Emmett Till opus 152
| 25 July 2023 1150 Hours | | Politics, Africa, Genetics |
Emmett Till was born a black child on 25 July 1941.
Next month I will, from 25 August 1941, be 82.
Listening to a program about Till, it struck me hard,
That he and I were companions in time--
He, an exact month older than I.
But he lasted only, through terrible tragedy, to the age of 14.
I, at 14, was in junior high school, absorbing a Shakespeare play,
Never being moved to whistle at a woman (if that ever occurred),
But I certainly thought women were something special.
Emmett took a trip from Chicago to visit family in the South.
I took a Mohawk Airlines flight from Boston
To my grandparents' farm in Watkins Glen, NY.
But how each voyage ended was--well, black and white.
I am so sad my divided country treated him with such violence.
I was fortunate that chromosomes
Assorted themselves as they did to create me.
But my trial--though I lived through it all,
Was my ostracism when I opposed the Vietnam war--
Uncles and aunts wanted nothing to do with me as an 'unpatriot'.
Much culminated for Emmett and me when I taught for three years in Africa
To see the source-land of all Homo sapiens,
And walk in the dust of Oldovai with the Leakeys.
The plunder of Africans for basically free labor--
1609 became as important for me as 1066.
My aura drifts into that open casket with Emmett's mangled body.
The Holocaust and the Scottish Clearances and 1609. ...
Somehow all of us have shared that casket with Emmett.
Ahmen.