The Fierceness in My Freedom

As I pack my fresh mint from my garden in preparation to go celebrate the 2024 Kentucky Derby, I had a moment to reflect on the fact that I have the freedoms I do because of fierce men and women who didn't but sought them anyway on my behalf!

Today, for some strange reason, I went to my personal historical archives to find a family history book on my free ancestors from Halifax County, Virginia, and got sidetracked when I found a binder I wrote and produced a story on the 100-year history of the Black student at Carnegie Mellon University: "Decades in Black." Inside of that binder were copies of speeches by and about #andrewcarnegie and a piece by the late John Steinbeck titled: "The Black Man's Ironic Burden," which was featured in the Saturday Review, and I quote: "I am constantly amazed at the qualities we expect in Negroes. No race has ever offered another such high regard. We expect Negroes to be wiser than we are, more tolerant than we are, braver, more dignified than we, more self-controlled and self-disciplined. We even demand more talent from them than from ourselves. A Negro must be 10 time as gifted as a white to receive equal recognition. We expect Negroes to have more endurance than we in athletics, more courage in defeat, more rhythm and versatility in music and dancing, more controlled emotion courteous, more gallant, more proud, more steadfast. In a word, while maintaining that Negroes are inferior to us, be our unquestioning faith in them we prove our conviction that they are superior in many fields, even fields we are presumed to be training and conditioned in and they are not...perhaps some of the anger against Negroes stems from a profound sense of their superiority, and perhaps their superiority is rooted in having a cause and an unanswerable method composed of courage, restraint, and a sense of direction."

Have a Fierce Friday.

Endnote: "Fierceness" 🐎 is favored to win the 2024 Kentucky Derby and will start from the No. 17 post as a 5-2 favorite. Sierra Leone is next at 3-1.

Enjoy the Derby!

#exhausted #derbybound