As we kick off Black History Month, I am going to take the liberty to salute my siblings, the city of Waterbury and the state of Connecticut. My story is an American story. And I am blessed to have come from a strong and loving two-parent household, a culture of hard work, and always putting God first with prayer and thanksgiving. That was our practice.

In our family, we looked in the mirror when we missed a beat or a step, not at others for someone to blame. We were determined to simply outwork our peers and naysayers while realizing every achievement was truly due to the grace of God.

My sister, Dr. Bonita Franks, was the first Black professor at the University of Tennessee. Keep in mind Black people were not welcomed as students at white colleges regardless of their abilities during the 1950s and 1960s, but Bonita’s grades were so high that Central Connecticut State University gave her a scholarship and honored her with an endowment scholarship in her name.

She graduated with a doctorate degree at an age that was the fastest of any person of color at Penn State at the time.

I have been told my brother, Colonel Richard Franks, is America’s oldest living Black retired Army Colonel (he is almost 90 years old). His congressman – John Monagan – who I would succeed decades later, encouraged my brother to join the Army instead of being drafted as Monagan thought Richard’s talents would be better served at a Veteran’s Hospital treating those in need of psychiatric care. Richard rose through the ranks and became a Colonel. Recently, he was recognized and honored by the Connecticut Congressional delegation, the state Legislature, and Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont.

Dr. Joan Franks is over 90 years old and is an emeritus professor from the University of Virginia. One of her famous students is now a U.S. Senator, Shelley Moore Capito, from West Virginia. Joan also befriended and worked with Virginia Senator and Governor George Allen while he was a student at UVA. When I graduated from grade school, Joan took me on a trip to Washington, D.C. where I got my first glimpse of the halls of Congress where I would one day work.

I also had another sister, Ruth, who was an attorney and a brother, Marvin, who

played and coached school sports teams and became a grade-school teacher.

Though my father could barely read or write, he and my high-school educated mother were strong parents who believed and practiced the Golden Rule.

As a child in the 1960s, I pulled out of our mailbox a dead possum wrapped in a sheet dripping with blood. Members of the Ku Klux Klan had sent it to us with a cryptic note attached, saying our family would be like this dead possum if we did not move somewhere else immediately. This was all because my parents had decided to integrate into a previously all-white section of my hometown. They burned a huge cross on our yard, shot a dog on our lawn, and sent us death threats, along with threats to blow-up our house. This happened nightly for over three months.

The dead possum had been placed in our mailbox, making it a federal offense. Thankfully, the FBI caught the Klansmen in three days. Years later, I would win six elections from that same community to serve as alderman on the city council and as a Congressman, both doing what had never been done before – winning in a 92% white area (city and congressional district back in the 1980s and 1990s.)

The mold had been set and other Black and Hispanic leaders dared to do what had been previously thought impossible – getting elected as minorities by majorities of white people.

Today, most of the new members of Congress who are people of color have been elected in majority-white districts. And we have and have had several Black and Hispanic candidates who were elected to the Senate, among both Democrats and Republicans, as well as three Black governors – mostly in the 21st century.

Yes, I have been blessed. My siblings were my role models, tutors in grade school, confidantes, and my sources of inspiration. We all must pass on what we know and experience to others along the way. And that is what Black History Month should encourage us to do. Godspeed.