A friend of mine who has passed on used to recite a poem about life and getting older, called “The Golden Years”. “The Golden Years Are Here At Last, Can’t See, Can’t Pee, Can’t walk, Can’t talk, The Golden Years are at last, The Golden Years Can Kiss my A ----”. That poem puts a smile on our lips, but the truth of it is, it can bring a laugh to us as we go through our lives. I smile when I see the football team of Old Miss play in a college game. Someone reminded me that twenty years ago that Black people were not even allowed on campus. Now we are just part of the atmosphere there.
We all know the story of the Alabama coach saying he was tired of losing to the Black players, so let them play. Well, now they are playing in large numbers, but we still have a way to go. The NFL still has to hire more Black owners and head coaches. Southern colleges need to hire more Black presidents, more Black deans. Then we can say that we are moving. Also, we need the politicians to stop fighting our right to vote. As we go to war with the Russians, young Black men’s blood will flow just as young white men’s blood will flow. The head of America’s military is Black, and the memory of the Tuskegee Airmen is long gone. This progress is evidence that we are moving up and actions of Florida, Texas and other states’ governors will not stop the progress. These are the Golden Years for a lot of us who are still around. We all get to suffer along with the previous slave masters. It is our country even though they thought it was theirs alone. We know it was never theirs alone. They took it by the blood of the Indigenous residents who were mixed with the slave labor of my ancestors. Now the slave descendants have grown in numbers and multiplied to the point of majority causing the white minority to have to share the power, just as the whites did in South Africa. These are the Golden Years for Black America. Share and celebrate our progress while we can. We need to be saying thanks to Dr. King, Jimmie Lee Jackson, and Emmitt Till, among the long list of those whose blood made it all possible, Thank You! |
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