One summer day my father sent me to buy wire and fencing for our farm in Marion County, South Carolina. At 16, I liked nothing better than getting behind the wheel of our Chevy pickup, but this time there was a damper on my spirits. My father had told me I‘d have to ask for credit at the store.

Sixteen is a prideful age, when a young man wants respect, not charity. It was 1976, and the ugly shadow of racism was still a fact of life. I‘d seen my friends ask for credit and then stand, head down, while a patronizing store owner questioned whether they were "good for it." I knew black youths just like me who were watched like thieves by the store clerk each time they went into a grocery.
My family was honest. We paid our debts. But before harvest, cash was short. Would the store owner trust us?

At Davis Brothers General Store, Buck Davis stood behind the register, talking to a middle-aged farmer. Buck was a tall, weathered man in a red hunting shirt and khaki pants, and I nodded as I passed him on my way to the hardware aisle. When I brought my purchases to the register, I said carefully, "I need to put this on credit."

The farmer gave me an amused, cynical look. But Buck‘s face didn‘t change. "Sure," he said easily. "Your daddy is always good for it." He turned to the other man. "This here is one of James Williams‘s sons."

The farmer nodded in a neighborly way. I was filled with pride. James Williams‘s son. Those three words had opened a door to an adu1t‘s respect and trust.

That day I discovered that a good name could bestow a capital of good will of immense value. The good name my father and mother had earned brought our whole family the respect of our neighbors. Everyone knew what to expect from a Williams: a decent person who kept his word and respected himself too much to do wrong.

We children -- eight brothers and two sisters – could enjoy that good name,unearned, unless and until we did something to lose it. Compromising it would hurt not only the transgressor but also those we loved and those who loved us.

We had a stake in one another -- and in ourselves.

A good name, and the responsibility that came with it, forced us children to bebetter than we otherwise might be. We wanted to be thought of as good people,and by acting like good people for long enough, we became pretty decent citizens.

The desire to keep the respect of a good name propelled me to become the first in our family to go to university. Eventually, it gave me the initiative to start my own successful public relations firm in Washington, D.C..

I thought about the power of a good name when I heard General Colin Powell say that America needs to restore a sense of shame in its neighborhoods. He‘s right.If pride in a good name keeps families and neighborhoods straight, a sense of shame is the reverse side of that coin.

Doing drugs, abusing alcohol, stealing, getting a young woman pregnant out of wedlock -- today, none of these behaviors is the deep embarrassment it should Be. Nearly one out of three births in America is to an unwed mother. Many of these children will grow up without the security and guidance of a caring father and mother committed to each other.

Once the social ties and mutual obligations of the family disintegrate, communities fall apart. Politicians may boast that crime is falling, but while the population has increased only 40 percent since 1960, violent crime in America has increased a staggering 550 percent -- and we‘ve become used to it. Teen drag abuse is rising again. No neighborhood is immune. In one North Carolina county, police arrested 73 students from 12 secondary schools for dealing drags, some of them right in the class room.

Cultural influences such as television and movies portray mostly a world in which respect goes to the most violent. Life is considered cheap.

Meanwhile, the small signs of civility and respect that sustain civilization are vanishing from schools, stores and streets. Phrases like "yes, madam," "no, sir," "thank you" and "please" show self-respect and respect for others. Yet, encouraged by the pervasive profanity on television and in music, kids don‘t
think twice about aggressive and vulgar language.

Many of today‘s kids have failed because their sense of shame has failed. They were born into families with poor reputations, not caring about keeping a good name.

Today, when I‘m back home, I receive respect because of the good name passed on as my father‘s patrimony and upheld to this day by me and my siblings. People like Buck Davis came to know of my success in the world. But it was my family‘s good name that paved the way.

Keeping a good name is rewarded not only by outsiders‘ esteem but when those who know you best put their confidence in you. In the last months of his life

Daddy, typically, worried more about my mother than about his illness. He wanted to spare her the grief of watching him die at home. So he came to me.

By then I was living and working in Washington, D. C.. When Daddy arrived from South Carolina, I had him admitted to a nearby hospital. For two months, I spent every day sitting by his bedside. Both of us knew he had little time left.

When he was not in too much pain to talk, he would ask about the family. He wanted to be sure he had met his responsibilities in this world. On the last day, I was there with him as he passed away.

My daddy had never been rich or powerful. But in his dying, he gave me a last gift: his faith that I was the man he had wanted me to be. By trusting me to care for him at the moment of his passing, he showed not only his love, but hispride and confidence in me.

After all, I was James Williams‘s son -- a Williams of Marion, South Carolina and a Williams would do right.

夏日的一天，父亲让我去为我们在南卡罗来州的的马里恩县的农场买点金属丝和建栅栏用的材料。16岁时，我最喜欢的事莫过于驾驶我们的雪佛兰皮卡车。但是这次我却打不起精神，父亲告诉我，我必须向商店赊购。

16岁真是一个傲慢的年龄，想要的是他人的尊敬而不是施舍。那是1976年，种族歧视可恶的阴影是无法改变的事实。我曾经亲眼目睹我的朋友们赊购东西时，当俨然以恩人自居的店主怀疑他们是否有偿还的能力时，他们低头站着。我明白，像我这样的黑人青年，每次走进商店，都会被店员像贼一样打量着。

我家是个本分家庭。我们还清了债务，但是在收获之前，现金短缺，店主能够信任我们吗？

在戴维斯兄弟的百货商店里，巴克•戴维斯在收银机后面站着，正和一个中年农场主谈话。巴克个子高高的，饱经风霜，身着红色猎人装和卡其色裤子。在往五金制品销售区时，我从巴克身边经过，朝他点了点头。当我把要买的东西带到收银台时，小心翼翼地说；“这些东西我需要赊购。”

那位农夫调侃而讥讽地看着我，而巴克不动声色，随口说：“当然可以，你父亲总能及时偿清。”他转身对那个人说：“这个，就是詹姆斯•威廉姆斯的一个儿子！”

农场主朝我友好地点了点头，我内心感到无比自豪。“詹姆斯•威廉姆斯的儿子”这几个字为年轻人的自尊和自信打开了一扇门。

就在那天，我发现了好的名声能给人带来无比巨大的精神财富，我父母赢得的好名声使我们全家倍受邻里尊敬。每个人都知道威廉斯家的人具有怎样的品质：信守诺言、自尊自爱，不做坏事。

作为孩子，我们八个弟兄和两个姊妹，也能够白白享受父母赢来的好声誉，除非直到有一天，我们做错了什么而失去它。破坏这个好声誉不仅会伤害破坏者自己，而且会伤害到那些我们爱着的和爱着我们的人。我们彼此息息相关。

好的声誉和随之而带来的责任感，迫使我们这些孩子只能向好的方向发展。我们希望被认为是好人，也以好人的标准要求自己，最终也成为了好人。

这种想要保持因美好声誉而受人尊重的欲望，驱使我成为家里的第一个大学生。最终，它促使我在首都华盛顿成功地开创我自己的公关公司。

当我听到科林•鲍威尔上将说“美国需要恢复邻国间的羞愧感”时，我想到了好声誉的力量。他说得对。如果好声誉的自豪感能使家庭和邻里和睦相处，那么羞愧感也会从反面产生同样的效果。

吸毒、酗酒，偷窃，未婚先孕——今天，所用的这些行为都没有像原来那样使人深深感到羞愧。在美国，几乎三分之一的婴儿都是未婚妈妈所生，这些孩子大都是在没有安全感、没有父母的正确引导的环境下成长的。

一旦社会束缚和家庭中相互的义务崩溃了，社会也就瓦解了。政治家们吹嘘犯罪正在减少，然而在美国，人口数量自从1960年仅仅增长了40%，而暴力犯罪增长了550%左右，而且我们对此已经习惯了。青少年吸毒的数量在增长，没有那个街区能够幸免，在北卡罗莱纳州的一个县里，警方捕获了12所中学中犯有小额毒品交易罪的73名学生，他们有些就在教室里进行。

文化的影响，例如电视和电影经常把世界描述成靠暴力才能赢得尊敬。生命不值一文。

同时，象征文明和尊敬的小标语正渐渐从学校、商场、街上消失。比如，“是的，夫人，” ，“不，先生”，“谢谢”和“请”这些显示自我尊重和尊重他人的词语也消失了。然而，受弥漫着亵渎语言的电视和音乐的鼓动，小孩子对那些挑衅的、粗俗的语言都不假思索便脱口而出。

当今很多小孩子失败了，因为他们已经丧失了羞耻之心，他们出生在声誉不好的家庭，所以对维护好的声誉毫不在乎。

今天，我回到家中，我赢得了尊重因为由父亲相传、我和兄弟姐妹共同维护到了今天的好名声。像巴克•戴维斯那样的人开始逐渐明白我在这个世界上的成功，但那是家庭的好声誉为我铺就的路。

好的名声不仅可以得到外人的尊敬，而且那些很了解你的人都会很信任你。在父亲生命最后几个月里，父亲关心母亲远远胜于他自身的病情。看着父亲将远离她去，母亲很悲伤。他想减轻母亲在家里看着他死去时的悲伤，于是他来到了我这儿。

那时，我在华盛顿生活和工作，当父亲从南卡罗莱纳州赶来时，我把他送进附近的医院，两个月来我整天陪在他的身边。我们都清楚他能活的日子已经不多了。

当他不是很痛可以说话的时候，他总是询问家里的情况。他非常地想知道他是否已尽到了他应尽的责任。最终，还是我陪他走了最后的路程。

毕竟，我是詹姆斯.威廉姆斯的儿子---来自南卡罗莱纳州马里恩县的威廉姆---一个正直诚信的威廉姆斯。

父亲从来不是很富有或很有权威，但是在他将要离开的日子里，他给我留下了最后一份礼物：他坚信我可以如他所愿的那般成功。是的，在他即将离开这个世界的日子里，他信任地让我去照看他。这样，他不仅仅表示了他对我的爱，还有他为我骄傲，对我信任。