From Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831 to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, to the murder, incarceration and exile of political prisoners such as Fred Hampton, Mumia Abu Jamal and Assata Shakur – being bold and standing up for equal treatment in America has always been dangerous for black people.
A point where too many realities have begun to hit home—poverty, pandemic and the presumption of guilt.
In his speech “Strength to Love” Dr. King said, “God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty” (King, 1963).
Because of the pandemic, Americans were able to turn on their televisions and see what has been happening for generations; because of generations of abject poverty among both blacks and whites, there is a renewed resistance to corporate greed and a push for economic reapportionment; because we are all finally awake we can see our reality through new eyes.
James Baldwin sums this notion up perfectly when he said, “What white people have to do, is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a n***er in the first place, because I’m not a n***er, I’m a man, but if you think I’m a n***er, it means you need it.
