David Norman, at 67 years old, is the oldest member of his graduating class from Columbia University, but the journey that he took to reach graduation is unlike anything his fellow students have ever seen.
Norman, who started drinking at age 11 and using heroin by age 15, was a drug dealer in Harlem who served two prison stints. He only attended one day of high school and instead turned to the life of a drug dealer, with a rap sheet filled with so many arrests he lost track. He was booked into jail for the first time in 1967 and then served a second sentence three decades later after fatally stabbing a man in a street fight.
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But while he was in prison for the second time, he started to turn his life around as he began to read and to learn Hebrew.
“I had a moment of clarity in which I was able to recognize everything I had done at that point was fairly counter-productive and I needed to engage in some new activities and some new behaviors,” Norman told the New York Daily News.
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In 2000, when he was released from prison, he decided to devote his life to helping the vulnerable in his community and became a outreach worker at Mount Vernon Hospital, which ultimately led him to get a job at Columbia University. He was then accepted into their General Studies program 10 years ago and, this year, he is graduating.
“It was a great feeling,” said Norman, who has been sober for 21 years. “I’m just now starting to come down from my little high. I had to wash my clothes yesterday. That brought me back down.”
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