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Tag Archives: Emmett Till
Emmett Till — On this day in history, August 28, 195…
…Emmett till was kidnapped and murdered. In my latest collection of poetry, “The Black Blood of Poetry,” which I am shopping around, the title poem begins with the murder of Emmett Till. For those not familiar with poetic forms, “The … Continue reading
Black Lives Have Always Mattered
More than 20 years ago, long before #BlackLivesMatter, I noticed a disturbing trend: almost everyday in the news there was a case of police brutality, mostly against Black people, with a few white people sprinkled in because, even though this … Continue reading
“Final” Touches on The Black Blood of Poetry
Early this morning I put the “final” touches on my title poem, “The Black Blood of Poetry.” I wasn’t going to post it, but it is timely, and I’d rather not wait until the collection is published to put this … Continue reading
Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, crime, James Baldwin, Lest We Forget, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Murder, Nation of Islam, Poetry, Politics, race, raising black boys, Revolution, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, Sonny's Blues, Streets of Rage
Tagged "I can't breathe!", #AllLivesMatter, BlackLivesMatter, Blood in My Eye, Emmett Till, Fred Hampton, George Floyd, James Baldwin , James Chaney, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, Ossie Davis, Soledad Brother, The Black Blood of Poetry
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The Black Blood of Poetry
Over the weekend I got some good work done on my title poem, “The Black Blood of Poetry.” A little more than twenty years ago, a poet-friend, Rachel Wetzsteon, who committed suicide in December 2009, perhaps because she felt too … Continue reading
Posted in being a teenager, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, crime, ezwwaters, Lest We Forget, Poetry, race, raising black boys, Relationships, Streets of Rage
Tagged "If We Must Die", Black Summer, BlackLivesMatter, Claude McKay, Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Pantoum, Rachel Wetzsteon, Sonnet, suicide of Rachel Wetzsteon, The Black Blood of Poetry, The Black Feminine Mystique, Villanelle
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Dear Daddy: A Love Letter to Your Beloved South
July 15, 2020 Dear Daddy, Last night I dreamt of you for the first time since your death. I woke up with tears in my eyes. Although you have been dead for a little more than 38 years, in the … Continue reading
Posted in being a teenager, Education, Family, Fatherhood, Fathers, Growing Up, Lest We Forget
Tagged Benin & Togo, Cameroon, Civil War, Confederate memorials, Confederate monumnets, Confederate statues, Congo, discrimination, Ellis Island, Emmett Till, Four White Men Kidnap and Rape Black Girl in Tylertown MS, Ghana, NC, Nigeria, racial reckoning, Segregation, slave ships, Southern Bantu peoples, the South, Township of Bath, Virginia, white supremacy, WW I, WW II, Yeatesville
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On this day in American history, August 28, 1955 — Emmett Till, 14-year-old Chicago Youth, Abducted and Murdered in Mississippi Delta
On August 20, 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till boarded a train in Chicago, Illinois, headed for Money, Mississippi, to spend two weeks with his great-uncle and cousins. A few days into his visit, Till and a group of friends went into … Continue reading
“Violence is as American as cherry pie”
H. Rap Brown, now known as Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, famously proclaimed in the ’60s that “violence is as American as cherry pie.” Little wonder, in the aftermath of the no indictment of the Ferguson, Missouri white police officer who killed … Continue reading
All creeps, catcallers are not Men of Color
Remember the video posted about two weeks ago by Hollaback, which showed a white woman, casually dressed, walking the streets of New York City and being catcalled, etc? It shows mostly Black men and Latinos engaging in this behavior. Another … Continue reading
Easy Waters 