Wishing for a happily ever after.
Shania,
USA.
She is tired of all the cooking and cleaning. She just wants to be a normal girl and be free.
Thank You Seretse and Ruth Khama
Charles Jensvold,
Detroit Lakes, MN.
Thanks Seretse and Ruth; Thanks Richard and Mildred Loving and all who preceded us and did the heavy lifting. “When will that great day come, when everyone is one, and there will be no more misery and God tells man he’s really free, R E A L L Y F R E E E”? (Louis Armstrong emotionally singing from Iola and David Brubeck’s Musical – The Real Ambassadors)
Free to live how I want
Megan L Thorne,
Lakeland, GA.
I have white privilege.
Narrow Paths Dirt Roads Soul Soles
Treylieus Curry,
Denton, TX.
Everyone has a story and their road my not be pretty or easy to navigate but the destination is freeingly beautiful.
Mind wide, self-education comes free
Edward Darden
Washington, DC
Every American black person, who succeeds is and was self-educated to a great extent, at least in the beginning. When children are young, the chains around their minds and bodies are able to be broken with a Will to reach farther than what is in front of them. In this way, genius and others simply very good can come from almost nothing because they can generate stepping-stones by imagination. Funds and teacher salaries are good but most essential is never to snuff out the light of curiosity and wonder for the things around them. Some may not accelerate but they will go farther, if around them are others, who do. .
I’ve freed myself from being “N*****”
Lamar Johnson,
Knoxville, TN.
I used to get so upset when someone used N***** to describe me. I then realized that I got upset because I thought of myself as a N*****. When I chose not to believe I was a nigger, I became free of the word and it no longer has an impact on me.
Feel Free to Be Yourself Daily
Fatima Ramirez,
Sunnyvale, CA.
Live your life as much as you want without hurting others. Feel free to be yourself without imitating others.
Until you’re free, I’m not free.
Adam Flowers,
Submitted via Twitter: @AdamFlowers.
Education will free humanity from differences
Karolina Krajewska,
Hardwood Heights, IL.
I read your article in National Geographic about a month ago. The white people are mad about the demographic changes and they are responsible for that. Young white woman is on contraceptives and is told to go to work. I have 4 kids and often people ask me where do I work. To raise kids in America is hard, 24/7 work and no pay, no help. We are really poor because I don’t work outside my house. I wish that would change.
Heart isn’t racist false accusations anger
Kevin Antonelli,
Vienna, NJ.
I remember the riots of the 1960’s yet at the time as a young child didn’t know the reason behind them or what was going on in the world. I was raised by an Archie Bunker and lived in a W.A.S.P. town with one black family. I was a racist but didn’t know why- it just was.
Then I entered the Army and a Black man, Willie, saved my life. I lived with, were brothers with those that were different than me and it shed new light about my fellow human beings. I then worked for a company that secretly practiced discrimination and I was torn between keeping my job and my beliefs that if they qualified for an apt just like a white man did they should have the right to housing.
All through my life I personally tried to do what I could to make a difference in how I treated black at the same time somehow how i was raised was still somewhere influencing me. But then at the same time, I resented the black community calling me racists without knowing who I am but just because I was white I must automatically be a racist. I personally do not believe anyone is better than the next person regardless of the circumstances– and I resent when people act as if they are- regardless of their race. I was passed up for a promotion to Sergeant in the Army because the other guy was black and I was told that outright.
I had nothing against the other man- he was my brother, I had his back he had mine- but he was not better than me. When Obama became President, although I did not vote for him not because he was black but because I didn’t support his political views–i still felt how wonderful it was that this country has come so far as to elect a black person President. BUT then by his actions and those of his wife, those actions of some of his administration such as Eric Holder- in their efforts to make a difference in the black mans lives– they alienated me as an American just because I was white. They themselves demonstrated themselves to be racists and I resent that. I believe that President Obama, his wife and others have created the division that we see in the US now and that although they tried to do good- they brought this country backwards and in the end– did not benefit the people they tried to help
I am grace, power and inextinguishable
Ryan Brooke Taylor,
New York City, NY.
Collected from: WITNESS: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties at The Brooklyn Museum
My experience as a black male artist is directly related to the sacrifices and gains made by those who participated, in any and every way in the civil rights movement. They have made me free.
I’m simply a Black male Actor carving out my life in America.
I believe that who I am as a person; my integrity, my ethics, my humanity, these aspects of self are reflected in Everything I do.
Right now I have the honor of being in a wonderful production of Tracey Letts’s “Superior Donuts”. A play about race, class, and the american dream as played out in the gentrifying neighborhood of north- side Chicago.
To me, living a conscious life today is a revolutionary act. My existence as a Black, Gay, working Artist is in itself a Politic. It’s seems to me that the important questions are: What kind of neighbor am I? What hind of partner am I? What kind of citizen am I? What kind of artist am I? What kind of human being am I?
And the answers lie not in what I think and even less in what I say, but in what I do.
Being White, I generally walk freely
Jennifer F Taylor,
Arcata, CA.
Excellent work with enjoyable discussions on NPR…. Thank you Michele!
I am free, to be myself
Marco Spisso,
Rochester, NY.
No matter who you are it is ok to be that person. Everyone is free to be themselves no matter what society has to say.
White: Walk Free– Black: We’ll See
Laurence Barry
North Attleboro, MA
The above is a reference to our double-standard justice system.
Male, Muscician, White, Strong, Free, American
Michael Ware,
Sacramento, CA.
Being a white blues musician in Sacramento, I’ve had the opportunity to meet all kinds of folk. I don’t see color, if somebody can play, they can play, no reason to judge them on anything else
Free Black since at least 1820
Sherryl N Weston,
Denver, CO.
I was an adult before we learned the full scope of my mother’s complete ancestry story. Timbuctoo, NJ was co-founded by my 5-generations ago grandfather. Looks like he was a part of the 1860 Battle of Pine Swamp, where the residents beat the tar out of slave catchers who had come to capture one of the town residents. The problem with the following link is that the story is told as if this was “discovered” (was it Columbused?), when, in fact, my family has owned the land since those days, now three centuries ago. The land that is referred to in this piece is not separate from my mother’s property. Her land is a part of what is Timbuctoo (GPS it) and we have to documents to prove it. Once academia or media makes something public, it changes the narrative, based on the limitations of those individual’s understanding. Isn’t that the problem that Blacks have always had? My heritage is part of a mixed race, free Black story that goes far beyond this clip. We are into the late 1700s in the search down the maternal side of my matrilineal line and haven’t found a slave yet. Now as then, we are not allowed to be all we can be and my life work has become a part of making changes to that bind. It’s said that history becomes the story of the winners, My family is an example of how true it is that we African Americans are more than even WE realize…
We all need love, so love
Givongi Bazile Love,
Gramercy, LA.
Just want to be free, in mind, in spirit in the physical!
