Early Years
Bully-Cummings was born in Japan, the second-oldest of eight children of an African American repairman and a Japanese housewife. Her parents met when her father was serving in the U.S. Army as part of the American Occupation forces. The family settled in Detroit, her Mississippi-born father's adopted hometown, before she turned two.
The family struggled financially and at one point the large family lived in a one-bedroom apartment. However, Chief Bully-Cummings credits her father with encouraging her, her six sisters, and one brother to get their education and pursue whatever they wanted.
While in high school she worked at a movie theater and between graduating from high school and going into the police force in 1977 she worked as an administrative assistant at Redford High School and sold real estate.
Read more about this topic: Ella Bully-Cummings
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“I looked at my daughters, and my boyhood picture, and appreciated the gift of parenthood, at that moment, more than any other gift I have ever been given. For what person, except one’s own children, would want so deeply and sincerely to have shared your childhood? Who else would think your insignificant and petty life so precious in the living, so rich in its expressiveness, that it would be worth partaking of what you were, to understand what you are?”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“I’m right here to tell you, mister. There ain’t nobody gonna push me off my land. My grandpa took up this land seventy years ago. My pa was born here. We was all born on it. And some of us was killed on it. And some of us died on it. That’s what makes it ourn. Bein’ born on it. And workin’ on it. And dyin’ on it. And not no piece of paper with writin’ on it.”
—Nunnally Johnson (1897–1977)