Ben Carson cancels Iowa trip to be with 'critically ill' mother

In the rise of Ben Carson from impoverished Detroit school kid to world-renowned neurosurgeon to long-shot Republican president candidate, there's one constant inspiration: his mother.

Sonya Carson — a former Detroiter whose own hardscrabble story her son often cites as the quintessential example of American pride — is in failing health.

Ben Carson officially announced his presidential campaign this morning in Detroit. But his campaign announced  that his plans to visit Iowa later today have been canceled so that he can visit his mother in Dallas.

The campaign released a statement saying she is "critically ill."

Living in poverty as a single mother on Detroit's southwest side in the 1950s and 1960s, she famously forced her sons to read two books a week and deliver book reports to her, even though she could not read them.

"But they didn't know that," she told the Detroit Free Press Magazine in 1988.

It wasn't until later that she earned a college degree.

"Nobody," she said in 1988, "was born to be a failure."

Forced into marriage at age 13 in the south and abandoned by Ben's father when her son was 8 years old, Sonya Carson earned only a third-grade education.

Ben Carson has consistently attributed his mother's indomitable spirit, work ethic and spiritual beliefs to his rise.

For more of this story, go to the Detroit Free Press.