Remembering James Baldwin

and Michael Brown

Today, August 2nd, 2024 marks the 100th birthday of the magnificent writer and public figure, James Baldwin. In honor of the occasion I am re-reading an essay, Many Thousands Gone from Notes of a Native Son, a collection of essays written between 1948 and 1955. They are astounding.

A week from now, August 9th will mark the ten year anniversary of young Michael Brown’s brutal murder by a Ferguson police officer in Ferguson, MO. I wrote the following poem in response to Michael Brown’s death in the fall of 2014.

Magnitude

I am a human being, I got a head full of poetry
That mostly lies tangled in a knot
Everyday I pray to God
“Please! Help me straighten something out!”
But he won’t

There’s a mom in Ferguson, South L.A., Baltimore, Israel, Palestine
Each crying for a child that’s gone
Murdered by a viciousness that is an ugly part of us
That we won’t own

I cut out paper dolls – blue for the boys, green for the girls
Each doll marks a child that’s dead
As I try to grasp the magnitude of something that I didn’t do
Or maybe I did

It’s easy to forget just what the purpose is
And pretend we never knew
We betray innocence and fall for handsome ruthlessness
And his deadly kiss

Young Michael Brown is dead with bullet holes in his head
His body left lying in the street
And as the sun dries his blood in the shape of things to come
I turn my head and I weep

I am a human being with a head full of poetry
That mostly lies tangled in a knot
Everyday I pray to God
“Please! Help me straighten something out!”

But he won’t
No, he won’t.
No, he won’t.

Barbi & Mike #1 - tryptich by Karin Bardarson