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Chapter 1:- Reasons and Reactions
Chances didn’t come around often. Chances weren’t a necessity they were a privilege. Some of us never thought we’d ever get to taste chance. Some of us never even got a trial.
My brother, Billy, was lynched. A mob of white people hung him from a tree and I watched the whole thing. I saw his neck break, and his eyes bulge of hatred. And i saw his lips turn blue desperate to let the truth escape. He was my best friend.
I never really thought I’d learn to cry from being isolated. I remember when I was younger my boss would whip me if I cried. I was the mere age of eight. Most children were picking put penny candy, I was picking cotton.
I worked in the field until I was thirteen. My Mama used the little money we earned to buy rice and milk. I had one good meal a day. My stomach growled like hell in the field.
By the time I was fourteen I worked yet again for another man. He was much harder on me than anybody could ever imagine. He had this stick he would whack me with. And I’d cry silently. Only God could hear my pain.
I never fully understood why black was not considered as beautiful as white. But I grew up thinking that I was not worth as much because that is what I was made to believe. I thought, to be frank, that color was nothing more than a coating.
For a true reflection of our inner being resides in our face. Each wrinkle tells a story, each scar holds our past.
As an effect of working for such long periods of time a day, every day, I became sour. Everybody at the camp began to fear me as I feared myself.
Our boss was such a frugal man. I had the unfortunate pleasure of working for the same man from age the age of fourteen until eighteen. Four years and I was changed from being benevolent and determined despite my situation, to being one of the most emotionally unstable men who was there.
I was never ashamed of myself because I knew I was cursed with the fate of being black. I could not change that. I didn’t realize that there was so much to be proud of for being colored. I feel now it is such a mark of hope, courage, and strength. But the society of my life, the 1930s, tried to seize that from me. They tried to take it away and propose to us that white-skinned people were dominant, powerful and greater. But that’s where they were wrong. We are all equally as honorable.
Yet the life lessons I have learned did not come to me through the process of aging or the beauty of suffering. They came to me through eyes of a seven year old girl, Hanna whom I met because I did the unthinkable.
I reacted to my boss. I showed him what I thought. I stood up, pulled the trigger, and shot him.
photo courtesy of: http://tvgranhermano.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/father-and-child-holding-hands-uid-1188124.jpg
Chances didn’t come around often. Chances weren’t a necessity they were a privilege. Some of us never thought we’d ever get to taste chance. Some of us never even got a trial.
My brother, Billy, was lynched. A mob of white people hung him from a tree and I watched the whole thing. I saw his neck break, and his eyes bulge of hatred. And i saw his lips turn blue desperate to let the truth escape. He was my best friend.
I never really thought I’d learn to cry from being isolated. I remember when I was younger my boss would whip me if I cried. I was the mere age of eight. Most children were picking put penny candy, I was picking cotton.
I worked in the field until I was thirteen. My Mama used the little money we earned to buy rice and milk. I had one good meal a day. My stomach growled like hell in the field.
By the time I was fourteen I worked yet again for another man. He was much harder on me than anybody could ever imagine. He had this stick he would whack me with. And I’d cry silently. Only God could hear my pain.
I never fully understood why black was not considered as beautiful as white. But I grew up thinking that I was not worth as much because that is what I was made to believe. I thought, to be frank, that color was nothing more than a coating.
For a true reflection of our inner being resides in our face. Each wrinkle tells a story, each scar holds our past.
As an effect of working for such long periods of time a day, every day, I became sour. Everybody at the camp began to fear me as I feared myself.
Our boss was such a frugal man. I had the unfortunate pleasure of working for the same man from age the age of fourteen until eighteen. Four years and I was changed from being benevolent and determined despite my situation, to being one of the most emotionally unstable men who was there.
I was never ashamed of myself because I knew I was cursed with the fate of being black. I could not change that. I didn’t realize that there was so much to be proud of for being colored. I feel now it is such a mark of hope, courage, and strength. But the society of my life, the 1930s, tried to seize that from me. They tried to take it away and propose to us that white-skinned people were dominant, powerful and greater. But that’s where they were wrong. We are all equally as honorable.
Yet the life lessons I have learned did not come to me through the process of aging or the beauty of suffering. They came to me through eyes of a seven year old girl, Hanna whom I met because I did the unthinkable.
I reacted to my boss. I showed him what I thought. I stood up, pulled the trigger, and shot him.
photo courtesy of: http://tvgranhermano.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/father-and-child-holding-hands-uid-1188124.jpg
