A Quick Word on Marcus Mabry

In 1988 I was working full-time and going to graduate school part-time. One night after class I picked up a copy of the freebie, Newsweek on Campus. The “My Turn” essay, “Living in Two Worlds,” by Marcus Mabry really struck me. He writes about the difference in his college existence and the urban poverty of his family’s life in New Jersey. Mabry had a full scholarship to a private boarding high school and was, at that time, attending college at Stanford. He writes about the disparity between his college apartment, with art prints and plants, and the apartment his family lives in, shared by a number of people, some sleeping on couches, some on mattresses on the floor, trying to avoid the springs sticking through.

He ends with this:

Somewhere in the midst of all that misery, my family has built, within me, a “proud feeling.” As I travel between the two worlds it becomes harder to remember just how proud I should be – not just of where I have come from and where I am going, but because of where they are. The fact that they survive in the world in which they live is something to be very proud of, indeed. It inspires within me a sense of tenacity and accomplishment that I hope every college graduate will someday possess.

I saved that essay and have had it taped up on the wall of every office I have work in for the past nearly 20 years. At times I have given a copy to people that I thought might enjoy it. For whatever reason it never occurred to me to find out what had happened to young Mr. Mabry. So imagine my surprise when I heard his name when watching election night coverage on television last November. Yes, Mabry is now the senior editor of Newsweek International

You can read his essay here, just scroll down to Passage I.