January 20, 2012  |  
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Susan was a crack addict and prostitute whose life was saved by Jesus Christ. That’s what she would say when you met her; she had no compunction about sharing details of her sordid past because the Lord cleansed those sins from her.
Christ may have removed the sins but he left much of Susan otherwise unchanged after she got clean; at 35, she looked at least a decade older, her graying hair matched by a haggard expression—all testimony to her many years on the Philadelphia streets. She still had a hot temper and a foul mouth lacing sentences with old addict slang and obscenities when provoked. Her street name—“Light Skin Susan”—came from her high-yellow tone; in North Philly’s black community complexion remains a salient characteristic, leftover from the old days when blacks with light skins were seated in the front pews in churc …

See the full article from “AlterNet”

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