The Shadow of Suns

My elders had seen everything there was to fear, and they knew that the power that resided in man was not the power of God. Because of them, I know what wisdom means and the gentleness of humility, and I know what only a communion with the dead can tell.

1. The Holy Ghost referenced in the Christian faith as God, and the third member of the trinity, “The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost (Spirit).”

2. A Charge to Keep I Have is a hymn by Charles Wesley first published in 1762. Discipleship Ministries. (2019). History of Hymns.

3. A Charge to Keep I Have. Performed by an untitled church congregation

4. Zora Neale Hurston, African American author, anthropologist and filmmaker. Author of the groundbreaking 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Me, MLK, and the Quietness of Death

On Easter vacation in April 1968, I stood with my mother at Martin Luther King’s graveside, in quiet peace, recalling the anger, horror, and dark teary shine of a people bereaved. No longer did the most horrid things exist only in fairytales; it was the land of the living that now frightened me.

1. Rev. Dr. King was assassinated on April 4th 1968. According to witnesses, while standing on the balcony near his room at the Lorraine Motel Rev. Dr. King was shot in the face and rendered unconscious. Within the hour, he was transported St. Josephine Hospital where he remained unconscious and died, April 4, 1968 | The Assassination of Martin Luther King.

2. “Free at last…” A climatic excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech I Have a Dream speech presented on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th, 1963. King, Jr, M. L. (1963, August).I Have A Dream.March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

3. Spelman College and Sisters’ Chapel. A private historically Black women’s liberal arts college located in Atlanta, GA. Spelman College.(2017). Considered sister school to Morehouse, King’s alma mater.

4. Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round. A civil rights movement freedom song. See Freedom Singer’s Performance,1. White House Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement, 2014.

5. Martin Luther King speech, Youth March for Integrated Schools, April 18, 1959. “become a dedicated fighter for civil rights. Make it a central part of your life.”

The Yellow Sentinels

White children finally arrived at my neighborhood Negro elementary school eighteen years after Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education (1954) brought an end to school segregation with all deliberate speed. New books and fresh paint, traffic lights, and a pedestrian crosswalk arrived with them. Silver posts arose too with square yellow heads: crossing lights, like sentinels to be the guardian of white children.

1. HERBERT PATE, et al., Plaintiffs, versus DADE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, et al., Defendants. (1969) FINAL JUDGMENT. It is ordered and adjudged that: The Board of Public Instruction of Dade County, Florida, and Edward L. Whigham, as Superintendent of Public Instruction, and his successors in office, are permanently enjoined from operating a dual system of public education segregated by race, and shall henceforth operate a unitary system as described above.2. The transfer of students shall be made effective August 1, 1970 and thereafter. 3. The Court retains jurisdiction of the cause and the parties for the purpose of insuring that the plan here adopted and the required amendments are carried out and the school system operated consistently with the requirements of the United States Constitution. Done and ordered at Miami, Florida this 26th day of June 1970. (Signed) C. Clyde Atkins United States District Judge.

2. Pate v. Dade County School Board, 315 F. Supp. 1161 (S.D. Fla. 1970)

God Chooses Only the Best

“Blood done signed all our names,” my daddy said. My thoughts turn to my sixteen-year old cousin’s 1974 murder in sight of her high school, where, five years earlier, black girls would never have been, of how her death was publicly marked, and of the alchemy of emotions I felt as connected to what was then—and to all that was unsaid.

1. Beverly Marie Ferguson, “God Chooses Only the Best, “ The News Leader, February, 1974 (front page)

2. Timothy Tyson (2005), Blood Done Signed my Name, Crown Publisher. Title take from the African American spiritual, Blood Done Sign my Name. For a listen, as Performedby Tri-Faith, a family Christian singing group, Christmas, 2014.

3. Pate v. Dade County School Board, 315 F. Supp. 1161 (S.D. Fla. 1970); HERBERT PATE, et al., Plaintiffs, versus DADE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, et al., Defendants. (1969) FINAL JUDGMENT. The Board of Public Instruction of Dade County, Florida, and Edward L. Whigham, as Superintendent of Public Instruction, and his successors in office, are permanently enjoined from operating a dual system of public education segregated by race, and shall henceforth operate a unitary system as described above.2. The transfer of students shall be made effective August 1, 1970 and thereafter. 3. The Court retains jurisdiction of the cause and the parties for the purpose of insuring that the plan here adopted, and the required amendments are carried out and the school system operated consistently with the requirements of the United States Constitution.

Done and ordered at Miami, Florida this 26th day of June 1970. (Signed) C. Clyde Atkins United States District Judge.