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From
'Homeless to Harvard'
Speaker
shares story of her life with Culver students.
By SHARON GARDNER
Tribune Correspondent
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From left, Ana
Tosi and Meredith Kohr listen to Liz Murray answer
questions Saturday from students at Culver Academies
after her keynote speech at the annual Celebration of
Women.
Tribune
Photo/REBECCA BELLING
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CULVER -- Liz Murray
grew up in a filthy hovel in the Bronx, the child of
drug-addicted parents. Through her teenage years she was
homeless on the streets of New York.
Murray is now 24 and
a student at Columbia University, after transferring from
Harvard University.
On Saturday, she
spoke to hundreds of young women at Culver Academies as the
keynote speaker for Culver's Celebration of Women.
Murray's life story
was the subject of a 2003 Emmy-nominated Lifetime movie titled
"Homeless to Harvard." And being published this year
are her memoirs, "Breaking Night."
Murray described her
parents as "hippies" who began using drugs in the
1970s, believing it was just a "weekend, party thing."
Instead, she said, "It landed them a full-blown drug
addiction."
Murray said there was
often nothing for her and her older sister to eat in the
apartment. She said that at dinner time they would often walk
around the apartment building sniffing at doors, to see where
the best smells were located. They would knock and eat with
another family.
"Once or
twice," Murray said of her and her sister, "we split a
tube of toothpaste."
"The first of
the month was a holiday, and the mailman was Santa Claus,"
Murray told the students, because that was when the welfare
check was delivered.
She explained the
whole family would go together to cash the check, and she and
her sister would get Happy Meals. Then the two girls would wait
outside the building her parents would enter to buy their drugs.
Maybe $20 or $30 would be spent on groceries, on the way back to
the apartment.
"My parents seem
like villains," Murray acknowledged, but she emphasized she
does not see them in that light. "I felt very loved by my
parents."
"Addiction is a
disease," she continued. "They tried to be other
people, but the drugs took them away from who they wanted to be.
They didn't have more to give. I couldn't get mad at them
because they seemed to be suffering."
At age 13, after
living in a group home, she discovered her mom had AIDS.
Her mom died when
Murray was 16. The death, Murray said, was a wake-up call.
"I saw these
broken adults around me," said Murray. "Maybe, if I
didn't take charge of my life, I would become one of them. ... I
had nothing and became terrified, and this fear drove me back to
school."
Murray then made a
critical decision. She wanted to graduate from high school, but
she had only one credit to her name, and that, she said, had
been given out of sympathy.
Having interviewed at
five schools and been rejected from them all, Murray stood on a
street corner in New York City and argued with herself about
whether she should take the money in her pocket and go have
pizza with her friends, or whether she should use it to take the
train to one more school.
She got on the train.
She went to one more
interview at an alternative school. After telling her life story
to the teacher who interviewed her, Murray was accepted into the
Humanities Preparatory School.
Through independent
study, Murray was able to complete her high school education in
two years and graduate second in her class. Then she applied for
a college scholarship sponsored by the New York Times.
For part of the
scholarship application, Murray had to explain what obstacles
she had overcome to get to this point in her life. She not only
won the scholarship to Harvard, the Times also published her
story.
Since then, she has
had the movie made about her life; she has spoken to groups
numbering in the thousands (once just before Mikhail Gorbachev
took the stage); she won Oprah Winfrey's first
"Chutzpah" award; and she is continuing her education
at Columbia University in New York City.
When Murray took
questions from the students, the first one she was asked
concerned her father.
Murray explained she
left Harvard and began attending Columbia so that she could be
closer to her father, whom she said is now HIV positive and
suffers from various illnesses. Murray pays for an apartment
below her own, for her father, who has been drug-free for the
past five or six years, and takes care of him.
The student wanted to
know how Murray could make that sacrifice after the way her
parents had raised her and her sister.
"Love is the
answer. That's the sound bite," Murray answered, but added,
"I understand people have problems. I'm capable of taking
care of my dad. I make a good living now. People go to anger
because they feel powerless."
The message Murray
said she wanted to leave with the students was all about them.
"You have a
precious window of time when you can direct your life to a place
that will really lead you to your dreams," she told them.
"This time is for you. What you do or don't do sticks to
you. This time is for you," she repeated. "Be honest
with yourself."
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