’s potions and ointments along with her stories managed to ease his pain. She told her special grandson stories of Post Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement were a prince of peace flew over the mountain top, and a tall stature stool transforming himself into a black revolutionary. Her most compelling story talks of a boy´s struggles through his pain by wondering the streets infested with drug and violence. His journey as a Black Panther put him in the forefront as community organizer where he helped establish the first Sickle Cell Anemia testing community – wide testing and free clothing programs in Dallas. His struggle for identity took him to the brink of insanity, there he found himself, as he emerged as a man who dedicated his life helping those who have fallen through the cracks of despair; and drug abuse; lost children who carry the psychological wounds of slavery. People he could identify with, people like him, people with stories similar to his grandmother’s story.

About the Author

Skip Shockley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1947. After the death of his mother, Skip was brought to Dallas with his older brother and younger sister by his maternal grandmother. Skip suffers Sickle Cell Disease inherited from the motherland in Africa. His blood would change shape in the winter, forming a sickle shape that cut away at his organs blocking air supply to his body. Skip was determined to be like his peers; so he ran and played games until his limbs cried out in pain. He later turned to the streets of Dallas for comfort; as a shrew negotiator by controlling a small marijuana trade. His arrest for marijuana possession could have brought him twentyfi ve years to life in prison according to Texas Law in the sixties and seventies, but fate and the loving prayers of his grandmother saved him. In the early seventies, he joined the Texas Branch of the Black Panther Party, rising to leadership. Skip graduated from El Centro College, and Texas Woman’s University. He is a Retired Nurse, Disease Intervention Specialist and Health Educator. He tested and treated inmates, drug abuse, people at risk for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and those suffering from Psychiatric disorders. Skip lectures at local high schools and universities on HIV/AIDS Prevention; and on the history of the Black Panther Party’s social programs.