David was born in 1947 to Charles and Loretta Castle in Dallas, Texas. Loretta owned a beauty salon in a predominately black part of town. Charles drove a cab for a local company. When David was six, his sister Donna was born. He took the title of older brother very seriously and was always making sure Donna was well taken care of. When he was 12, their father died of a heart attack. Times were hard but they made ends meet. David started two after-school jobs and Donna started shampooing hair in the salon for tips.
In the next two years, racial tension rose. Loretta offered up her Salon a place for local activists to meet to plan protests after hours. Although he was only thirteen, David was captivated by social justice. He participated in a sit-in at a local white only diner. He was arrested and spent two nights in jail nursing a black eye. However, he was one of the luckier participates. Because of his age, he was let out with minor charges. He came home to find out his mother's salon was gone. Someone had set fire to it the night after the sit in.
Loretta didn't rebuild, instead she earned money working at another salon and began saving with the intention of moving her children further north. David continued to work contributing as much as he could to the household and the funds. The day they left Dallas, headed to Baltimore, was the same day that John F Kennedy was shot. This period of time left a very big impression on David, and he continued to focus on social justice.
David obtained an education with the intention of improving not just his own situation, but that of the world. He focused his time on writing to and speaking to politicians, lobbying causes and seeking meetings with those that could affect change.
Over the years, his causes have shifted to where he felt he could make the biggest impacts. His advocacy work has led him to travel both North and South America. Most recently, he was working for Greenpeace.
However, home has always been with his family. Loretta died in the late 1980s. Donna had married a nice man and had two sons, Edward and David, the second. David never married nor had kids his own- his focus was his work. He was an attentive uncle, however, which helped ease the transitions that happened in the year 2000. Donna's husband passed away unexpectedly, and David returned from South America to move in with his sister and help her raise her boys. He took a job as a teacher at a local High School to help make ends meet.
In the summer of 2002, David had been preparing to speak in Washington DC on global warming, an idea that was not widely accepted, and the deforestation occurring in Brazil. However, that morning, Donna and the boys became ill. Not wanting to leave them alone, he stayed and over the next few days, watch them rapidly decline. Both Donna's boys died at the hospital. He walked home from the hospital and found Donna worse and weak. He didn't have the heart to tell her boys were already gone, so he lied and said they were recovering.
Donna passed peacefully that night. David was at a loss as to what to do. The house wasn't home anymore without the boys and Donna, so he just started driving. He found himself heading towards Washington DC and finding no survivors along the way.
