Retracing The Struggle

Had a very down-to-earth Sunday, with the majoity of it completely immersed in the Retracing the Struggle march.

My girl Mari reminded me about the march on Saturday and I ran across several informational links online, so I made my way around the corner to Eliot Square to check it out. Needless to say, I didn't go back home for the next 5 hours. It started at the First Church in Roxbury and wound down Columbus Avenue to the Boston Common's bandstand.

It is also worth noting that I got to see and hear a LIVING LEGEND speak with such conviction that it truly was awe-inspiring. I'm talking about none other than John Lewis, current US Representative and former head of SNCC from back in the day.

As we made our way from Eliot Square onto Malcolm X Boulevard towards Roxbury Crosisng, we noticed we were at the tail end of the march. But the fun was just starting. Ran into my man Horace Small and finally cornered him enough to get a solid date for the next get-together; Friday, November 11th. It's on. More details to come on that one later. We also shot the shT on some other topics, including what the march was really all about. Because it sure did seem to be more of a publicity event for many of the politicians in atendance. Of course it may just have seemed that way, but there was definitely a thinly veiled air of bewilderment at just how many of them show up. It definitely piqued a lot of peoples' interest.

But anyways, I saw and met a lot of good people doing good things and heard some rousing remarks for a host of speakers at at both the church and the common. Apparently, Menino always call Mari a trouble-maker when he see her. Saw Lori Nelson, Howard Zinn, Jarrett Barrios, Diane W, Chuck T, Mike Capuano, Sam Yoon, Felix Arroyo, C Yancey, John Kerry, Shirley Owens-Hicks, Marie St-Fleur, Mel King (another living legend), Harold Zen, Ron Bell (who did his thing in putting the whole shebang together), my homegirl Afia from MIT (who is now at Harvard doing divinity & architecture), Rev Hammond and his moms, Rev Wilkerson, Ricky and Marvin and Cabral from Freedom House, Mukiya Baker-Gomez, Eroc and Optimus of The Foundation, Reflect and Strengthen (who blew me away with their performance), Mike Flaherty, Gloria Fox, Byron Rushing, Taylor Branch, Virgil Woods (who brought the house down with his call to action), Rodney Muhammad, and Michael Jacoby Brown. It was snowing on Saturday, but the gods blessed us with the perfect weather on Sunday given the time of the year for such an important and meaningful(?) event.