Leadership can develop in a variety of ways and under any circumstance. As the illegitimate child of an Irish Catholic woman, at birth I was sent to an orphanage. This was because of a belief that good Irish Catholic homes do not have illegitimate children.

However, at the age of 3, at his insistence, and in opposition to my mother and grandmother, I was adopted by a physically abusive alcoholic man who had married my birth mother. Along with my brother, sister, and grandmother, they lived in the housing projects of South Boston.