📍Cherry Hill, NJ, USA
1999 – 2012“I was born Mabinty Bangura in Sierra Leone in January 1995, during the country's civil war. After I lost my parents, I was left in an orphanage, where I was mistreated because of my vitiligo, a skin condition that left white patches on my skin. One day a magazine blew against the orphanage gate, with a photograph of a ballerina on the cover; she looked really, really happy, and I wanted to become her. I kept that picture with me. In 1999, when I was four, I was adopted by Elaine and Charles DePrince, who took me and another girl from the orphanage home to Cherry Hill, a leafy suburb in southern New Jersey, across the river from Philadelphia. We arrived sick and frightened by the war, but my mother gave us love and patience, and soon after we arrived she found me a ballet class. I trained for years at the Rock School for Dance Education in Philadelphia, and I worked harder than anyone, though people told me that America was not ready for a Black ballerina, and some teachers told my mother not to invest in Black dancers. In 2010 I won a scholarship to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre, and appeared in the documentary First Position. In 2012 I joined Dance Theatre of Harlem, and the next year Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam, where I became a soloist. My mother and I wrote a memoir, Taking Flight, and I became an ambassador for War Child, speaking for children like the one I had been. I hope every little girl who sees a picture of a ballerina knows she can become one too.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today