We are not so far apart as it might seem. There is something about both of us that goes deeper than blood or black and white. It is our common search for a better life, a better world. I march now over the same ground you once marched. I fight for the same things you still fight for. My children’s needs are the same as your children’s. I too am America. America is me. It gave me the only life I know—so I must share in its survival. Look at me. Listen to me. Try to understand my struggle against your racism. There is yet a chance for us to live in peace beneath these restless skies.

Life readers responded with an outpouring of kindness and generosity to the Fontenelles. They contributed enough money to move the family into a small house on Long Island where the children would have access to fresh air and a better education.

Sadly, the hope these changes offered the family was short-lived. Three months after their relocation, Norman Sr. came home drunk and dropped a lit cigarette onto the family’s new sofa. Fire swept through the house, killing him and his son Kenneth. Though the rest of the family escaped with their lives, their home was burned to the ground. Bessie, now a single parent, returned woefully to Harlem. Parks visited her several years later on Christmas Eve, to find that the family had fallen apart. Two sons were in prison, one for selling drugs, another for stealing; three of her teenage daughters were “on the streets.” When Bessie died in 1992, Parks attended the funeral along with four of her children, two of whom would die from AIDS soon after. Norman Jr. died in prison, where he had mourned the passing of his parents and his siblings.