Gunsmoke

The first and only time I got in trouble in school I was in seventh grade, my first year in junior high school. Many of the older boys in the school would regularly gather in the boy's bathroom to smoke. Like most high school students then and now, I wanted to be cool. I had never smoked a cigarette before, but thats what everybody seemed to be doing, so I decided to do it too. There were probably between ten and fifteen of us in that bathroom, and very quickly the place was filled with smoke. It wasn't long before our Principal stormed through the door, waving his arms to see who we were through the choking smoke. He ordered all of us to his office, and once there, called each of us in individually to meet our consequences.

The moment I heard him call my name to go in that office was one of the scariest moments of my life. He got right to the point. There was a large razor strap hanging on the side of his desk. He told me I could take three licks with that strap or he could tell my father I had been smoking cigarettes in his school. I quickly nodded at the strap, because I knew if he told my father (who was a holiness preacher) I might literally die. He told me to stand up and put my hands on the desk. The pain was sharp, but tolerable. He then told me if he ever caught me smoking again he would give me TEN  and tell my father too. I never smoked another cigarette. I was twelve years old. The year was 1965.

This was a time when there was a culture of smoking in the United States. The society accepted those who smoked. The glamorous, rich, and famous smoked regularly. The military supplied soldiers, sailors, and marines with cigarettes as part of their daily rations. Cigarettes were ubiquitous in movies and television programs. People smoked in bars, restaurants, stores, schools, churches, trains, buses, airplanes, and at work. Cigarette ads were everywhere, and the tobacco companies were flush with power and profits.

Then, something happened.

In September 1950, the British Medical Journal published an article linking smoking to lung cancer and heart disease. In 1954 the British Doctors Study confirmed those findings. In 1964 the United States Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health agreed that cigarettes were killing people. In the United States, people began to sue the tobacco companies for damages related to their use of tobacco. During the next forty (40) years more that 800 lawsuits would be filed against the major tobacco companies. "Big Tobacco" would win them all...every single suit.

Things would change in the mid 1990's when states begin to sue. The states were seeking to recover the costs for medicaid and other public health expenses incurred from treating patients for illnesses caused by smoking. Eventually, every state's attorney general would sue on the simple premise that "you (the tobacco companies) caused this problem, you should have to fix it". Big Tobacco agreed to settle. They agreed to pay the states $365.5 BILLION dollars, be subject to FDA regulation, add stronger warning labels to cigarette packaging, and restrictions on advertising.

During the last twenty years the culture of smoking in America slowly but surely ceased to exist. Federal laws, State laws, and local ordinances have eliminated smoking in literally all public places. Cigarettes are rarely seen in movies and television programs. The rich, famous, and glamorous are rarely seen smoking. Smoking is simply no longer cool.

Today, we have a culture of guns. Guns are ubiquitous in our movies and television programs. States are passing laws to allow guns in our schools, bars, restaurants, workplaces, and airports. Americans are being shot and killed everyday at rates that challenge the imagination. 

Since 1968, more Americans have been killed by guns than were killed in ALL of America's wars COMBINED. America's combined war dead is 1,171,177. Americans killed by guns since 1968 is 1,384,171.

According to the Washington Post, if a "mass shooting" is defined as 4 or more shot, there were 204 mass shootings in the first 204 days of 2015 in the United States.

That's right. I did not stutter. There have been 204 mass shootings in this country in the first 204 days of this year. http://shootingtracker.com/wiki/Mass_Shootings_in_2015

You might be saying, "but I didn't hear about all those shootings on the news", or "but the President didn't make a speech". You did not read about them because thats just what we do. Thats how we roll. Just go to a movie or turn on your television and you will see what I'm talking about. We have made shooting people cool. Ask any Hollywood "action star". Today's star without his gun is like Humphrey Bogart without his cigarette.

That is how you define "culture".

It took 50 years to change the American attitude and appetite for cigarettes. It will take at least as long to do the same for guns. The war against tobacco was won in the courts, not the US Congress. The same will be required for guns. It is much easier to lobby (buy) a congressman and a senator than a judge and a jury. 

In my lifetime alone, 1,384,171 people were killed by guns on American streets and in American homes. For many of them, your tax money and mine paid for their care, as well as for millions of others that were shot and survived. 

America decided that the death toll from cigarettes was unacceptable. True, the motives of those attorney generals were not entirely noble ($365 billion dollars is an attention-getter).

Nevertheless, when will America tell the gun makers "you created this problem, now you will have to fix it"?

Tobacco smoke kills people.

Gunsmoke does too. 

Don't wait until you're a victim to do something about it.

Appreciating Jimmy Carter

The first bumper sticker I ever put on my car was a “Jimmy Carter for President” sticker. I was a senior in college, he was running against Gerald Ford, who had become President when Richard Nixon resigned. Those were the days before I decided I was a Democrat.

In fact, I had voted for Nixon in the previous election in 1972. It took me a little time to decide to support the peanut-farming governor from Georgia. Instinctively, I had doubts about a governor whose lieutenant governor was the avowed segregationist Lester Maddox. But there was something different about this guy with the “Pepsodent” smile. The more I listened to him, the more I came to appreciate a fundamental honesty, sincerity, and pragmatism that was severely lacking in other politicians. Even then, I felt that this was someone whom I could trust.

There are many people in America that consider themselves Christians (70% according to the Huffington Post). A relative few however, live the kind of life that justifies the title. Jimmy Carter has. I don’t know a lot of people that “do unto others, as they would have others do unto them”, EVERYDAY. I can’t imagine Jesus Christ insisting that every person in America should have unlimited access to any kind of gun they might desire, (like so many of his critics do). Somehow, I can picture a modern day Jesus negotiating peace among warring nations (like he does), building homes for those without housing all over the world (like he does), and advocating healthcare for everybody (like he does). I can literally see Jesus Christ teaching Sunday School in a little-bitty church in Georgia every Sunday morning (like he does). And, I can imagine people travelling from all over the world and sleeping in front of the church to attend one of those Sunday School sessions, just like they do in Plains, Georgia today.

On Thursday, August 20, 2015, President Jimmy Carter held a press conference in Atlanta, Georgia. He had recently undergone surgery to remove a tumor from his liver. It was determined to be cancerous, and the doctors informed him it had spread to his brain. During his press conference, he said that at first he thought he had only a few weeks left to live, but surprisingly, he felt at ease. Who among us could face such a diagnosis with such grace and good humor? The 90 year-old former President said “I have had a wonderful life…. I’m ready for anything and I’m looking forward to new adventure”. With his trademark smile, he would simply say, “It is in the hands of God, whom I worship”. I was inspired by his faith, and reminded of my own.

Some of today’s politicians like to make fun of President Carter and his presidency. Many of them spend a lot of time espousing their own Christianity. They don’t mention Carter was the first evangelical Christian elected President. They don’t mention his extensive knowledge of nuclear physics or his service as a senior officer on America’s second nuclear submarine (most of his critics never served at all). They never talk about the 28 books he has written, the peace treaty he brokered between Egypt and Israel, or his Nobel Peace Prize. Nobody ever mentions the promise he made (and kept) to the American people. He told us he would never lie to us, and after Richard Nixon, that was a hell of a promise. Those that like to denigrate President Carter, would prefer to deify Ronald Reagan.

In our modern world, it is difficult to imagine an honest, God-fearing, truth-telling, kind, compassionate, incorruptible, humble person running for and winning the Presidency. But that’s what Jimmy Carter was, and that’s what he did.

The consensus among historians when it comes to the Carter presidency is that it was average at best when compared to other administrations. However his post-presidential years have been universally praised. He established the Carter Center in 1982 with the goal of advancing human rights. Since that time he has travelled all over the world brokering peace agreements between nations, serving as an observer to ensure free and fair elections, and working to eradicate infectious diseases in developing nations. He has also become synonymous with “Habitat for Humanity”, physically building homes for the less fortunate in the United States as well as other nations.

When he told the world that he had brain cancer, and mentioned that he had “a wonderful life”, it was an understatement. I was so impressed by his total lack of self-pity. I was so encouraged by his light-heartedness. What remarkable faith must be required to face one’s impending demise in such a way. What a testament to one’s own faith in the way a life has been lived. As I sat and watched him laugh and joke with the reporters, yet expressing in intimate detail the seriousness of the situation, I was inspired to be able to live my own life that way, to be able to face my own death in the same way.

When I put that bumper sticker on my car in 1976, the green and white sticker promoting “Jimmy Carter for President”, I did not know what kind of man he really was. There was just something about him, something that made me believe that he would do the right thing. I have never put another bumper sticker on a car.

I probably never will.

Auburn vs Alabama

I think I was five years old, and the year was 1958. I was living with my family on Finley Avenue in Birmingham Alabama. The duplex apartment was not far from Legion Field, which had been the scene of the annual “Iron Bowl” football game between Auburn’s Tigers and Alabama’s Crimson Tide since the two schools had resumed diplomatic relations and agreed to play each other again after a 41 year dispute. It was only at the behest of the state legislature in 1948 did the games resume. It was sometime during that year that I decided that I preferred the orange and blue of Auburn over the red and white of Alabama.

Yes, it is true, they start us young in Alabama.

As the years went by and my awareness of the world around me increased, other things solidified my allegiance to the War Eagles of Auburn. Alabama’s head coach at the time was the iconic and legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant. Auburn’s coach was the soft-spoken and gentlemanly Ralph “Shug” Jordan. They were a study in contrast. Coach Bryant was a big, tall, hulk of a man. Mean, gruff, intimidating, he was a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, winner whose voice sounded like a growling bear. On the other hand, Coach Jordan was a southern gentleman right out of central casting. He looked more like a preacher than a football coach. Instinctively, I preferred Coach Jordan.

Auburn won the National Championship in 1957 under Coach Jordan. In 1958, Alabama responded and hired Bear Bryant. From 1959 until 1968, Alabama would defeat Auburn nine times out of ten. Bryant would go on to win Six National Championships and Thirteen Southeastern Conference (SEC) championships. By the time he retired in 1982, he had won more football games (323) than any college coach in history. But to me, Bear was a bully, and I would rather beat a bully than follow one. So, score another one for Auburn. All of my life Auburn has been considered the underdog in the state, and I identify with underdogs. I have no doubt that I experience ten times the joy when Auburn beats Bama, than a Bama fan gets from beating us.

Most people assume that the game was played in Birmingham for so many years because it was a “neutral site”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Birmingham is less than an hour’s drive from the Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa. The critical mass of Alabama fans and alumni live in Birmingham. Up until the turn of the century, Alabama played the majority of its “home” games in Birmingham. Alabama simply felt it was beneath their dignity to travel to Auburn, and because of the power of their alumni in state commerce and government, they were able to continue this indignity until 1989, when the simple fairness and equality of a home and home rotation was agreed to.

Alabama has had a long and illustrious history in college football. They are one of, if not THE most honored and respected programs in the country. BUT, Alabama has had only three (3) Black starting quarterbacks in its entire history. They are Walter Lewis, Andrew Zow, and last year’s starter, Blake Sims. Auburn has had eleven (11), including Charles Thomas, Pat Washington, Reggie Slack, Dameyune Craig, Jason Campbell, Kodi Burns, Cam Newton, Kiehl Frazier, Jonathan Wallace, Nick Marshall, and Jeremy Johnson. What’s up with that?

Of course, the time that I spent at Auburn as a student cemented my allegiance to the school. When I attended Auburn in the early 70’s I was one of approximately 350 Black students at the school. The total enrollment at the time exceeded 17,500. Nevertheless we did not become lost in that sea of humanity. We were allowed to be ourselves, express ourselves. We were granted an opportunity to learn and grow. We were not subjected to endless confederate imagery. We were free to study what was interesting and relevant to us, and to enjoy a social life that was not foreign to us. We were given access to opportunities for professional and cultural advancement as well as access to positions of leadership and authority. And every once in a while, we would beat Alabama.

December 2, 1989 is a day I will never forget. For most of my life it had been hard to imagine that Auburn would play Alabama on our campus, in our own Jordan-Hare stadium. All of us knew that if that day ever came, there was no way in hell that we would lose that game. That game was played in front of the largest crowd ever to watch the game live. Alabama came to town undefeated, but it didn’t matter. We beat them 30-20, and shared the SEC Championship that year with the Tide and Tennessee. Most people don’t realize it, but since that day, Auburn actually has the better record in the series. When the games were played only in Birmingham (Alabama’s pseudo home field) Alabama lead the series 34-18. Since then, Auburn leads the series in Tuscaloosa 7-3, and in Auburn, we lead the series 8-4.

Equality and fairness is a wonderful thing.

Former Auburn coach Pat Dye once said that the difference between Alabama people and Auburn people is simple, “Alabama people love Alabama football, but Auburn people love Auburn”.

I love Auburn. Even if my brother did go to Alabama.   

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

The President of the United States believes that it would be a really good idea if all of America’s police were provided body cameras and were required to use them. I do too. I suspect that many Americans are beginning to feel the same way. During the past year there have been numerous episodes of police misconduct that was captured on cell phone video, or by cameras being used by the police officers themselves, that have profoundly changed the tone of the conversation when it comes to how the nation’s police often act when dealing with minority citizens. This video evidence, appalling and disgusting as it often is, does not surprise me, nor does it surprise most African Americans. Most of us have seen this type of behavior. Some of us have experienced it personally. We have reported it, and complained about it. Many white people however, found the stories hard to believe. When faced with believing us or the trained police officers that had sworn an oath to protect and serve, well, we lost. Besides, the police did not act like that with them.

But, during this past year, a change occurred. Something is happening in the minds of many white Americans. It is hard to dispute what we see with our own eyes, what we hear with our own ears. Let’s go to the video tape;

On July 19, 2015, a Cincinnati police officer shot and killed Samuel Dubose in the head while he was sitting in his car. Mr. Dubose was not obstinate or belligerent, he was not threatening. He was stopped for not having a license tag on the front of his car. America and the world saw and heard it all, thanks to the officer's body cam.

On July 10, 2015, a Texas State Trooper stopped Sandra Bland. Her mistake was changing lanes without turning on her turn signal. The trooper got angry when she refused to put out a cigarette, threatened her with a stun gun, ordered her out of the car, wrestled her to the ground, handcuffed her and took her to jail. A few days later she was found dead in her jail cell. The officer’s dash-cam and a bystander’s cell phone recorded it all.

On June 5, 2015, McKinney, Texas police were called to a pool party attended by Black teenagers in a gated community. Cell phone video captured one of the police officers pointing a gun at several of the teenagers before grabbing a Black girl in a bathing suit, tackling her, and shoving her face into the ground.

On April 12, 2015, cell phone video allowed the world to see Freddie Gray being arrested and dragged into a Baltimore police van. He was in obvious pain. His legs were not moving. He would die of a spinal injury a week later after being tossed around without a seat belt in that van before arriving at the police station.

On April 4, 2015, in North Charleston, South Carolina, a bystander with a cell phone recorded video of a white police officer shooting Walter L. Scott eight times in the back as he ran away. Scott was not a suspect in any crime. He was unarmed. He had been pulled over for a traffic violation. He died on the scene.

On November 22, 2014, In Cleveland, Ohio, 12 year old Tamir Rice was playing with a toy gun in a public park. A white police officer arrived, got out of his cruiser and immediately shot the Black boy twice from point blank range, killing him. Surveillance video captured it all.

On August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, cell phone video shows Michael Brown, an 18 year old Black teenager lying in the middle of the street for hours after he was shot and killed by a white police officer. He was unarmed.

On July 17, 2014, in Staten Island, New York, several police officers tried to arrest Eric Garner for selling illegal cigarettes. Mr. Garner was wrestled to the ground, placed in a chokehold, and strangled to death. A friend’s cell phone recorded it all.

It would be foolish for anyone to think that these types of crimes only began in the last two years. What is different today is that we now have the ways and means not only to record these atrocities, but to independently broadcast the evidence to the world ourselves. A police officer can falsify an official report of an arrest and a suspect being killed in the process, but actual video and audio of the actual events cannot be disputed. That is the brilliance in what the President wants to do.

Obviously, he could never say it, but I am confident that as a Black man from Chicago, and with the intellectual prowess that he possesses, President Obama doesn’t trust the police any more than the average Black person. Of course, the question, as always, is what are you going to do about it?

Mandatory video just might be the answer.

On December 20, 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer delivered a speech at the Williams Institutional CME Church in Harlem, New York. During that speech, she said the following;

“…..Quit saying that we are free in America when I know we are not free. You are not free in Harlem. The people are not free in Chicago, because I’ve been there too. They are not free in Philadelphia, because I’ve been there too. And when you get it over with all the way around, some of the places is a Mississippi in disguise. And we want a change…..” “For three hundred years, we’ve given them time. And I’ve been tired so long, now I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we want a change.”

I’m sick and tired, of being sick and tired.   

The Sin of Doubt

I hope that to sometimes doubt the teachings of world religions is a pardonable sin. I am inclined to believe it is. If by chance it isn’t, all of us are doomed to eternal damnation. Too often I am overwhelmed with doubt when I think of the pain and suffering so many people all over the world endure each day. Too often I doubt that anything can or will be done about it. There are times when the grief from the loss of a loved one is incredibly painful, and the temptation to wonder if the salvation that we read about, and the resurrection the preachers preach about is really, really there. Over and over again, I have retreated to my reservoir of faith, and yes, I have wondered if someday I will go there and find it empty.

Who among us have not wondered if God is really there? Surely, at least once in your life, you have wondered if the atheists are right, and all that we behold is some kind of crazy cosmic coincidence. Did somebody make it all up to explain the unexplainable? Do we need religion to maintain our mental health when those we love die? Do we need it to justify and enforce our preferred standards of social and moral conduct?

I recently read a book called “Who’s Who in the Bible”. It was produced by National Geographic and is a beautiful, leather-bound volume that is the best explanation of what is going on in the bible that I have ever seen. It explains the events chronologically, provides excellent maps to pinpoint geographically where events took place, provides biographical information for major characters, and provides a historical context that allows the reader to understand the culture of the times in which the events took place. I have been going to church since the day I was born. Despite all of the sermons, bible studies, prayer meetings, and casual discussions with friends, I was never aware of the tales of violence, sex, deception, indiscretion, conniving, conspiracy, and outright evil-doing that can be found throughout this incredible book. The reality is that the people depicted in the bible were very similar to us. They had similar fears and desires, the same vices and virtues, they lived and they died, loved and fought wars, just as we do. They too, had their doubts.

Samuel Johnson once said that “Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven’t courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.” It takes great courage to have faith in God when you are consumed by grief. Only courage brings one back from the precipice of surrender. It takes courage to recover from a broken heart. Courage allows us to march on when faced with fear and despair.

What I have come to realize is that faith cannot erase all doubt. Perhaps it is a good thing that it does not. Most educators would agree that doubt is the foundation of inquiry, which is the foundation of learning. On the other hand, ignorance is fed by certainty, and that very lack of doubt creates the intolerance that causes so many of the problems in our modern society.

One of the questions that I have struggled with for most of my life remains unanswered. I have always wondered if Christianity is the only pathway to salvation, to resurrection, to heaven…. Then what happened to all of the good people that lived and died before the birth of Jesus Christ? What about all of the people that lived and died on the other side of the world and were not aware of the Christian movement at all? What about the countless good people of the world that are and were faithful practitioners of other religions?

As Jesus was being crucified on the Cross, he is believed to have cried out in anguish, “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?” I have always wondered if Jesus himself had doubt. Why didn’t he smile? Why didn’t he calmly anticipate the heavenly reward he was surely due for the life he had led on earth?

If doubt is a sin, I am guilty.  

But who among us can legitimately claim to understand it all? If our intellect is finite, how can it hope to comprehend the infinitesimal? Every time I find myself attending the funeral of someone I love, I search for comfort in the mysticism of it all.

Now, I realize that I really don’t have to figure it out. I will find out soon enough.

The Power of Martyrdom

When Dylann Roof walked into the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina he had no idea that what he was about to do would result in the demonization of the symbols of the Confederacy that he held so dear. Not in his wildest dreams did he think that his actions alone would create a national conversation that would eventually remove the confederate battle flag from the state capitol grounds in Columbia, South Carolina and Montgomery, Alabama, the license plates of Virginia, Texas, Alabama, and Georgia, as well as remove the emblem from the state flag of Mississippi. I am sure he had no idea that within days, anything with the battle flag on it would be impossible to buy at Wal-Mart, Sears, Amazon, Target, or E-Bay. I am sure that he had no idea that with his singular, incredibly evil act he would do more to illuminate the true purpose of the Civil War than all of America’s schools have been able to do. Surely, he had no idea that he would bring all of God’s children, Blacks and whites, Jews and Gentiles, Protestant and Catholic, Democrat and Republican, together to a table of brotherhood and mutual respect.

Rev. Clementa Pinckney, State Senator. Ms. Cynthia Hurd, Librarian. Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Speech Therapist and Girl’s track coach. Mr. Tywanza Sanders, recent graduate of Allen University. Ms. Ethel Lance, seventy-year-old member of Emanuel AME, served as church sexton for more than 30 years. Ms. Susie Jackson, 87-year-old member of Emanuel AME, choir member and usher. Ms. DePayne Middleton Doctor, retired Charleston County Director of the Community Development Block Grant Program. Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr. 74-year-old retired pastor, member of Emanuel AME ministerial staff. Ms. Myra Thompson, 59-year-old wife of a local minister. They are all dead. They were murdered on Wednesday night while attending bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. They have become martyrs, known all over the world.

On June 23, 1963, fifty-two years ago yesterday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made a speech in Detroit, Michigan in which he said, “A man who hasn’t found something he is willing to die for is not fit to live”. Later that year, Dr. King would deliver the eulogy for three of the four little girls that died when another church was desecrated by the act of those poisoned by racism. The 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was bombed on a Sunday morning by the ku klux klan. The deaths were an awakening for white America. “Conservative” politicians declined to defend the indefensible, and in 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed, and the laws that mandated racial segregation and discrimination came to an end.

In 1965, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Rev. James Reeb, and Viola Liuzzo gave the “last full measure of devotion”. The march from Selma to Montgomery was sanctioned and protected by the federal government, and the Voting Rights Act was passed. As a result, one hundred years after its passage in the aftermath of the Civil War, the promise of the 14^th and 15^th amendments would be fulfilled, Blacks would finally be allowed to vote, and true citizenship for African Americans would at last become an American reality.

Dr. King himself would pay the price in 1968. His martyrdom would silence his many critics, and secure his place as an American hero. He would take his place beside Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin Roosevelt on the National Mall. His birthday would become a national holiday, and his legacy would continue to advance the cause of freedom and equality all over the world thru the present day.

The power of symbolism cannot be underestimated. The Nazi’s recognized this power, and the swastika and what it means was and remains unmistakable to this day. The Stars and Stripes of the United States is a beacon of hope and symbol of freedom all over the world. The Cross is the universal symbol of Christianity. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the essence of Christianity, and the martyrdom of Christ and its effect on the world is unequaled.

It is very likely that the nine people that died at Emanuel AME Church had no desire to be martyrs. Like most of us they wanted to live, and enjoy their lives as long as possible. But I am confident that all of them, if they knew that that day, would be their last day, would hope that their living, their lives, would not be in vain. I am sure that if they knew that their blood would be sacrificed on the floor of their place of worship, they would want something good to come from it. As natives of the South, it is unlikely they would have imagined the response from the people of Charleston, America, and the world.

Something momentous is happening in the old Confederacy. Eyes have been opened, hearts have been touched, and minds have been changed. The racists are embarrassed and searching for excuses and reasons for being. Love, respect, understanding, and brotherhood is winning. The blood sacrifice of Mother Emanuel is generating mass empathy all over the South.

“A man who hasn’t found something worth dying for, isn’t fit to live”. Dr. King’s statement is one that all of us should take some time to think about.    

Freddie's Dead

In the aftermath of the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, I would watch the television coverage anxiously. During the days when the city was under the curfew that had been imposed by the mayor, and was being enforced by legions of imported police officers, including the Maryland National Guard, I would grow more and more nervous as the hour for everyone to be off the streets approached. Each night I would silently pray that the citizens of the city would go home. I silently cursed the hundreds of reporters, camera men, and photographers that seemed to outnumber the citizens on the streets. It seemed as if they were hoping for something to go wrong, something sensational to photograph and report. Some seemed disappointed when it didn’t happen. I have no doubt that their ubiquitous presence was an irresistible temptation for those that were the last to leave the streets each night. The desire for even momentary fame is almost a universal desire for many young Americans. We are drawn to television lights like moths to a flame.

I was one of the many that breathed a sigh of relief when the police officers involved in Mr. Gray’s death were charged with various crimes related to his death. I have no doubt that the charges contributed to the détente in the streets. I am willing to accept the results of their trials. If the citizens of Baltimore that sit as their jurors find one, some, or all of them innocent, so be it. But they had to be charged.

 I never thought about what the police might do in response to those charges.

According to the Washington Post, USA Today, ABC News, The Guardian, and several other news outlets, May was the bloodiest month in Baltimore since December of 1971. The city had 43 homicides in May, 2015. In December, 1971 it had 44. In 1971 the city had 900,000 residents. Today it has 600,000 residents, (a third less). Since January of this year there have been 116 homicides. Most of the killings have occurred in the same west Baltimore area that was the epicenter of the recent riots.

One Baltimore police officer was recently interviewed on Fox News with his face and voice disguised. According to him, the citizens in west Baltimore wanted less of a police presence, and “that’s exactly what they are getting”. According to him, the police are acting in unison because they are angry about the charges against the six officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray. The facts support what the officer said. A Baltimore TV station, WBAL, reported that there has been a 32% drop in arrests since the curfew, and the homicide rate is up 40% over last year. Apparently, their duty to “protect and serve” only applies if they are not to be accountable for breaking the law themselves.

The most violent month in the history of Baltimore occurred in August, 1972, when the city suffered from 45 homicides.  That same year, Curtis Mayfield released the soundtrack for the movie “SuperFly”. One of the songs from the album was called “Freddie’s Dead”. The lyrics included the following;

“Why can’t we brothers, protect one another?

No one serious, and it makes me furious

Don’t be misled, just think of Fred,

Cause Freddie’s dead”

The psychological, sociological, and economical reasons that young Black men are conducting this intractable war against themselves is debatable. But a “War” is exactly what it is. The casualty rate is unacceptable. The collateral damage is affecting the women and children that live in the war zones all over America. For the moment, the national media hordes have left to seek out more sensational opportunities to increase their ratings.

 Fortunately,??? recent events have inspired certain media outlets to at least count the casualties.

The challenges facing the leaders of Baltimore are similar to those facing the leaders of Chicago, Birmingham, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and many other cities. The lack of national media coverage does not mean that the urgency is less. People are still dying, violently, needlessly, every day. Women are still being widowed, children are losing parents, mothers and fathers are grieving. Something must be done. The status quo is not sustainable. There is nothing more important than stopping this daily, violent loss of life. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is present not only among the veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is also present among the men, women, and children that live in America’s urban war zones.

Curtis Mayfield was right. In Baltimore, the police peacekeepers have withdrawn from the battlefield. It’s going to be up to the brothers to protect one another.