I recently found out about the inspirational story of Byron Pitts through reading several stories about him online and wanted to share it with you. Pitts, a contributor to 60 minutes and chief national correspondent for The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, recently wrote Step Out On Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life’s Challenges, a book that, among other things, chronicles his struggles with literacy and a stuttering problem. He has won national Emmy Awards for his coverage of the September 11th attacks and for coverage of 1999′s Chicago train wreck in addition to a National Association of Black Journalists Award, four Associated Press Awards and six regional Emmy Awards. But, when he was in grade school, he struggled with learning to read and speaking. In an interview with a colleague, he notes that by some estimates 30 million adults cannot read and comments:
I know their pain. I know the shame associated with being unable to read and speak clearly. I was a kid who did not learn to read until I was 12. I stuttered until I was 20. I was bullied through elementary school and much of junior high school. Self esteem was certainly a problem that I had. I was embarrassed a lot of times and out of that embarrassment came anger and isolation. In the book I talk about the journey I had to go on as a boy who felt uncomfortable in his own skin, the secrets I kept, my struggle to read and how those childhood challenges have affected me all of my life. I want to encourage people to believe that all things are possible. On the outside, it looks like I’ve got it made. A career that many people would dream of obtaining. But my challenges have been no different than so many others. And I want people to understand that obstacles can be overcome, that no challenge is insurmountable.
Pitts covered stories of several Pittsburgh adult learners and a high school student earlier this month in a video segment for CBS Sunday Morning and also discussed his own experiences struggling to read in school:
Literacy for me is more than just another assignment. I was a student at Saint Katherine’s School in Baltimore when I was diagnosed as functionally illiterate. I could not read. There weren’t programs for kids like me back then, so I was placed in the basement with the slow learners. I became one of the “basement boys.” My journey from Saint Katherine’s in Baltimore to CBS News is one I have spent time thinking about, and now, writing about.It’s a journey I could not have made without the unshakable help and support of my mother, Clarice Pitts. When a therapist suggested I might be mentally retarded, she refused to give up. There were others along the way, teachers and mentors, who helped me retrace and re-learn what I somehow missed in my early years, and who believed in me even when I doubted myself.
Pitts is also featured on the National Center for Family Literacy’s website and is the first author to join NCFL’s A PENNY A BOOK® initiative. You can purchase Step Out On Nothing on BetterWorldBooks.com. 100% of the net profit from sales of the book will be donated to NCFL.
