Born in 1940 in New Orleans Louisana's seventh ward, I was forced to live the first fourteen years of my life under the shameful banner of sanctioned segregation and all it's negative repercussions. In 1953 I relocated to Watts California where integration was destroying a viable Black community. Civil Rights was in vogue on the west coast which gave me the platform that allowed me an area of expression. 'From New Orleans to Watts' poetry book chronicles the cause and effect legal segregation had on me and my transition from being a second class citizen into an activist poet. Which had an negative effect on those I loved and others close to me.