She had to learn to fend for herself: she ate scrapes from the garbage, slept on the subway at night to stay warm, and pretty much did anything to survive. Murray’s family split apart when she was fifteen and she ended up out on the streets, homeless. Due to the lack of parental supervision, Murray chose not to attend school to avoid being teased for wearing old, run-down clothes and being extremely dirty. Due to her parent’s habitual drug use, she tended to go without food for days and was often left to her own devices.

Her childhood was full of disappointment. Murray has been celebrated on the Oprah Winfrey Show, ABC News, 20/20, CNN, and has even presented a moving TEDxYouth talk called “For the Love and Possibility.” She was the first recipient of the Oprah Winfrey Chutzpah Award and founded a company called Manifest Living “to inspire, give back and help others overcome adversity.” Murray is truly a great example of what the Bronx hustle can do in any situation.Īs described in her memoir, Murray was born to drug-addled parents in the Bronx in the early 1980s. Despite suffering from neglect and ending up homeless, Murray is able to forgive her parents, find the resolve to study and earn high grades, and ultimately end up at Harvard University. In Liz Murray’s memoir Breaking Night (2010), the author gives a vivid portrait of her life in the Bronx, growing up as the daughter of drug-addicted, mentally-ill parents during the early nineteen-nineties, which was the height of the crack cocaine drug epidemic.

Breaking night by liz murray