My dear,
My darling,
I’ve been carrying this weight…this image…of a future.
I always
Have a flare up when I feel something like this move through me…
Bobby Kennedy was assassinated on this June day 1968
I think it’s like James Baldwin said…
We easily forget how young everyone was then…
He met with Lorraine Hansberry and Baldwin in 1963
Kennedy was only 38.
Lorraine would of course die at the age of 34… and Kennedy would be assassinated just 5 years later at the age of 43.
The Kennedys were appalled at the living conditions of black Americans. They were young and changing their minds about things. But like James said, this was the cost of segregation, it was a Great Wall between us. You never REALLY got to know eachother.
And you didn’t feel that you had a place set for you at the table for the American dream. You were an opportunity a pawn but you were not really represented. If you rose up and talked like white men you were dangerous.
A friend of mine wrote me and reflected that same emotion. That she always pretended we were the same but she’s afraid we are really not.
It’s not a race issue
It’s an apathy issue
A distance
We don’t want to know or see or hear.
We want the horrors to stay over there.
We are all brothers and sisters
Lovers
But we are so comfortable I don’t know that we would even be moved anymore…
Maybe we really do struggle with a mental fear, while black Americans live in the reality. The reality that these horrors are daily events and just a step away.
Bobby believed
And he changed his mind
He moved in those directions.
Darling,
I’m going to be 31 this year
I’m thinking about the youthfulness of these people…
I’m thinking about their ability to hold ideas
I’m thinking about all of the people and the youth we have already lost…
I’m believing we have hope
This is home to all of us
And this is America
Hang in there.
We must face ourselves.
So we can love eternal.
Regarding Samuel 