A Night Watchman

About the Book

The journey of sixty-five years old for an African American male in the United States has been a rough and rocky endeavor. A discussion of four major topics of great importance today is critical in explaining the most important factors in the life of Charles Henry Orr. Father-and-Son Relationships help explain how Charles and his father interacted and cared about one another in a time where survival was a challenge. Becoming a man and/or developing into manhood were not a fast process for Charles; some of the reasons will be highlighted in this book. The importance of education came to him slow as well and will be explained. The role of dignity and respect in both of their lives had negative effects relative to their accomplishments in life. Fortunately, Charles is still alive and working on some accomplishments that will contribute to society after he is gone. Soichiro, the founder of Honda, said, “To me success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success represents 1% of your work that results from the 99% called failure.” Charles Orr has lived through many failures in life, but the point here is he has always worked on being successful. Webster defines success as favorable outcomes of desired goals and/or becoming wealthy or famous. Charles has been successful on the desired outcomes of some of his goals, but being wealthy and famous is not included. Drawing from Hornsby’s (2004) article titled African Americans in order to put Charles’s story in a historical perspective, there are thirty-five million black Americans living in the United States, accounting for 12 percent of the total population. They basically came from Western Africa. Without the use of genealogy research, Charles is sure he is in this group.

About the Author

Charles Henry Orr was born in Briminingham, Alabama in 1943 into the family of Jim and Mattie Orr. He was the third born. He is presently 65 years old with a birthday in August 2009. He is writing this book as part of his legacy. He has been trying to get educated all of his life and is still trying. This book was written in the third person without any assistance other than editing by the publisher. Charles presently lives in Chicago, Illinois and is employed full time as a Public Safety Officer at DePaul University on the night shift. . This title public safety officer, security officer/security guard represents the same duties as A Night Watchman. This is how this title was derived. He graduated from the university in 2004 with a Masters in Sociology. This is Charles Orr’s second book. The first was his Masters Thesis titled, Homelessness: a Challenge to African American Males, 2005.