Thomas Sowell writes about Ben Carson:
A remarkable book titled “Gifted Hands” tells the personal story of Benjamin Carson, a black kid from the Detroit ghetto who went on to become a renowned neurosurgeon.
At one time young Ben Carson had the lowest grades in his middle-school class and was the butt of teasing by his white classmates. Worse yet, he himself believed that he was just not smart enough to do the work.
Fortunately for him, his mother, whose own education went no further than the third grade, insisted that he was smart. She cut off the television set and made him and his brother hit the books — books that she herself could scarcely read.
As young Ben’s school work began to catch up with that of his classmates, and then began to surpass that of his classmates, his whole view of himself and of the wider world around him began to change. He began to think that he wanted to become a doctor.