A Charge to Keep - I Have A Colored, Negro, Black man's remarkable works of growing up in and out of the deep south and the discrimination he experienced from whites and others within his own race. He works through the perils of racism by joining the military to escape the cotton mills of his hometown and using the military as a spring board to gain the college education denied him upon graduation from high school. He moves through the military and afterwards searching for ways to keep the promise made to his dying illiterate father, to erase the X his father used in signing his name. The author sees the resurrection of the racial division of the past resurfacing in the dirty politics of today. A brave insight showing how adversities can be turned into opportunities.