From Homeless to Harvard

From Homeless Education paved the way to Harvard to success for Liz Murray The following is an excerpt from Liz Murray’s New York Times bestselling book “Breaking Night.” The book chronicles Murray’s path from homeless teenager to Harvard graduate. In this excerpt, Murray is a 16-year-old homeless, high school dropout in New York who had recently lost her mother. One night, while spending the night in the apartment of a friend of a friend, her life begins to change when she learns about an alternative high school. fter a few weeks of being cooking; lovers’ arguments; dishes I have no idea where home is. so dependent on people, clanking; TVs blasting at top Sometimes, waking up, I didn’t I began sleeping a few volume; my old shows, The Simp- initially recognize where I was. For nights a week on the sons and Jeopardy!; rap music — those first few seconds, it could be A subway, alone. Into the far corner of all carrying me back to University University Avenue, the footsteps the subway car, I appeared just like Avenue. Mostly, though, I heard nearby, Ma and Daddy getting ready any other traveler taking public families; children calling out for to binge for the night. Or Brick’s transportation, rocked to sleep by mothers, husbands speaking their place, Sam somewhere right within the train’s rhythm, well on my way wives’ names, sending me reminders my reach. But when my eyes home. No one had to know. But this of the way love — stretched between adjusted, it was always someone wasn’t safe. Sometimes thugs a handful of people — fills a space, else’s personal touches, their family’s boarded the train, teenage guys in transforms it into a home. I won- noises surrounding me, and their hoods, their pants sagging, barking dered how Lisa was doing at Brick’s. scents in the air. I was at Bobby’s, loud words to one another, domi- How was she dealing with school Fief’s, or one of a few other random nating the subway car. I’d awoken a when we had just lost Ma? I didn’t places I’d sometimes go, the apart- few times to their stares, but never have the strength to call her; I knew ments of friends’ friends. anything more. It was luck. So I I just couldn’t handle the questions I spent almost a week in this one chose hallways as my main refuge; I was sure she’d ask: “What are you girl’s place. The guys were all they were a better bet. doing out there, Liz? What are you crashing there a lot, hanging out The top landing of any Bedford going to do with your life? Are you with Danny, a friend of Bobby’s who Park building’s stairwell felt so much going back to school? It was too had always come and gone through safer. Lying there, flat on a bed of much to deal with, so I stayed away. our group of friends over the years marble, using my backpack for a Many nights, I longed for home. and had become someone I counted pillow, whole lives played out But it occurred to me as I struggled as a friend, someone in my tribe. beneath me: the smell of food for a feeling of comfort and safety: He was a tall, light-skinned Puerto Her story sounds like a Hollywood movie — and it practically is. Lifetime Television produced an Emmy-nominated movie about Murray’s life story entitled “Homeless to Harvard”… 20 | WISCONSIN SCHOOL NEWS Rican guy with large hazel eyes, moistened to her temples, handsome. Like Bobby, Danny making it cling. She wiped it loved video games and hanging back before speaking. out with our group. He always “Are you sure you’re not had a different girlfriend, and looking for a GED?” she asked several other girls who thought me while lowering a steaming they were his girlfriend. Paige was dinner plate onto my lap. his latest. He had just moved in with “No. I’ve been thinking I her, and brought the group of us want to get my high school along with him to hang out. diploma,” I told her. “I’m Paige was twenty-two years old, a really not interested in a former runaway, grown up. Danny GED. I’ve heard they’re told me she’d done really well for great, but it’s not what I’m herself, had a steady job and her looking for…But it’s hard for own apartment, which she could pay me to be in school, ya for without a roommate. It was a know? It’s crowded, and I tiny, one-bedroom apartment above feel really behind.” a Chinese restaurant, so small that “Well, my old high you could roll right out of the living school might be the perfect room and into the kitchen because place for you then,” Paige they were actually the same tiny said as she filled a dinner room. But it was all hers. She made plate for Danny. it happen herself. From Paige, I learned When Paige cooked chicken and what an alternative high rice for all of us, the smell and the school in New York City heat filled the small space like a was like. “It’s a place like sauna. That was when her curly hair a private school, but for This article is reprinted with permission from Washington Speakers Bureau. obstacles that next to nothing could hold me down.” Hear Determined to take charge of her life, Murray finished high school in just two years and was Liz Murrary’s awarded a full scholarship to Harvard University, all while camping out in New York City parks and Powerful Story subway stations. at the 2017 State Murray’s story is exhilarating and inspirational. Her delivery is innocently honest, as she takes audiences on a Education Convention very personal journey where she achieves the improbable. LIZ MURRAY will be one of the featured keynote Her story sounds like a Hollywood movie — and it practically is. speakers at the 96th State Education Convention, Lifetime Television produced a movie about Murray’s life story Jan. 18-20 in Milwaukee. entitled “Homeless to Harvard”, which was nominated for three “Emmy Awards.” Murray is the recipient of the White House Liz Murray’s life is a triumph over adversity and a stunning “Project’s Role Model Award” and Oprah Winfrey’s first-ever example of the importance of dreaming big. Murray’s life as “Chutzpah Award.” Her memoir, “Breaking Night,” landed on the the child of cocaine-addicted parents in the Bronx was bitterly New York Times best seller list within a week of its release and grim. There was never food in the house, everything was filthy, quickly became an international bestseller published in twelve drugs were everywhere, and the welfare checks were spent countries, in eight languages. before they arrived. Murray received her Bachelor of Science degree from Harvard By age 15, Murray’s mom had died and she was homeless — living on the streets, riding the subway all night, and University. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in eating from dumpsters. Amidst this pain, Murray always Psychology at Columbia University. imagined her life could be much better than it was. Murray is passionate about speaking on the importance of “I started to grasp the value of the lessons learned while personal motivation, transforming problems into opportuni- living on the streets. I knew after overcoming those daily ties, and what it takes to make a difference in people’s lives. OCTOBER 2016 | 21 anyone who is really motivated to 4. A big bed!!! I tapped on my journal’s empty go, even if they don’t have the 5. Clean clothes, socks especially! page again, and wrote: money. The teachers really care Number of credits required for 6. Sleeping and no one about you,” she told me. graduation from high school — wakes me up I scrawled the name and address 40?...42?(find this out) of her school down in my journal 7. Warm baths My age when the next school year while she went on, speaking about I turned to the next blank page will begin — 17 her experiences in high school, and tapped my pen down a few My current address —Wherever trailing off into a story about an times. The hall clock was ticking. All I am staying at the moment ex-boyfriend. As she spoke, I took over the walls were Paige’s abstract My current total of high school my pen and darkened in the phone paintings from her high school art number to her school, until I gave credits — 1 class, vivid reds, yellows, and greens It would have been zero credits, the digits dimension, a life of their splashed across big, beige canvases. except that every now and then I own that soared up from the page. I studied a photograph tacked up used to swing by John F. Kennedy Later, when the apartment was beside the paintings; a woman who High School with Sam. She didn’t dark and everyone was sleeping, looked like an older version of Paige even officially go to my high school, I took over her loveseat and wrote with curlier hair was wearing her but with more than six thousand by the nightstand light. Sunday best, standing beside a stout students enrolled, who would notice On one page, I made a list. man with a salt-and-pepper beard one extra? Together, Sam and I sat in Things to Look Forward to When and a tie.

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