Heroes for My Son

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Book: Read Heroes for My Son for Free Online
Authors: Brad Meltzer
Paul Newman proved that true success doesn’t come from getting—it comes from giving.
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    To this day, larger companies regularly approach Newman’s Own, offering to acquire it. These offers are—always—politely refused. *
    A man with no enemies is a man with no character.
    â€”Paul Newman
    I’d like to be remembered as a guy who tried—tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn’t complacent, who doesn’t cop out.
    â€”Paul Newman

— LEGEND —
pelé
    Soccer superstar. Natural athlete. Worldwide phenomenon.

    Brazilian soccer superstar Edison Arantes do Nascimento—better known as Pelé—is one of the greatest athletes the modern world has ever known. According to Time magazine, “He scored an average of a goal in every international game he played—the equivalent of a baseball player’s hitting a home run in every World Series game over 15 years.”
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    S coring is great.
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    Blocking is great.
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    Winning is great.
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    But none of those equals greatness .
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    In 1967 the Nigerian civil war came to a sudden halt.
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    For forty-eight hours the two sides—so determined to murder each other—called a ceasefire.
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    They hadn’t reached a moment of understanding.
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    They just wanted to watch Pelé play his exhibition match in the Nigerian capital of Lagos.
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    When the match was over, they would go back to violence and murder.
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    But for forty-eight hours, they would all stand together—just to witness this one man’s God-given gift.
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    To witness greatness. *
    Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.
    â€”Pelé

— TEENAGER —
barbara johns
    High school student. Civil rights activist.

    In 1951, sixteen-year-old Barbara Johns organized a walkout from her all-black high school. It led to Brown v. Board of Education and the end of public school segregation.
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    I n 1951 Barbara Johns’s school held 450 black students, all of them crowded into a building meant for 200.
    Their books were tattered. Their classrooms had no heat.
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    One morning, when she missed her bus, she waited, hoping another might come.
    Another did.
    But it blew right by her, filled with white kids, heading to their newer, less crowded school.
    As the bus disappeared, Barbara decided she’d organize a walkout.
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    Before Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., the early civil rights movement relied a great deal on the power of normal, unknown teenagers.
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    Teenagers.
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    Thanks to sixteen-year-old Barbara Johns, Moton High School held a two-week strike.
    The NAACP helped them sue for an integrated school.
    And it became one of the five cases that the Supreme Court reviewed when it declared segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education .
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    For her reward, Barbara’s house was burned down.
    She never regretted it. *
    We knew we had to do it ourselves and that if we had asked for adult help before taking the first step, we would have been turned down.
    â€”Barbara Johns

— PRISONER —
aung san suu kyi
    Political captive. Leader of Burma’s democratic movement.

    Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has devoted her life to the freedom of the Burmese people. For peacefully advocating a nonviolent struggle over a military dictatorship, she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. The repressive government of Burma has kept her in detention for much of the time since 1989. She still won’t give up.
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    W ith a crowd of 500,000 watching her, Aung San Suu Kyi seized the microphone. She was just a housewife. She had never held political office.
    All she wanted was freedom—true

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