Kalimba Edwards

Born and raised in Atlanta Ga, I attended a historic “black” private elementary school named Haugabrooks Academy. My father being a university professor, PHD, saw the value of a quality education and insisted upon my mother for me to attend. A love child of my parents, though they were separated, raised me in wonderful spirit, with my mother being the primary caretaker. The early private school education set a more than solid foundation for my future academia of which I stand upon to this day.

Raised in “what is considered” an impoverished black ghetto, my mother and her family showed me so much love and compassion that it wasn’t until I was of age that I even recognized my poverty, or the stance that the straight haired albinoid brothers and sisters of the world - and especially the southern United States - took against me due to my melanation. In short, my childhood was phenomenal, setting upon my heart a well spring of impenetrable optimism.

When the crack epidemic hit in the late 80’s early 90’s, it ravaged impoverished melanated communities due to young men and women’s severe contempt of not having; taking up the selling of drugs within the community, as a means to cure the lack of material have, turned our ghetto and those across America upside down. Drug addiction and violence ran amuck in said communities as I experienced first hand. My house being shot up by angry drug dealers looking for my cousin, their drug dealing partner, who I assumed betrayed them, prompted my father to come down from North Carolina and take me to live with him until things blew over. As a result I spent my middle school years in North Carolina with the old Man.

Returning to Atlanta for high school and being a stellar athlete, I received football scholarship offers from every major university in the nation, and I chose the University of South Carolina. Showing exemplary skills on the college level led to me being drafted into the National Football League in 2001. Playing for 7 years until 2008, I was forced to retire due to an injury. Retiring at the extremely young age of 28, I found myself studying food health benefits and the plethora of ancient holy myths. This led me to the space of which I stand today: me becoming a raw vegan and my life dedicated to the practice of Vipassana meditation and raising two young women.