This was especially true for immigrant families like his. The point of that story, Powell emphasized, was the critical importance of community, of folks taking responsibility for each other. The neighborhood telegraph system was as swift as any IM or tweet is today. If he ever got into trouble, which was frequently, word of his misdeeds reached his mother long before he got home. Behind every window or curtain, he told me, there was a pair of eyes, usually belonging to an elderly woman, watching the streets and the children who played there – not just their own relatives, but everyone else’s, too. Many people are sharing their favorite Colin Powell stories, and here’s mine: As the child of immigrants from Jamaica, he grew up in a working-class neighborhood of the South Bronx.
