I Amounted to Something Dad is Jasper Marshall Cureton's story of making his own way, out of no way. Born in rural South Carolina in 1938, 73 years after his great grandparents were freed from enslavement, his memoir is an intimate look at growing up Black when discrimination was legal and enthusiastically enforced. Jasper made his way through college with the help of a $400 Sears and Roebuck scholarship, served as an officer in the Army, and was the University of South Carolina Law School's first Black student since Reconstruction. Jasper's long road to amounting to something started with his three mile walk to first grade and was capped with his quarter century service as the state's first Black judge of the State Appeals Court.
This memoir was written by Jasper, and this 2022 final version was edited and formatted with volunteer help. As Jasper suffered from End Stage Renal Disease and was undergoing dialysis three times a week, he was getting progressively weaker. Jasper was able to do a book signing at his church days prior to his passing on December 6, 2022. The title of the book came from Jasper's father telling him that he would "never amount to anything," but Jasper got the last word.