Born Black and poor in Stockton, he was mayor by 26. Michael Tubbs' memoir tells the tale

"Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's laws wrong, it learned to walk without having feet."

For most of his life, Michael Tubbs has carried around that verse, from Tupac Shakur's poem "The Rose that Grew from Concrete," like a mantra in his head — a reminder to himself of where he came from and why it matters.

When Tubbs was 6, his father was sentenced to at least 32 years in prison for kidnapping, robbery and a drug violation. His mother, Racole Dixon, was 23. She raised him with help from Tubbs' aunt and grandmother — his "three mothers." They lived in poverty, and he knew the odds were stacked against him.

Tubbs' anger at his circumstances became fuel — it propelled him to excel. He interned at the and graduated with honors from Stanford in 2012; at 22 he was elected to the city council of his hometown of ; at 26, he became the city's