I am forever in awe of my neighborhood's rich history. Takes my breath away when I think about how people like Langston Hughes once walked the streets in my neighborhood. Wonder if this was one of the poems Hughes recited at the college....
As I Grew Older
It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then
In front of me,
Bright like a sun --
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky -0
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
of sun!
I think of how amazing (and difficult) it would have been to have lived here during that time... but then too I wonder if I would have wanted to live here. Would I have been filled with false lies of the time and hated my neighbors? It breaks my heart to think of the fact there was a time when a white person would not have seen the beauty of Abe. It all feels so far away, but in two weeks I fixing tea to listen to the stories of women who lived through segregation. That time of hatred really is not as far away from us as I think we'd like to think. That is a reality I constantly am confronted with...
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