“I’m Sorry But We Don’t Serve Colored Here”

On Feb. 1, 1960, four black college students began a sit-in protest at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they’d been refused service.

Excerpt from The New York Times article chronicling the sit-in protests:

The spark that touched off the protests was provided by four freshmen at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro. Even Negroes class Greensboro as one of the most progressive cities in the South in terms of race relations.

On Sunday night, Jan. 31, one of the students sat thinking about discrimination.

“Segregation makes me feel that I’m unwanted,” McNeil A. Joseph said later in an interview. ‘I don’t want my children exposed to it.’

The 17-year-old student from Wilmington, N. C., said that he approached three of his classmates the next morning and found them enthusiastic over a proposal that they demand service at the lunch counter of a downtown variety store.

About 4:45 P.M. they entered the F. W. Woolworth Company store on North Elm Street in the heart of Greensboro. Mr. Joseph said he bought a tube of tooth paste and the others made similar purchases. Then they sat down at the lunch counter.

The students asked a white waitress for coffee.

“I’m sorry but we don’t serve colored here,” they quoted her.

“I beg your pardon,” said Franklin McCain, 18, of Washington, “you just served me at a counter two feet away. Why is it that you serve me at one counter and deny me at another. Why not stop serving me at all the counters.”

The four students sat, coffee-less, until the store closed at 5:30 P. M. Then, hearing that they might be prosecuted, they went to the executive committee of the Greensboro N.A.A.C.P. to ask advice.

The Greensboro demonstrations and the others that it triggered were spontaneous.

The protests generally followed similar patterns. Young men and women and, in one case, high school boys and girls, walked into the stores and requested food service. Met with refusals in all cases, they remained at the lunch counters in silent protest.

Read the article in it’s entirety here: (Source)

Just got off the plane…

I’m here. They’ve been waiting for me, holding up a sign with my name on it. I have officially arrived in my dark place; looks like nothing has changed, it’s just as I left it. A place so dark that I can’t see through my veil of tears. Nothing and no one is welcome here. I do not wish to talk to anyone on the phone or in person to tell them how I feel, because quite frankly, I may tell them to fuck off! So, the only way that they will get any insight into my dark place is to read this post.

Happiness being relative, I can honestly say that I am unhappy. I don’t give a fuck if anyone thinks that I have it better than some people. Who are they to say that? From the outside looking in, they may assume that I have it better than most and they would be way off base.

No material possession can make me feel better right now. No one person can make me feel better right now. I am responsible for my happiness. Of course I cannot control someone else’s actions but I can control my reaction and I haven’t been doing a great job of that lately. It would appear that I am a glutton for punishment, I assure you I am not. My lack of focus and apparent misery prompted the following question, “Is there someone else?”, to which I replied, “Yes… Me. I am the other person”. To be clear, I am in my own way and that’s what’s so fucking sick about the whole thing. In my heart I know what I need to do in order to make myself happy, which in turn will make everyone else happy, yet I can’t.

There’s this fear that has me paralyzed. The fear of failure. I know that if I don’t move, I will die; perhaps not literally, but my very soul will cease to exist and I will merely inhabit a physical form. Actually, if I continue to have these overwhelming feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, I may kill my physical self; not at my own hand, mind you, but as a bi-product of depression and/or anxiety coupled with my Lupus, Sjogren’s, Raynaud’s and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Stress makes my illness(es) flare-up, so living stress-free is tantamount to my well-being. This very moment, my spirit is on life support and my stress level is off the charts. I almost wish it was over already.

Not to assign blame, but there are some members of my family that really fucked my head up! All those years of rejection added up to me creating this person who I thought my loved ones wanted me to be just to stay in their favor. My first few years on this earth were rife with instability, turmoil and rejection, I felt worthless; no child, especially under the age of 5, should be made to feel that way. Once I was in a more stable home environment, I was told over and over again that I was smart, pretty and funny, but the damage had already been done.

Everyone in my life may be having an easier time than me dealing with my illness or, it could be argued, a more difficult time. Their support or lack thereof, doesn’t diminish the fact that I am sick. The physical pain is secondary to the emotional pain and I don’t know how long I can live like this.

I made a vow to myself, sometime last year, to live authentically and I was making progress, truly. However, I may have fallen off track and reverted into this being that is foreign to me, all to appease the people that I love. I feel like I have to choose between their happiness and mine, which sucks.

Eric – Graffiti Street

My oldest son Eric… Cass Corridor… Graffiti Street

ITCHING! Help!

Ooh, looky here… it’s past one o’clock in the morning and I’m still up! Not reading, or watching a movie or listening to music or anything pleasurable like that… no, I’m up itching! Ugh! I’m going to buy a scalpel and cut all the way down to the subcutaneous fat layer of skin or the subcutis for short, and then peel it all off! Sounds gross, eh? I don’t care, I can’t take this shit anymore! There has to be something that can be done about this incessant itching. Ya know, I don’t think my rheumatologist takes me very seriously when I say I want to cut my skin off. As awesome as he is, sometimes I think I’m invisible to him. When tiny cuts manifest themselves on my fingertips from seemingly nowhere, thanks to my Raynaud’s, he says “wear gloves”. Um, yeah, ok. That’s ok in the winter, to a certain extent, but in the spring, summer and fall seasons, it’s just not feasible. But I digress. Back to the itching and my invisibility, my doctor prescribed Loratadine which does absolutely nothing and I take so much Benadryl that sometimes I think my body has become immune to it. I guess I’ll just sit here and scratch myself raw. Ugh!

On This Day – “High Court Rules Bus Segregation Unconstitutional”

On Nov. 13, 1956, the Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses.

“The Court affirmed a ruling by a three-judge Federal court that held the challenged statutes ‘violate the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.’

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law nor deny to any citizen the equal protection of the laws.

[Officials of several Southern states indicated they would continue to enforce bus segregation laws despite the court’s decision. Segregationist leaders were bitter in their denunciations of the court and its ruling.]”

(Source)

New York Times Front Page – “Obama’s Night”

The New York edition of today’s New York Times announcing President Barack Obama’s re-election.

(Source)

On This Day – “Abraham Lincoln Probably Elected President by a Majority of the Entire Popular Vote”

On Nov. 6, 1860, former Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln defeated three other candidates for the U.S. presidency.
“The election, so far as the City and State of New-York are concerned, will probably stand, hereafter as one of the most remarkable in the political contests of the country; marked, as it is, by far the heaviest popular vote ever cast in the City, and by the sweeping, and almost uniform, Republican majorities in the country.”

(Source)

On This Day – “Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls “

On Nov. 4, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, as the country chose him as it’s first black chief executive.

Mr. Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois, defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona, 72, a former prisoner of war who was making his second bid for the presidency.

(Source)

I Am Not Broken, I Am Free – Pariah

The movie Pariah, now out on DVD, Blu-Ray and iTunes, is a coming of age story about a Brooklyn teenager, Alike (ah-lee-kay), struggling with her sexual identity. I don’t want to diminish the movie’s story line in anyway by being so brief in my description; no, but I would like to share a piece from the movie. The following poem is written (in the film) by Alike once she finds her voice and embraces her identity as a lesbian. It is quite powerful and simply beautiful.

 

Heartbreak opens onto the sunrise

For even breaking is opening

And I am broken

I’m open

Broken to the new light without pushing in

Open to the possibilities within, pushing out

See the love shine in through my cracks?

See the light shine out through me?

I  am broken

I am open

I am broken open

See the love light shining through me

Shining through my cracks

Through the gaps

My spirit takes journey

My spirit takes flight

Could not have risen otherwise

And I am not running

I’m choosing

Running is not a choice from the breaking

Breaking is freeing

Broken is freedom

I am not broken

I’m free.

                                 ~ Spoken by Alike (Adepero Oduye)

                                     Written by Dee Rees

I love this pic of Adepero Oduye, she has beautiful bone structure.

On This Day – “2 Black Power Advocates Ousted From Olympics”

On Oct. 18, 1968, the United States Olympic Committee suspended two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for giving a “black power” salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City.

“The two Negro sprinters were told by Douglas F. Roby, the president of the committee, that they must leave the Olympic Village. Their credentials also were taken away, which made it mandatory for them to leave Mexico within 48 hours.”(Source)

Quote Of The Day – Anything Can Be

Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts.
Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me…
Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.

~ Shel Silverstein

On This Day – Martin Luther King Wins Nobel Prize For Peace

On Oct. 14, 1964, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

“The 35-year-old civil rights leader is the youngest winner of the prize that Dr. Alfred Nobel instituted since the first was awarded in 1901.

The prize honors acts ‘for the furtherance of brotherhood among men and to the abolishment or reduction of standing armies and for the extension of these purposes.’

Dr. King said that “every penny” of the prize money, which amounts to about $54,000, would be given to the civil rights movement.”

(Source)