A Colored Families Dream

It is a culmination of experiences ranging from periods of feeling uncertain and overwhelmed. “I couldn’t sleep sometimes for the wounds were fresh.” And times I didn’t want to continue because I felt empty and nothing more to give and on the brink of discouragement. Then, I remembered walking out on the front porch where my granddad uses to speak with me. He uttered, Son, be a good boy and sit down and listen. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by God to have certain rights without debate. And some of them are liberty, life, and a right to be happy! It’s, Coming! It’s, Coming! All men are born free and equal. Among them may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and possession protecting the family. Daddy was always caught saying “Boys we got to keep the peace” he offered no provocation to make us enemies. Yet, I saw southern society treat our family so bad people left us no alternatives but servitude or death. We failed to understand that two kinds of justice were operating “down home” at that time.
It seemed when men talk of liberty, they mean their own and seldom suffer thoughts to stray to their neighbors. The Colored men seem to suffer most interpersonally. I felt less than human and it made me angry and difficult to get along without adequate coping skills. So many minority men injured those closest to them.