Against all odds Art J. McCoy, Ph. D., became Missouri's youngest certified teacher at age nineteen and the youngest and first African-American superintendent of schools in Ferguson, Missouri, at age thirty-three. His father was born during the lowest point of The Great Depression and had his right leg amputated as a young boy. Eventually, his father began using drugs and living a tumultuous life. But he changed his life forever after his sister died in a horrific accident, and by the time his son-the author-came along, he was a man of God who had co- founded a church with his wife, Norma. The two of them