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Picture Past
By Jeremiah Mickens The tree stood like
oak. In blood it's roots they soaked Branches bent from
weight. Onlookers
looked and laughed with hate. The smell of death they didn't fear
And for each that hung
I shed a tear. Necks of rose and sheets of holes. Once simple men
now free souls. A
healthy fellow without a mask to cover his grin. Looked and was
pleased with his sin.
It was a party and the four guests of honor hung around.
I stirred with awe
there was no sound. This might have been a picture of the past.
What
if of the present I
dare not ask. Vision swam deeper and examined this more and I knew
what was in store.
Tales were told of rougher days of men called boys and runaway
slaves.
Of graves that danced
on air of people who didn't care. A thing that was common. Nowhere
near rare. Tears leaked
through blood red eyes. I only wished the picture tell lies.
But so bold was the
word fact written on a picture so, so black. Dark and grim was
this sight. Yet the
ghost knew they were right. My heart crumbled with agony. So
many pale ones with
sight yet they cannot see. Dogs, Damn you all!! Revenge! I felt
so small. All these
enemies gave my brothers fate. A heart of love refused to hate.
Picture past and
present too. I'll never forget you. I'll always remember the fires
that burned. And the
lumps in my stomach began to turn. The thousand ifs that raced
through my head. The
conversations wanted with the dead. Death swung through the night.
Hyenas with fire
bright. My brother look within because you might have been one
of these boys that were
called men. A murder a tree was forced to commit. Lungs
four ropes had to
split. And I'd like to see these heartless men. Too perfect a
picture
in reality. It began to
get the best of me. I climbed repeatedly to the top of sorrow.
Hoping I'd forget
tomorrow. These corpse and laughter of blood. Which dripped
into puddles of mud. I
tore it up and was rid of it fast.
Praying my child would
never ask me about picture past. |
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Jeremiah Mickens' autobiographical
statement:
I was raised in Baltimore, Maryland. I attended Rognel
Heights, Harlem Park, and Liberty elementary schools. My family
traveled to California when I was in the fourth or fifth grade.
As we traveled my mother taught us in the motor home that
lived in. It was my stepfather, mother, and three sisters. On
the way to California we stopped briefly and lived in a house in
Phoenix, Arizona. When we finally arrived in Los Angeles it was
almost six months later. We stayed in our motor home and lived
partly in a house and partly in the motor home of a family
friend. We stayed there a year. I attended Charles drew
Elementary. My mother taught me at home for a long time because
when I went back to school I was in the eighth grade.
I graduated from Charles drew, Jr. High. Somehow we ended up
in Malibu, California. the lifestyle was completely different
from Compton and East LA. Here we again stayed partly in a house
and partly in a trailer. The part of Malibu we lived in was
known as Point Dume. There I would ride the horse down to the
beach daily. When Angel [the horse] would feel the sand under
her feet she would take-off running.
I also began to lift weights and jog from Point Dume to
Trancas. I attended Samo High in Santa Monica, California. I
stayed there for two years partying and having a good time. It
was my second year at Samo that I began to enjoy acting in my
second play Nicholas Nickleby. I played three characters
-- Pluck, Curdle, and Belling. It was acting that began to give
me the focus I needed on education.
The focus was just in time because we moved again. this time
we moved to Venice, California. I attended Venice High School.
In Venice I became a member of the Venice High School Thespians.
I acted in independent films, school plays, and tributes by
Beverly Hills West Chapter LINKS.
My grades were not up to par so I was not allowed to act in
any plays. My focus for school became even sharper. After school
I would play football and basketball, avoiding hanging out with
the many gangs that wanted to jump me in. I was focus mentally.
I knew what I wanted to do. I was determined to do, be the best.
My mother changed that focus when she explained that we were
moving back to Baltimore. I did not want to go. We came to
California with a whole family of six. Now it was only a family
of three. Soon it would be a family of none. We flew back to
Baltimore.
In Baltimore I saw friends get shot. Many guns were pointed
at me by robbers and police. I held the hands of the bleeding
and dying. I cried on the shoulders of mothers and fathers. So
many people I knew made it to the front page of the Baltimore
Sun.
I ended up at Walbrook High School. I went through all of the
graduation ceremonies but would not graduate from Walbrook. I
graduated from Harbor City. I then went straight to Baltimore
City Community College. After taking a break from college and
cooking for five years in a Mexican restaurant in 1995 I married
my high school sweetheart. We now have five children.
In 1996, I began to substitute in Baltimore City Public
Schools. I started working in Companions extended Daycare in
1998. While there I attended college and graduated from
Sojourner Douglass in 2000. I am now studying reading at Johns
Hopkins University.
I have seen and been through a lot. But I never let go of my
dream to be an actor, writer, teacher. One must have a dream.
Hold onto it. Don't squeeze it too tight because it may slip
away. Find the median and once you do you'll have the perfect
grip. That's the time to hold on and don't let go, when it's
good times or bad times. Just remember don't let go.
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great
Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a
sharecropper's wife, left Mississippi
for Milwaukee in 1937, after her cousin
was falsely accused of stealing a white
man's turkeys and was almost beaten to
death. In 1945, George Swanson Starling,
a citrus picker, fled Florida for Harlem
after learning of the grove owners'
plans to give him a "necktie party" (a
lynching). Robert Joseph Pershing Foster
made his trek from Louisiana to
California in 1953, embittered by "the
absurdity that he was doing surgery for
the United States Army and couldn't
operate in his own home town." Anchored
to these three stories is Pulitzer
Prize–winning journalist Wilkerson's
magnificent, extensively researched
study of the "great migration," the
exodus of six million black Southerners
out of the terror of Jim Crow to an
"uncertain existence" in the North and
Midwest. Wilkerson deftly incorporates
sociological and historical studies into
the novelistic narratives of Gladney,
Starling, and Pershing settling in new
lands, building anew, and often finding
that they have not left racism behind.
The drama, poignancy, and romance of a
classic immigrant saga pervade this
book, hold the reader in its grasp, and
resonate long after the reading is done.
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 12 December 2011
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