Today was my audacity to Hope!
This morning, I exited a small elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia that in five previous mid and general elections I’d left before. However, while entering my car to depart across the beltway for the daily grind, I felt for the first time, my vote mattered.
Now, for those who know me, I’m a huge political junkie. Have been since I was child after the Reverend Jesse Jackson spoke at best friend’s baptist church in Southwest Philadelphia in 1984.
I was awe struck by the image of a man I had seen on my mother’s 17-inch Zenith there in front of me and auditioning before my community for the role of a lifetime. I chuckle now remembering how many of my childhood friends afterwards would do their best Jesse Jackson impression at the luncheon that followed morning service.
We mocked his lines and intonations as children do, but especially the line "I Am Somebody" and "Keep Hope Alive". I can still remember that guttural roar whenever he said "I AM"…"SOMEBODY". So like children, my friends and I repeated the phrase, in church, in school, at home. As we grew older we still recalled it, just said it silently through middle school graduation ceremonies, honor roll announcements and eventually high school and college graduations. My mother and stately grandfather repeated it when grades slipped and rose & scholarships granted and denied.
"I…AM…SOMEBODY"
"KEEP…HOPE…ALIVE"
We also said it to ourselves as those childhood friends of yesteryear became men who fell into crime, drugs, mental and emotional despair. I say it now as that same Philadelphia neighborhood in 2007 set records for the number of black men killed in one year; represent the majority of prison inmates, and the minority of high school graduates.
Three weeks following Jackson’s sermon at that South Philly Church, my mother walked me to Alexander Wilson Elementary school two blocks away from home, and before I started my classes, escorted me into the voting booth with her, where I, yes a 7-year old child pulled the ballot. Supervised by Mom of course. That ballot was power and pride for a community that never thought they’d see the day when a black or brown man’s name would be equal to that of Walter Mondale, Ronald Reagan and other’s seeking theor party’s nomination. Yes, there was disappointment and reality that followed this and a subsequent campaign, and a growing negative reaction to his actions later in his life, but what grew was a generation of youth who could never say it was impossible, because they had seen it.
Today at 30, I walked to a similar elementary school. With the same looks, sounds and smells of my youth. Only this time I saw watercolor paintings of children as they drew a strong Hispanic governor, A courageous woman with fair blond hair, a heroic Vietnam Veteran and a Black man filled with the Audacity of Hope - debating for the same role of a lifetime. In line ahead of me, I also saw a seven year-old Mexican girl accompany her mother, a 10 year-old black boy with his grandfather, and a young white teenager with his father, and on each of their attire read a single word.
HOPE!
Hope is what I felt in my car crossing the Potomac to work this morning. Hope that those same three children will see a country not driven by fear - but strength, courage, hope and heroism. For many of you in the Maryland/DC/Virginia area today, my hope is that your whatever drives you to spend ten minutes and press three buttons, mattered to you as much as it did to me, and my child hood friends, and to so many young black men who’ve lost hope so long ago.
Regards,
Ryan
