REFLECTING

I was born in 1954 which means I have lived in the following decades, 1950s', 1960s', 1970s', 1980s', 1990s', 2000s', 2010s', and about to enter my eighth decade 2020s' in 3 days. During that period of time I have witnessed as a black person Jim Crow, Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court Decision,the murder of Emmitt Till, Rosa Parks refusing to relinquish her seat, the Montgomery Alabama bus boycott, the murder of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, the March on Washington, the urban uprisings in Watts, Newark, New Jersey, Detroit, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, America's passage of the Civil Rights Act 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, congressional prowess of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the formation of the Congressional Black Caucus, the election of the first black senator since reconstruction Edward Brooke, the election of the first black female senator Carole Moseley Braun, the nomination of the first black person to the Supreme Court Thurgood Marshall, the election of the first black mayor of major American city Richard Hatcher, the first black governor of a former confederate state Douglass Wilder in Virginia, the Post-Dr. Martin Luther King murder urban uprisings in American cities in 1968, the crack cocaine epidemic that destroyed many urban black cities across this nation, the FBI's COINTELPRO program that destroyed the black militant movement in this nation, Stokley Carmichael's call and response in 1966 in Greenwood Mississippi of Black Power, the formation of the Black Panthers in 1966, the Black Arts Movement lead by Amira Baraka, Jessie Jackson unsuccessful bid for the Presidential Democratic nomination, Shirley Chisholm's becoming the first black woman to seek the democratic nomination for President, Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenging the white Mississippi delegates and Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. challenging a seated democratic president over the Vietnam War in 1967, H. Rap Brown and Stokley Carmichael indicted for causing civil disobedience in cities throughout the nation, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale traveling the streets of Oakland, California fully armed and ready to confront the illegalities of black oppressive police conditions, the murders of Bobby Hutton, Fred Hampton, Fred Clark by vengeful state, federal, and local law enforcement agencies, the unwarranted killings of black men and women over the past 30 years by state and local law enforcement agencies too many names to post, the continuing inequity and inequality of justice by white supremacist institutions towards black American citizens, the continued economic deprivation of black communities since the nation's formation in 1781 to 2019, wow so many events that I have experienced related to our peoples civil, social, educational, and economic rights over these past seven decades I have lived in. I Am A Man the signs held by the garbage workers in Memphis, Tennessee in the days prior to the Dr. King's assassination, yes I Am A Man and even as we approach 2020 the power slogan still applies We Are Men and we demand the same level of equality and opportunity as every other American citizen.