u found yr way to me, coming on a million tiny dancing feet like the fog rolling in from some promnesiac encounter whose exact circumstances are chimerical, nubilous & misty, bringing to my life a certain otherworldly gratifying of a deep melancholy thirst, like looking down on a key west cloud bank, shortly before or after sunset, & seeing/hearing the white, feathery glory of a million droplets of water & ice singing to my parched soul. i gaze down on the fleecy white & dreaded locks which crown yr head, a crown which awakens all pleasure, & know why the afefe wind drinks so deeply of yr sweet waters, lifts them up & carries them to thirsty fields & lands; to the sea. i, too, will drink deep, but i will keep u close; inhale yr fragrant power, taste yr pungent honey & grow stronger than I have been, strong & stout enough for u, spirit of earth who wanders freely, o male odale o san rere!
no supernal presentation marked yr birth. no special alignment of known planets. no shield of david pressed upon a grand cross no eight pointed star. no angelic hosts no magi & none foretold yr coming. yet were u born the first son & second child into a black middle-class family of kings. the son of the son of a preacher, three & twenty days past the winter solstice, in the season of christ
& caesar, on 501 auburn avenue ne. atlanta. no one knew then, michael, that u would change yr name; assume a nom de guerre for yr appointed social role: michael to
martin, the quintessential protesting cleric –
not against a corrupt universal church & the
purchased forgiveness of sin, but against
inertial forms of personal & social living
that resist acceleration & change; against
the forms of overt & institutional racism
that seek indulgences; the remission of
punishment. no one knew then, michael,
that u would be the focus,the coxswain,
the shepherd of the transforming & creative
response of spirit to a disparate &
disintegrated people; rootless, aroused &
demanding africans wandering in the
wilderness of america’s intellectual
generalizations, formulas & standardizing regulations – suffering in the midst of
plenty. no one knew that u would utter a
new logos, a new word of power to project
on all unintegrated americans; unleash the
power of a dream. neither did u, martin, perforce the more-
house college maxim: to uplift the human
race through responsible citizenship; was
naught but a subliminal goad when u tarried
there. nor did crozer & a divinity degree bring sudden disclosure of the meaning of
yr destiny. no, non-disclosing spirit piqued
the course of yr life’s events. that same
spirit gave resonance to yr message; made it the answer to the needs of the
millions unable to accept, to endure
american social living. it focused & projected a new kind of
humanity, a new kind of personhood; it
activated new human faculties. but it
revealed itself to u, first, when the
stubborn courage of an alabama seamstress,
too tired to give up her seat for oppression –
whose wholeness unmasked in an instant of
resistance her essential identity – induced in u a charge u were compelled to keep;
raised yr vibratory rate, made u shine
with an inner light – the light that alone integrates the chaos of the world. the rest,
mama rosa, what ephemeral hands & fingers stitched; fancy sewed together pieces of the life your designer self prepared; a life turned lens & symbol where A people's spirit, A people's hope & humanity converged as after refraction or reflection into a clear, sharp image of selfhood.
that spirit, hope & humanity washed in the blood of an innocent emmett murdered 100 days before was quickened; was felt to move in the womb of your rebellion.
your charmingly odd & artful rebellion — when weariness of soul & body bade u keep your seat & defy hurtful, heritable racism; put your delicate hips in jail — was sewn with a single thread; your exquisite insurgency — a running stitch turned decorative embellishment — engendered a bus boycott, the meteoric rise of one who rendered our aspirations in clear outline & sharp detail in a dream whose designs & pictures were wrought from colored threads of pathos & poignancy; injury & injustice permanently stitched into the layered fabrics of our lives.
well done, mother. u have given the best of your service & come to the end of your journey. shake off life's weariness now & rest. your part in this struggle is done!
minor term: black children live segregated in topeka
conclusion: segregated schools prepare black children for the segregation they’ll face as adults.
thus the school board syllogized while oliver brown catechized his daughters linda & terri:
“this definitely is kansas, children!”
they tied us up... & then, in three years of litigation... & then, homer plessy’s train was a comin’ & then, & then, & then…
unh-unh!
& then along came thurgood marshall; straight forward, plain-spoken “equal means getting the same thing, at the same time & in the same place” thurgood marshall.
our jim dandy to the rescue; irascible champion & protector, who loosed the reins on his colored steed, clamped the spurs to its legalistic sides, & rode the naacp up the stairs & into the chambers of the supreme court leaving the lightning's flash behind;
straight at the justices he came; came like a falling star.
made mr. justice earl warren duck, jump down, turn around; made him blink & rethink the treachery of the fifth column, the enemy within; made him repent issei, nisei & sansei internment. made him bully, cajole justices jackson, reed, vinton & clarke into unanimity; driving underground jackson’s law clerk rehnquist & his defense of plessy as “right & should be reaffirmed!”
holy toledo harry caray! the supreme court pitched a shutout! stepped on the mound of a new moral high ground. america won 9 to zip.
but buried in that mound, whispered into a hole in that ground was william rehnquist’s secret.
before long a thick bed of reeds sprang up on the mound, & as soon as it had gained its growth, began whispering a sorry tale; has continued to do so, from that day to this, every time a breeze passes over the place:
for fifty & one hundred years when this court’s priority was to safeguard for a minority its rights -- be they businessmen, slaveholders, or jehovah's witnesses – did all of them await the same abysmal fate. one by one they all at best were sloughed off, & crept silently to rest.
& now with ailing rehnquist presiding over this broken court & thoughtful americans praying for his health (his replacement too fearful to contemplate) the song of those reeds buried in that mound, whispered into that hole haunts like the tune u can’t abide but can’t forget & find yourself humming inspite of yourself.
consider the logic:
major term: segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities & other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities
minor term: america's schools in 2004 have reached levels of segregation not seen since 1954
i homer plessy: man/event, centercore & connection; throughput for more legal white racism & retrograde justice.
homer plessy: a lens through which an entire american past focused in an experience of intense & frightening awareness;
june 7, 1892: an expectant afternoon bore witness to a creolization of consciousness; a syncretism of subjugate fear & bleak despair with defiance & rebellious resolve!
june 7, 1892: a creole man & member of comité des citoyens, stepped into the white only car of the covington- bound east louisiana railroad train & took his seat.
ii how like spirit is freedom:
for the slave...
whose freedom lies in the latent content of dreams; whose reality is mind conditioned to reject the personal/universal innerspeak of dreams.
for the freedman...
whose freedom is like the scent of flowers; the substance of the wind eluding his propitia- tory grasp & the poignant verisimilitude of certain death.
for the oppressor...
whose freedom lies in interfering without inter- ference; in controlling without being controlled; in thinking, judging, believing, acting & sexing while legally suppressing the same.
iii how long did homer relish his freedom? before reaping the whirlwind? before the conductor tried to banish him to the colored car? before taken into vertiginous custody & held in an existential cell in a station on boulevarde elysian fields.
how long? not long! about as long as a flame survives the gale; about as long as a drunk honors his pledge & abstains from demon rum; about as fast as racist justice could railroad his case to the supreme court.
how long? not long? about as long as it took the court’s 8-1 majority to decide; about as long as it took to hamstring amend- ments 13 & 14; about as fast as iron-footed morning stomps on a black man’s freedom dreams.
homer plessy: man/event, centercore & connection; throughput for present-centered black awareness; seed of civil disobedience!
alas, dred scott, valued if intransigent property of the widow emerson; did you weep when massa john died? did your lamentation ring the meadow like a morning mist; & seep into the cold, cold ground; into his deathsleep; into a psyche so perverse that only in death might he debit the imagined sorrow of his slaves for surcease. well you know, dred, that crocodile tears are tears just the same; you wore their tracks like tribal marks when you sued missus Irene for your freedom. had you not parked your slavery at the borders of Illinois and Wisconsin living in freedom's cut for nearly nine years? once free, always free your facile mind reasoned trespass vi et armis! u shook america to its core, dred; u brought her to the brink of war! but the crystal clear language of amendments thirteen, fourteen & fifteen was not yet writ; & not yet writ was silent when the court supreme asked: can a negro, whose ancestors were imported, sold as slaves, be a member of the bodypolitic? no! said justice roger b. taney; no! chorused all but two justices the negro is not a citizen; merely personal property! "once a slave, always a slave!"
1865
i come from alabama wid my banjo on my knee
i'se gwine to louisiana, my true luv for to see...
stephen foster
civil war! & with one stroke of presidential pen millions of africans are set free! the war is over... & the huddled, breathing african masses -- the wretched refuse of warfare, capitalism & white supremacy -- they, too, dreamed of a beacon-hand, a world wide welcome from lady liberty. they, too, ached to embrace, to possess a stately torch holding, tablet bearing, crown wearing mother of exiles; but the big apple was too distant, too abstract for most of america's africans. new orleans, though, was closer. they came from alabama, from georgia, the carolinas, & mississippi to the big easy. they came bearing their banjos, bones, tin whistles & fiddles from the south over to ride the streetcars, go to public schools, vote, even marry white folk. in new orleans more than anywhere else america's africans looked upon the face of freedom, their suzannah, their lily of the valley, their true love for to see... yet freedom, however close she seemed, was as remote, as abstract as the three hundred foot concrete white woman wading the waters of new york harbor.
1877
weel a-bout & turn a-bout
& do just so.
every time i weel a-bout
i jump jim crow.
anonymous
jump jim crow! see the terrified white men in black face trying to be funny. see their crass caricatures cavort on america's stages. life, indeed, parodies art. jump jim crow! america niggardly revoked her promise. gave the african a pittance, stole it while he slept, then punished him when he woke up for losing it ! jump jim crow! write your bloody script; place your white supremacist ward on the portals of toilets resturants, theaters & polling places to repel african spirits. jump jim crow! send your hooded spooks, your cowardly knights to practice their murderous chivalry. sow your grand dragons teeth that you might keep america white & pure. jump jim crow! jump, jump, jump, jump, jim crow! then jump some more! keep on jumpin' 'cause one day you gonna get tired!
