When I was a second-year law student I took the Public Interest Practicum. PIP, as we called it, sought to teach through real world experience, and we were required to serve the Athens community in some capacity. I volunteered at the local soup kitchen, making sandwiches and dispensing advice, and at the homeless shelter run by the Salvation Army. It was at the shelter that I met Clark. Clark was an African-American man in his 50s from Greene County, Georgia. He was trying to get permanent housing through the local housing authority, and needed his birth certificate to complete his application. Clark was quiet and humble, and felt like he was imposing simply by asking me for help. But, he finally did – he asked me to help him get a copy of his birth certificate. This seemed simple enough, even for a green law student like me, so I asked him for some basic information – his full name and date of birth. Clark said, in response to the question about his birthday, that he wasn’t sure, but he gave me what he believed was his birth date. He was wrong. We later learned that date was his brother’s birth date, and Clark chuckled when we learned that, and when we learned his true birth date. That’s when it struck me. We only know our birth date because someone else tells us, and because we have people in our lives that love us and have the emotional and financial ability to make our birthday celebrations memorable. Clark didn’t have that. Clark didn’t have people in his life making his birthday celebrations memorable. In fact, I assume he didn’t have birthday celebrations at all. One of many children born to a poor family in rural Georgia, Clark didn’t have cake, ice cream and presents. So, when he grew up, he didn’t know his birth date.
I have never forgotten Clark, and I have never forgotten the lesson he taught me about the enormous divide between the haves and have-nots. And, every year on August 17th, I am grateful that Clark taught me to cherish the fact that I know my birth date.
