FIRST PERSON: As world mourns Tito Jackson, acclaimed author Connie Porter shares about family connection, parallel steeltown upbringing

I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m home. “Goin’ Back to Indiana,” The Jackson 5 In the meandering course of my life, while my body has sought to live in a house, my spirit has sought to dwell in a home. Growing up in a housing project in the steel town of Lackawanna NY in the 1960’s and 70’s, the idea of me ever owning a house someday, purchasing a piece of the American Dream, seemed as impossible as owning the Royal Palace of Oz. There were some brick houses in our neighborhood, but most houses were small with clapboard siding. Most brick houses were on the other side of the tracks, far from the Bethlehem Steel plant looming over my neighborhood like a great beast breathing out fire and smoke.& & & & & Black people did not live on the other side of tracks. I would travel through that part of town when my mother took us shopping. Staring out of the bus window, I watched houses go by. This was where most of the white people lived. This was Oz. Over the rainbow. It seemed no matter how fiercely the Hawk swooped across Lake Erie, it would...