The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream by Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt

When you grow up in the inner city,  you grow up fast.

“I was in sixth grade when I awakened one morning to a loud crash outside. Minutes later the wail of sirens filled my room.  I jumped up and rushed outside. Down the street, about a block from my house, a car had crashed into a utility pole. The pole lay across the smashed front window and hood of the car. As paramedics pulled the driver from the car,  I recognized him as a guy who had gone to my school — he was no more that twelve years old. He had been speeding down the street in a stolen car when he lost control. Now he was dead.

This is the backdrop against which we lived. You see it enough and it becomes normal. Some parts of the life even become exciting. Sure, you see cats your age dying all the time, but you figure that’s the price you pay for being born poor. And you accept your fate unless someone or something convinces you that you have the power to change the script.”

This is the true story of three young men who grew up in the streets of Newark, facing the city life’s temptations, pitfalls, even jail. But these three young men made a pact. They promised each other they would all become doctors, and stick it out together to attain that dream.  (from the book jacket)

It was a long road but they all made it.  Read this book and be inspired! For other inspirational memoirs, you might want to check out the following:

• Working Fire: The Making of an Accidental Fireman by Zac Unger
• Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos
• Gifted Hands by Ben Carson
• Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter by James S. Hirsch
• Bad Boy by Walter Dean Myers
• Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir
• Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
• Educating Esme by Esme Codell
• My Lobotomy by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming
• Finding Fish by Antwone Quenton Fisher
• Poster Child by Emily Rapp
• Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
• Soldier by Jane Jordan