The boy couldn’t read. His teachers thought he might be mentally retarded. Mom and Dad endlessly fought, sometimes until it spilled into the streets for the whole neighborhood to watch. And on top of that, he suffered from an embarrassing stutter.

This may sound like the beginnings of a tragedy. But if you ask Byron Pitts, CBS Evening News Chief National Correspondent and 60 Minutes contributor, it’s definitely more of a love story. And he should know because this is his story — the tale of a how a kid from a tough Baltimore neighborhood went from the bottom of his high school class to the top of the news business.

It’s about a 12-year-old boy, a single mom and how they conquered illiteracy and countless naysayers.

“For people of faith, you sometimes have to step onto faith, step out onto nothing,” Pitts explained to a New York Press Club audience during his Nov. 10 appearance. “That connects with my life.”

But that faith wasn’t blind. Detailed in his new book, “Step Out on Nothing: How Family And Faith Helped Me Conquer Life's Challenges,” Pitts said he only got to where he is today because of his mother, who’s resolute shoulders lifted him up again and again.

“Because I couldn’t read, I accepted the fact that I was slow and stupid,” Pitts said. “But my mother never did. She never gave up on me. And so from my perspective, the issue was never to learn how to read for me. It was to learn to read to protect my mother from crying and to save her from embarrassment. I was tired of seeing her cry.”

That pain began to heal when one day after school Pitts ran home, ferrying a note from a teacher. But instead of handing the note over to his mother, he read it perfectly out loud. “Mom cried. I cried. It was a joyous moment,” Pitts recalled. “It said, ‘Dear Ms. Pitts, Byron is doing better in school.’”

Pitts always considered himself an underdog, which is probably why the 28 year veteran has been able to propel his career from taking notes on the back of obituary notices for his first newspaper to filing Emmy award-winning stories for CBS.

He’s covered war in the Middle East, deadly hurricanes along the Gulf Coast and interviewed countless newsmakers around the world. But through it all his philosophy on newsgathering remains simple: afflict the comfortable; comfort the afflicted.

He pursues his stories like an underdog because that’s what he’s felt like his whole life. Pitts declined to list his favorite story, but said he gets the most satisfaction from giving a voice to the voiceless. And while journalists squirm amidst countless layoffs across the country and question the future of the business, Pitts is buoyant.

“It pains me, but the optimist in me believes there is still a place for good journalism,” he said. “Strength comes from struggle. Everything is a teachable moment. Everything is an opportunity. We’ll get through this.”