Autobiography of an Activist

by me

Many would question why I would write about being an activist. I have little experience and there are far more seasoned activists than me. Also, at 25 years old, I haven’t lived long enough to offer wisdom of any sort. However, I have participated in activist circles for many years now and have been attuned to the spirit and the consciousness of the struggles of humanity for a large part of my life. As such, I feel compelled to write about my experiences, explore my thoughts and feelings, and reflect upon my participation in the struggles of human dignity. I have been aware for a long time. Ever since I was three years old, I have been consciousness of a broader humanity and have felt a connection to the plight and suffering and daily struggles that most people go through. I feel a natural empathy for people and as such, the burdens of the world have been my burdens too.
My first taste of activism was when I was three years old. My aunt was a member of the Chicago Teacher’s Union, which during the 1980s’ was a hotbed of political activity. One of my earliest memories is of standing on the picket line with my aunt during a strike by the Chicago Teacher’s Union. I can still feel the rush of energy that I felt as I stood beside her, my small inconsequential hand placed inside of her older, egg-shell, colored, one. That rush that I felt with her that day on that picket line was but a part of the larger cosmic circle that encompassed me as a child, that nourished me and whetted my soul, my spirit, and my imagination. That cosmic circle kindled a flame in me that continues to burn with a passion, vigor, and art that makes everything in life worthwhile.
I was born in Chicago, in 1980, in the midst of that spirit which had taken over the city. This spirit set me up for a journey in life that would be fully in touch with the soul of humanity and completely in tune with human suffering. I don’t write this to say I know all of the pain that everyone feels, or that I begin to understand the daily toils of the whole of humanity. But what I mean to say is that I seek to embody that line from the poem “House by the Side of the Road,” “Let me live in a house by the side of the road to be a friend to men.”
Chicago at the time that I came along was a thriving Black city, full of life and with a momentum that was exciting and inspiring. The Chicago movement was just taking root as the Harold Washington and Jesse Jackson campaigns invigorated a depressed people and helped them feel that once more they could attain a sense of agency and bring about fundamental changes that would make their lives better. “ Come Alive October 5” was a catching jingle heard everywhere and imbued the spirit and vivacity that had overtaken the city. The city had imbibed Harold Washington’s image and the energy and excitement that he brought into the city was felt all the way in my little compound on 73rd place, in between the four walls of Aunt Johnnie’s light green house and ours, directly across the street and with a brown exterior.
Aunt Betty and Aunt Johnnie were both acquaintances of Harold Washington’s girlfriend, who was also a teacher, and through her they brought the importance and energy of the Washington campaign into their house. As I remember, both my mother and father participated on a small scale in the Jackson presidential campaign. In all of this frenzy, Harold Washington’s image was burned into my mind. I felt personally invested in his victory, as I’m sure most of Chicago’s Blacks felt. That life spirit that Washington’s campaign brought into the city was not only to be felt in the political arena, it was present everywhere. It was in the museums and the libraries, it was in the architecture, in the parks, in the zoos, it was now the lifebeat of the city.
I loved more than most other events in the city, the annual Chicago Fest and Taste of Chicago that happened during the summer. Those occasions were alive and festive with the sounds of Earth, Wind and Fire, Chaka Khan, and Gladys Knight and the Pips. The lifebeat was in those times too. I also felt it in the hot summer nights when the heat would be so unbearable that we would pack our coolers and load the car with pillows and blankets and go sleep in the park by the lake. There would be hundreds of people there trying to catch the breeze as it came off of the lake. That communal bonding also held the life of the city. The 1980s in Chicago was a decade overcome with a progressive spirit as well as overwhelmed by the depravity of Reagan.
Of Chicago, I saw a plethora of things that laid the foundation for my political awakening. I saw the Robert Taylor Home projects, where my mother used to work, and the desolation that existed there. I witnessed the people out on the streets and the depravity of their situations. I saw the cruel effects of poverty and the bleak outlook that was held by most of the city’s suffering and poor. I also witnessed the imagination and creativity of the city. I felt the ideals of metropolitan and cosmopolitan life intimately. I was fortunate as a young boy to know culture. I realize wholeheartedly how fortunate I was to have been alive in a city, surrounded by innovation and creativity. I remember seeing one of my first live theatre performances when my mother’s cousin got us tickets to the production of Show Boat that he was starring in. My mother also encouraged the arts for us. My sister spent fourteen years in ballet and was a very graceful and talented dancer. I was simply engaged in the activities of my childhood—with singing, dancing, and storytelling. That was my life in Chicago, an experience in innovation and creativity. Creativity and culture were a part of our lives, even though I see now how much we were urged to conform in some respects, or at least to appear that way.
We moved to Alabama in the summer of 1989, and I started school there that fall. The difference between the two cultures was very noticeable to me instantly. As soon as I encountered the Alabama public school system, I faced the repression of that environment. School officials in Prattville wanted to put me back a grade, even though I was an excellent student, citing that I was a year ahead of my peers. I only remember of that early period at Prattville that I had a teacher named Mrs. Adams who liked to scream and wore extremely long dresses. I didn’t feel as captivated by my surroundings in that new place as I had been in Chicago. The air was more restrictive. I felt my imagination damper in this new place and I felt myself become less expressive. I began a horrendous journey into a hell covered b the walls of a lock and step conservatism and I felt myself retreat into myself. This new environment was not an open one and I sensed it at the core of my being. The thought of that time still chills me.
In spite, or perhaps because of this repression, I retreated into my imagination and miraculously. Miraculously, my imagination remained intact. I was twelve or thirteen when I typed out my first novel on my non-electric typewriter. It was a very productive time. I remember at times I would just retreat to the yard or the park and sit and write for hours , the sunlight pouring down around me. I cherish my creativity. I was often alone, by myself during my childhood. I discovered Barbra Streisand, her music, her movies, and her temperament. I read incessantly, something I had done since I was very small. I picked up and read everything—from encyclopedias and telephone books to Jackie Collins and self-help books. In regards to my experiences of reading, my tastes were odd and exquisite and something that I would like to reflect on.
During my teens, I went through what I call periods of literature. I went through a French period, in which I read Camus, and Madame Bovary, and several short stories by Guy de Maupassant. That was followed by a Russian period in which I read everything—The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, War and Peace. I roamed around in classical and existential literature and was completely taken into the worlds I found. I remember how completely awed I was by Milton when I first encountered him in the eighth grade. I was in love with his heroic Satan and revolutionary telling of Satan’s war with God. I was especially impressed in that I thought (wrongly) that he wrote Paradise Lost while blind. I have since changed my opinion of Milton. I no longer praise him as a maverick and genius figure.
I remember when I first felt myself embodying history. I believe I was in the fifth grade when a teacher handed the class the assignment to choose a historical figure and report on them dressed in character. I, the different one, chose Oliver Cromwell. Being dressed in 17th Century garb replete with stockings, and telling what I knew of the Protectorate, was a profound experience. This role truly gave me a sense of being in history. I had always had an acute awareness of history, one that coincided with my appreciation of literature. These twin sensibilities combined as storytelling, serving as the root of my soul as a writer.
I come from a family of storytellers. The most revolutionary acts of my childhood were the recording and passing down of my family history and the legacy of my ancestors by my relatives. From my mother, my grandmother, my aunts, my sister, and even my father to an extent, I heard the stories of those who had come before me. I head their stories, I learned what they offered, and I was transported back into their eras and walked down their paths, trudged through there lives. I absolutely feel that history is a continuum, that it is nonlinear, that we can and do experience different periods of history intimately and know them intimately. I also believe that our connection to history is interrelated to our connection to humanity. To have a grasp of history is to embody human empathy. Human empathy transgresses the historical record.
Another key to my share in human empathy is my mother and her profession. I saw, from an early age, my mother at work fulfilling her role as a social worker. My mother operates on a very human level, tapping at the root of the true spirit of social work. My mother interacts with her clients, imbuing the philosophy she learned from her grandmother, a woman who also had a strong presence in her community- cast your bread upon the water and it will come back to you. Many days my mother would bring her clients home, feed them, give them clothes, a bed to sleep. My mother taught us the importance of giving and of selflessness. We were taught to be concerned about the needs of people and the suffering that they go through. These lessons from my mother were also part of the revolutionary acts that compelled me to lift my voice and be heard and to speak out against inequalities and bear witness to the human struggle. These sentiments seem quite simple, but these are values that are direly needed and that are missing from today’s society. Humanity is paying for it dearly.
Not only does today’s society lack imagination, but it lacks the basic humanity and respect for human dignity that is required for the world to continue to exist. Capitalism has broken down the connecting bonds that have traditionally been relied upon to hold people together. It has made it ever more difficult to sustain these bonds, although not impossible. These connections are what make humanity grow and which spring forth new life. These connections are ultimate and revolutionary. Revolution is as old as time and as natural as breathing. We should all open ourselves to it. Human empathy is revolutionary. It is the simplest revolutionary act there is. This revolutionary spirit shaped me and fashioned the way that I move through life.
Growing into myself, I became an iconoclast. In high school, I remember having the bitterest debates with fellow classmates that generally reaffirmed our positions as conservative and radical, with me always an outsider. I was never one to stand during the pledge of allegiance and would protest if they tried to make me. On the occasions that I did stand, I would pledge allegiance to a different country each time. I had an imagination, used it, and fought against conformity. I don’t know how I lived through the first Gulf War. I remember I had a music teacher who used to have us sing several songs that I can now identify as patriotic, especially during pageants. I remember I only liked some of them.
Returning again to my experiences with literature, in my budding teenage years, I encountered two books that would weigh profoundly upon my life, my mindset, and early on shaped my political sensibilities. When I was thirteen or fourteen, my Uncle Donald, my father’s brother, gave me a copy of Langston Hughes’ I Wonder as I Wander. That book was quite an experience for me as I read about Langston Hughes’ travels through China, Japan, Cuba, and Russia. I was moved by his descriptions of watermelons floating down the Mekong River and of his interactions with the people of Tashkent, especially as he spoke of sitting amongst them, sipping from a communal bowl of tea. I am not certain whether I encountered this book before or after, I Wonder as I Wander, but around the same time I retrieved from my Uncle Lawrence’s bookshelves W.E.B. DuBois’ Souls of Black Folk. I took in DuBois like he was much needed manna. That first paragraph of the book is truly a revolutionary statement, attacking the issue of race at its core. At fourteen years of age, I became a disciple of DuBois. I relished his pronouncements and essays on issues from race to women’s rights. I was mesmerized by his studies on peoples around the world, from the Jews to the Japanese. He fueled my imagination and my started a fire in my soul. I was curious about different ethnicities and cultures and his writings drew me back to my experiences as a child in Chicago and my encounters with people of many different backgrounds.
While I was engaged within my mind by the world of theory and race and culture, the world around me was very dark. For all of the succulent intellectual mélange that was going on inside of my brain, the outlook of my physical landscape was bleak and very black and white. My thirst for intellectual stimulation was only watered by my explorations into literature and history and my discoveries of Kafka and James Baldwin and Alice Walker and Audre Lorde and Margaret Atwood. Another blessing and revolutionary act that was bestowed upon me was my introduction to feminist theory during my freshman year of college by one of my favorite professors. I recognize what a blessing it was to have been introduced to such writers as Helen Cixous, Julie Kristeva, Derrida, Adrienne Rich, and Angela Davis. My political outlook in college developed along the lines of inquiries into gender, race, and sexuality. This coincided with investigations of my own sexuality and political identity.
My real political activity began in college. My sophomore year, the Montgomery Police ran over a teenage black boy with an SUV, crushing his legs. In an attempt to sweep it under the rug, nothing was done to rectify the situation. A protest was planned and announced by some people within the community, to take place down the street from my campus. At my first adult attempt at public demonstration, no one showed up. Not even the organizers. The only people present were me, a friend of mine named Kerron, and a lady that we didn’t know dressed in blue jeans and a blue jean jacket. That day may have been uneventful, but it must have been a play of fates as it provided the door through which I gained access to and awareness of political activism and all that it involves.
The lady present at the canceled event was named Trish O’Kane. Trish was a seasoned activist, the daughter of Irish immigrant, strawberry pickers, she gained her bearings as a student at USC in the 80s engaged in the successful efforts to get ROTC thrown off of their campus. She had freshly arrived in Montgomery the year before having spent a decade in Nicaragua and Guatemala working with the U.N and unofficially with the Sandinistas. She had come to Montgomery with the Southern Poverty Law Center, then switched positions to work with the Center for Democratic Renewal out of Atlanta where she was undertaking a project tracking down hate crimes in the state of Alabama. This was a tenuous job as the state of Alabama had reported zero hate crimes to the federal government for the previous 40 years. Also, there was no documentation of these crimes to be found, so this effort had to be pieced together using word of mouth, following newspaper leads that seemed suspicious, and making contact with churches, community groups, and other agencies to try and encourage them to report anything they knew.
That day, I became Trish’s sidekick, aiding Trish with the implementation of this project. One of the first cases we undertook was to follow up on the young man who had been disabled by the police SUV. Going to interview him was a profound lesson in many ways. We firstly went to the scene of the incident, in Montgomery’s Smiley Court. Going to Smiley Court with Trish opened my eyes. It really cut to the close for me what a sheltered existence I have. I saw the protections of class and social status stripped away and I felt vulnerable. We got out of Trish’s truck and walked from house to house, inquiring and talking to people. I saw the desperation in their faces. I saw the lack of hope and the gloom that hung like a veil over the entire place. I witnessed a seasoned activist at work that day. Trish fell right in with the environment. I found it ironic that a strawberry blonde, second-generation Irish American from southern California felt more at home in the black ghetto than me, who shared skin and heritage with the people of this neighborhood. I realized how sheltered I had been. I can also appreciate now that when you have spent ten years in the middle of a revolution, especially with the Sandinistas, Montgomery was absolutely nothing The poverty that I saw there reminded me of the conditions I had seen in Chicago, at Robert Taylor where my mother worked and at Cabrini Green which I had seen from afar.
At that time, I also became a serious adherent to the idea of Double Consciousness. I started to inquire how that played out in different communities, especially for oppressed peoples around the world, and especially those communities with which I identified. I also began investigating how double consciousness operated on the individual level. I wrote an essay my sophomore year on Double Consciousness in the works of Zitkala Sa. Continuing on that theme, my senior thesis revolved around the ideas of gender, Blackness, and sexuality. I began to assess where those particular realities stood in the world and how I fell into them. I began to formulate my own theories and opinions concerning race, gender, and sexuality, and I began to see how background and personal history shaped one’s outlook and how these color and influence one’s ideology. I also learned during this time about the codes of society, especially those within the Afro-American community.
I experienced policing within the Afro-American community first hand during a race, gender, and sexuality class that I took. One day, the instructor invited a professor and class to join us from Alabama State, which was right down the street. As I knew the professor from ASU quite well, I felt comfortable in expressing my opinion that Afro-Americans occupied the position of the bastard child within American society. After I voiced that opinion, a deafening silence fell over the entire class and I felt the eyes of scorn fall upon me. I had sinned worse than Judas. I had personally insulted their mother. I don’t think that professor has liked me at all since that day. It was then that I knew there was a serious problem in the Afro-American community.
Black people are suffering serious denial and have lost themselves in the cold, restrictive dehumanization of the white supremacy. They no longer know themselves—have lost touch with their humanity and their soulfulness. I saw that a breach had developed between the Afro-American community and its soul. Something had happened in that period at the end of the 60s, perhaps with the deaths of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., that had made Black people tired of struggle, at which point they capitulated to the values of the white male power structure. After three hundred years of enduring and surviving in the face of brutal white supremacy, the flame of Afro-American resistance started to flicker and burn out. I can see many things that serve as catalysts for this, many symptoms of the soul death that has overtaken the Afro-American community: misogyny, conservative fundamentalism, homophobia, and materialism. The Afro-American community adopted capitalist values in the face of a hostile capitalist society. Because of this, the Afro-American community has become a shell of what it once was. The Afro-American has succumbed to the effects of bastardization, which has cost it the moral authority that it once possessed.
It was in the face of this realization that I came into awareness. I grappled with three halves of myself, taking on the crisis of each. My Afro-American soul, faltering under the strain of white supremacy and illegitimacy. I have also witnessed the gay soul, which lies silent and dormant, capitulating in the face of heteronormativity and failing to overcome the racism and falsity that exist within it. All of these result in a serious depravity, one which is crippling and that will lead to the destruction of not only these two communities, but will be the ruin of the nation as a whole. I came to this awareness nearing the end of my undergraduate years. September 11th served to verify my assessments. This country’s machinations and disregard for the humanity of others in the world, especially people of color and the poor, will end only in its destruction.
September 11th was a turning point in many ways. After that event, Montgomery’s growing Southeast Asian and Muslim population was afraid to leave their homes. Montgomery was threatening to explore with anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiments. Trish and I, along with several other concerned people within the community, came together to form a coalition we called ACT in Alabama (Acting for Civility and Tolerance). The Unitarian Universalists, members of the ACLU, the Black Muslims, and several other individuals and agencies were instrumental in getting the group up off the ground. We had a multitude of meetings brainstorming over ways to build p unity and respect for difference in the city. Those meetings were beautiful and people were excited about the efforts to make Montgomery and Alabama a more hospitable place to live. The atmosphere at those meetings was alive with a sense of hope. After I finished college and moved back home, I stopped participating regularly in the meetings and my activism became more focused on writing and petitioning. I wrote a lot of poetry during that time as well as essays and editorials. I wrote to try express myself and to try and publish. I also wrote to try and not go crazy. I spent the year after college applying for graduate school. Staying at home for that year was a learning experience, one I don’t want to repeat.
I came to graduate school with expectations of intellectual fulfillment. Even though I recovered from that grand illusion, it was a learning process, a crash course in the political. I also became entrenched in activism and progressive struggle. I can say, quite easily, that I learned more in becoming an activist than I have in any graduate seminar thus far. A few months into my first year of graduate school, a friend of mine took me to a meeting of the Lafayette Area Peace Coalition. That first meeting was a blur, but I continued to go and soon became an active member of the group. I was to soon learn and come into contact with people, movements, and organizations that would open my eyes and bring me into tune with the lifebeat of movement. I learned the processes of progressive struggle and I became intimately familiar with how progressive struggle works. My initial and limited taste of activism in Montgomery had been followed by three years of dedication to learning the skill and craft.
I was easily drawn in by the small group discussions, where ideas were passed around and there was a sense of camaraderie and togetherness. It was amazing to witness how the spark of dialogue transformed into action, how that action was implemented, and what impact that action had. There were several events that I witnessed begin that way. We were successful in bringing the Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal to campus to exhibit his artwork and to speak. We also hosted Colonel Ann Wright, Bernadine Dohrn, and several others. Other activities which were quite successful included the public panel discussion held on the war in Iraq which was broadcast on public radio and televised. It brought out several hundred people. Biannually, we also host the CCDS meeting which brings out a cadre of dedicated socialists from throughout the region to discuss various issues and make plans. The Midwest Peace and Justice Summit is another venue that we helped organize that has turned out extremely well. In the two years that it has taken place on the campus of IUPUI in Indianapolis, it has drawn together hundreds of people and hosted several great keynote speakers, with people coming from around the tri-state area. As an organization, we have also been successful in spearheading many campaigns to raise awareness and address issues within the community. The most recent of these has been our anti-military recruiting campaign.
Being active in a conservative environment has been a learning experience for me as well. It really places an emphasis on the reason for struggle and the need for a progressive presence in the midst of an oppression and conformity. At present, we live in dangerous times. We live in an era where the threat of fascism threatens to close in on us at any moment. We must be steadfast and ever present in our resistance to the approaching death that threatens the soul of this nation. We must be vigilant in our stand to preserve the integrity of our souls and our right to choice. We must not let those who would rule the day determine the value and the purpose of our lives. There is a terrible burden upon my soul as well as upon the soul of this nation. And that is the burden to live fully and with depth and possibility. That burden is the effort to keep our humanity intact.