My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE

By COLLEEN McELROY IMMERSION 84 the men are talking quietly about times so hard getting harder how even CCC camp didn’t ease the burden of doing twice as much to get half as far as any white the men are talking about olden days when any black runaway who sought plantation freedom followed in darkness the vagrant stars across the heavens how different then when death was sure with whip or gun fear cleansed by the coolness of a river or a north wind deliverance resting on a fuzzy map half forgotten the men who dare are talking about those men branded by the system - they talk Jackie Robinson Paul Robeson and Joe Louis they talk Jesse Owen fastest man in the West they say and pop their suspenders the men are talking spunk and guts and who was outsmarted and who left eating dust the men are talking about running the road legit or not how under that porter’s suit they are still men answering to the call of Boy - hands washed clean under sparkling white gloves — A. Phillip Randolph’s men coming home talking jack about cities they half saw from a freight or the back of a dining car between plates going in and out of galley smoke changing a bunk or spotting a man running the tracks — yard dogs snarling inside his head the men are putting on their home suits sitting with ease their backs against the wall

My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 85