In 1963 I was seven years old. I was a happy Black boy who idolized my Great-grandmother, I referred to her as my Ma, and thought her strength was infinite.
I was out of school on Friday November 22, 1963 and spent the day with my ‘Ma’ she was preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday six days later. We had been out shopping that day for a frozen turkey that she would slowly thaw beginning on Monday. I remember us stopping at a nearby corner store to pick up a loaf of day old bread, to make bread cubes for the stuffing. She complained about going to Mr. White’s store because she was never confidant he would be fully stocked. It was the week before the biggest collective feast in America so she felt assured he would be adequately supplied. Mr. White greeted us kindly and gave me a cookie from a jar that sat on the front counter, because Ma was such a good customer. I was thrilled because she bought me a friction car racing set for three-dollars and ninety-five cents. Friction cars were the new innovation then. You would rub the car wheels in reverse against the floor that tightened a spring inside the chassis, set it on the tracks and away it would go.
I remember sitting in the kitchen watching my Ma look for her cloves, bay leaves and other spices in the cabinet above the stove. I sat in a red padded, metal framed chair with c-shaped tubular metal legs that rocked when you would lean back. It was close to 4pm eastern time and a rapid knock at the door broke my nirvana. At our front door stood Mr. Padgett the local neighborhood gadfly and numbers runner. He was a tall affable dark-skinned man, quick to laugh and forever smiling, wearing his trademark fedora. Ma opened the door reached into her bra for the quarter she usually paid for the illegal lottery and asked him to follow her into the kitchen. His characteristic smile was nowhere to be seen. His usually strong voice broke and he shakily blurted out, “have you heard Miss Bea.” She turned wistfully, use to Mr. P. pulling pranks, and sarcastically asked, “what is it now Padgett?”
President Kennedy is dead!
“Go on Padgett, that’s not funny”
Her face turned serious and she knew this was not a joke, Mr. Padgett was crying. My tower of infinite strength, slumped to the floor covered her face with her hands and wailed out loud, “what will happen to us now, he cared about us colored people.” I was stunned and had no idea what she meant. I had been cocooned in the virtual bosom of my grandmother and was unaware of the devastating effect African Americans especially felt all over the country by his assassination. White Americans were hurt that this could happen in the land of the free, African Americans were hurt because this would make America even less free.
Five years later I saw those same tears when Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was brutally murdered and again when the final piece to the triumvirate of hope was killed in Los Angeles with the death of Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. Donald Trump recently suggested the idea of 2nd Amendment remedies to his followers who feel there is no way to stop Hillary Clinton, should she assume the office of the President of the United States. For Paul Ryan, Rudy Giuliani and all the apologist who say Donald Trump is just a straight talking joker, if my Ma were alive, the joke would be lost in her tears.
Vote 2016