Leon's Story

Young Leon Tillage lives in 1940s rural North Carolina. Weekdays, he walks four miles to the old house where the black children attend classes-while the yellow bus rushes past carrying the white children to their modern building. At school, Leon chops wood for the potbelly stove, then fetches water from the well. Finally he studies his ABCs, using books discarded by the white students. Leon wonders why the white children have a fancy school, with new books, a warm furnace, and indoor plumbing. He asks why they ride to school and he walks. But all his relatives tell him-that's just the way things are. Once a year, author Leon Walter Tillage shares his fascinating life story with the students at the Baltimore middle school where he has been a custodian for 30 years. Based on his moving presentation, Leon's Story is a powerful firsthand account of an unsettling period of our history. With his thoughtful performance, narrator Graham Brown provides the perfect voice for the author's compelling recollections.