Among the prestigious graduates of Columbia University's class of 2016 this past week, stood a man who is over four decades older than the majority of his classmates. 67-year-old, David Norman became an inspiration to the most disenfranchised people in the city Wednesday (May 18), sixteen years after he took on a new chapter in a life that took him from an orange prison jumpsuit to the baby blue cap and gown of the very alma mater of our nation's President. Plans are now in the works for the former Harlem dope dealer to write a memoir detailing his struggle to overcome 35 years of addiction and imprisonment.
Norman's journey of hardship began in 1967 when he was arrested for the first of what would be numerous times before his stabbing a man in a street fight put him away on a manslaughter charge. Multiple stints would follow as he compiled a rap sheet marked by drug trafficking and robbery, and other violent offenses. It wasn't until Norman found peace studying and teaching life skills to fellow inmates during a six year bid in Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, NY, that the former High School drop out began to reflect on where it all went wrong. “I did a little inventory of myself to try to unearth what it was that led me astray in the beginning and what I need to do when I get home not to fall victim to this activity again,” he said.
Upon his 2000 release Norman got a job as an outreach worker at Mount Vernon Hospital. That gig led to a position with a community health program at Columbia University, to which he would apply for admission and be accepted in 2006. He took classes as he worked, completing seven credits per semester until completing the requirements to earn him a bachelor's degree in Philosophy. "I'm just now starting to come down from my little high," Norman said of his remarkable triumph. While maintaining his position as a research assistant at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, he continues his work helping reform the lives of those who were in his same position, as a volunteer with the Coming Home Program at Riverside Church.
Source: complex.com
