That is an amazing achievement from a man, who as a teenager, wanted fine silk shirts like his friends wore, but his mother was unable to make money for such luxuries working as a cleaning lady. So he tried to steal money from a man to buy the more expensive duds, winding up trying to stab him. But by the grace of God, the knife hit the man's belt buckle, breaking the blade. That event caused a sea change in Carson's life, leading him to eventual high achievement in the medical community.
I know the above story is true because Dr. Carson told it as I watched what I thought would be a boring Sunday afternoon television show while living in New Jersey. Dr. Carson granted an interview between surgeries, in which he told the reporter about his early years and the efforts of his mother to make sure he and his brother got an education.
He said his mother would make him and his brother read two books a week and then give her a written report. She would then ask questions about what they had read. Not realizing it at the time, her questions came from their answers and not from the hand-written reports. They would discover later she had only a third-grade education and couldn't read.
Established 16 years ago, The Carson Scholars Fund grants money for grade 4-12 students of all backgrounds with superior academic achievement and demonstration of humanitarian qualities. It began with 25 scholarships to students in Maryland and has expanded to 5,000 in all 50 states.
Dr. Carson authored Think Big and Gifted Hands, and with his wife wrote America the Beautiful that came out last year.
While Dr. Ben Carson is an American hero, his speech today shows he is obviously no hero of an administration's continued use of political correctness to force socialism down the throats of the people it's supposed to represent.