The American

I was born on December 20^th in the year 1956 at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City, South Dakota, and not far from the steely gaze of Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt carved into the side of Mount Rushmore. On the first day of Elementary School, I was introduced to my fellow classmates as “The American.” After living in England for three years I returned to the states with a Cockney accent and the realization that my father was an angry alcoholic because of me. Oh yeah, I also learned that in America I was just a little nigger who talked funny. With the “Turbulent Sixties,” the Psychedelic Seventies, as the backdrop to my childhood and young adulthood, I would go on to father three children before I was twenty and serve in the United States Air Force. The Eighties would bring in the Reagan era for the rest of the country and for me an opportunity to star in a local production of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in The Sun.” That led to an audition at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, where I was put on the road to a promising acting career, derailed before it ever got started by a vicious crack addiction. The nineties would take me on a merry tour of crack houses and prisons in three different states, which would last into the first three years of the 21^st Century. The American is the recounting of the journey that is my life. I hope you enjoy it. My name is Anthony Belcher.