A couple of judges, attorneys, my family, and respected community leaders came together today to support and facilitate my severing dependence on my mother for support and empowering me to continue on the path I have worked so hard to create with my education, investments, and development. The people surrounding me in my home state of Georgia went beyond allowing me to take this step and offered their guidance, encouragement, assistance, and voiced their approval of my path. A stark contrast from the congestion and hinderance relentlessly created over the last decade by the Illinois probate; they are charged with being concerned for my best interest, but recklessly make decisions without any understanding of my circumstances resulting in poverty, pain, lack of access to healthcare, my family suffering, and limitations to my lifetime income producing capacity. As an aspiring student of law, it is heartbreaking to fall victim to chronic, systematic failure in Illinois' probate court. I will not become a casualty of the court. I will apply the ethics they lack. I will not diminish my own ethics and values and treat others the wayI have been treated but he Illinois court. I will dedicate myself to being the genesis for social calls to action and perhaps legal pressure to align the system's acts with the law's intended utility. The enormity of my undertaking is not lost on me; indeed, for every Illinois attorney that tells me it is a waste of time, money, and energy there is a Georgia attorney or judge that has helped me achieve things telling me there is no better cause than pursuit of decency in the law. In fact, they challenge me by inquiring as to what type of man I would be if I turned my head. “Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.” - Robert F. Kennedy A fascinating disparity, the judge presiding over my Illinois case expressed that I am immature, the judge granting my emancipation expressed that those that crafted the emancipation law could not have imagined a young person more suited to emancipation. The legal system can empower or impede, ignite or injure, support or suffocate. When I become a lawyer, I will not contribute to chronic erosion of the system but instead participate in honing the sensitivity of the law to foster healthy communities. In the meantime, I will get educate, grow, serve my community, build wealth, and focus on giving my family the life my mother and father worked so very hard to create.