Things Have to Get Worse Before They Get Better

I was sitting at the kitchen table when I heard talk of the news. A black woman on the bus in Alabama had refused to get up and move. The newsboy had told my mama earlier and now my mama told me. She said soon things would change ‘round here and that I would grow up free. When I got to school after the weekend news of the boycott had gotten around. None of my friends were using the buses so we walked home across the town. My friends and I were so excited, wondering if King and Parks could make a change. As we parted ways at each others houses, we promised to walk to school together the next day. In the night I awoke to gunshots, loud like firecrackers near my house. I heard their slurs as they shot, knew I had to be quiet and shut my mouth. Mama ran in my room and held me, while I heard the shrieks going on outside. She promised that things would change but that it would just take time. The next day my friends and I walked to school unnerved and angry about the local news. Two colored boys we knew were shot last night, and from a branch they were strewn. At school we talked to a few boys who were rallying after school. We made a promise to join the movement, to rally and protest with our brothers too. As the months drew on there seemed no end to the tension in the neighborhood. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were rallying and doing the best they could. We had more support than before, but we as a people still felt fettered. Mama told me it always has to get worse before things get better.