WITH GOD ON THEIR SIDE –
April 24, 2025 – The place I call Deliverance Alley is a vacant lot of grass and dirt in a neglected south Dallas neighborhood. Drive by and you won’t see much. A sign on a deli across the street reads: “No trespassing, prostitution, drug dealing, loitering, weapons or criminal activity will be tolerated.” Why do I call this seemingly god-forsaken slice of scarred urban ground Deliverance Alley? What if I said it’s where God delivered me one afternoon almost two decades ago?
When I landed in Deliverance Alley, I wasn’t just homeless. I was far from home in every possible way. I’d been born into a military family in Kansas City, Missouri. My dad, Wendell Gene Parker, was a lieutenant colonel in the Army. My mother, Mary Ann Parker, raised me and three younger brothers.
My dad served in Korea and Vietnam. I was five when he was transferred to a base in Europe. It was the 1960s. Dad was upfront with me and my siblings about the advantages of moving to Europe. “We are a Black family,” he said. “There is a lot less racism over there than in America. Sad but true.”
