34.

[black history month No. 3]

there was a time when i wasn't aware of my passions.

i like to think that it was there, just lying dormant somewhere inside ignorance and small worldliness.

then i watched a video series that exposed hidden truths, that captures dogs ravaging children, that made visible the most viscous side of humanity, and somewhere near the middle of the video i became hopeless. i was suffocating in this knew knowledge of hate and violence that was, as an American, my history. i thought that the civil rights leaders were taking too much in the name of non-violence, turning too many cheeks, asking for something that would never be delivered and i became frustrated. angry even. stokely carmichael alleviated my anxieties...he was the first person who made sense to me in my initial struggle for understanding and was someone who changed the face of the struggle for equality.

as leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee he was the first to utter the words "Black Power!" on June 16,1966 after being shot at. again.

[Stokely Carmichael, "Kwame Ture" 6.29.1941 - 11.15.1998]

-We are revolutionaries.

-Our grandfather's had to run,run,run. My generations out of breath. We ain't running no more.

in the same video segment that Stokely Carmichael professed "Black Power" I heard another exclamation that, well, it just made sense...

James Forman, another leader of SNCC said, "If we can't sit at the table, then let's knock the fucking legs off!"

i got goosebumps. i felt the intensity of the movement. i saw the complexity of its legacy. he was talking about democracy and about freedom.

thus the clouds parted and the light shone unto me and i heard "Now young scholar...that's the spirit!"

cheers to young revolutionaries and to fighting the good fight.