Under the baobab: Fight for democracy isn’t over, but transformative times show how far we’ve come
I came into wardrobe dressing area of the Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta preparing to film one of his TV series, “All the Queen’s Men.” I was emotionally overwhelmed.
I had just been chauffeured through the Black-owned TPS grounds, the largest and most exquisite film studio in the country. I had just passed through Atlanta, the fastest growing international city in America, which is primarily Black managed. We are all living in a country that has a woman of color as vice president. In these transformative times, women of color are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, producers of film, TV and Broadway shows and president of Penn State University. Solange, Beyonce’s sister, just became the first African American woman to compose for the New York City Ballet. Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court and former President Jimmy Carter, a prime facilitator of the freedom process that brought about these transformations, is celebrating his 98th birthday.
This is where we are. In that moment, in that room, the spirits of the ancestors cascaded over me like a thunder cloud. My heart exploded and tears flowed. They were not sorrowful tears but tears of joy. I recall from whence we came. I recollect not just my own arduous journey, but our trek as a country, and our passage as a people through dark days of enslavement, lynching, state sponsored repression, and the degradation of being treated like something less than human.
In my heart I have walked through the woods with Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and thousands of others escaping enslavement. I have struggled with the nearly 200,000 former enslaved people who fought for our freedom as Union troops in the Civil War including my great-great grandfather Curtis McKenzie. I have crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge with John Lewis and walked the streets of Birmingham with King, Jackson, Mississippi with Bob Moses, Atlanta with Andy Young, New York with Shirley Chisholm, and Atlantic City with Fannie Lou Hamer.
In fear I crouched with Jimmy, Andy and Mickey while yet maintaining dignity and commitment to the cause. I stood with Emmett Till and died with him too. I marched in Washington in 1963, 1988, 2013 and 2017. If it’s necessary to defend freedom and democracy, I will march again next year and the year after that.
Sisters and brothers, our struggle for democracy has not been easy and it is not over. But as King said, the arc of the universe still bends toward justice. Democracy is a diamond formed by the pressure of righteous struggle and polished in the blood of martyrs.
Around town
Locally the Community Oversight Board (COB) held its first public informational meeting. Created in 2021 by the State College Borough Council, COB provides oversight of the State College Police Department, helping to ensure that everyone who lives, works, studies in, or visits State College may live safely and experience equitable treatment in their interactions with the police. One of the goals of the COB is to create an environment that allows for better communication, understanding and relations between the SCPD and the community.
COB provides a forum for a complainant to be heard and provides a protocol for their support and facilitates their ability to make choices while maintaining confidentiality and expediting complaint resolution.
The board, chaired by Prof. Cynthia Young, includes Jocelyn Anderson, Kate Heinzel, Loretta Jeffreys, Robyn Lawler, Ron Madrid, vice-chair Barrett Marshall, Vilmos Misangyi and Chuck Noll. COB website is: statecollegepa.us/745/Community-Oversight-Board.
On Friday the PSU School of Theatre opened “Metamorphoses,” written by Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman and directed by Sam Osheroff. And congrats to Hillary (Ward) Torchiana, 2006 State College High School grad, for making it to the TV rounds of “The Voice.”
G’mar chatima tova.