05/07/2024
A Reflection on July 4, 2024:
I am posting this photo of my father Cisroe Pearson, juxtaposed with the flag of the United States of America because the composition captures the dichotomy of his existence as an American citizen. He was born in this country in 1905. He grew up in the segregated south, last hired, first fired, using colored water fountains, restrooms and riding in the back of the Twin City Bus. He was an incessant reader, artist, and critical thinker.
He bought a two room burnt out shell of a house (purchased from an African American developer) and rebuilt it into a seven room home for his family. He worked at a lumber mill to support his family. As a master carpenter, he built multiple houses throughout our hometown. He and my mother paid the loan on that house, bought a car and paid it off, and provided a safe warm invigorating life for me in our segregated town. He gave me a single message, "I could be anything I wanted to be. I just had to work hard." I never heard from him that I was inferior. I never heard that there would be limits on who or what I could be. It was understood that I was going to college. He died my Freshman year of college on September 28, 1970. Upon his death, I received a Social Security check from his earnings for the four years I attended college.
In the same country where there were laws designed to restrict him, he built a life. He did not just exist. He built a life. He dreamed for himself and for me. In the same country where laws were designed to restrict him, Social Security supported my receiving a college degree as an African American student at a predominately White institution. I made lifelong friends with several White professors at that institution. Living within this dichotomy, God has blessed me to thrive as well.
That is the complexity of being an American of African dissent on July 4, 2024 in the United States of America. Both opposition and opportunity co-exist in my life. I acknowledge both truths. There were systems designed to hinder my development and, simultaneously, systems designed to support my development. Through it all, God has guided and kept me and my family. The complexity of it all defies labels such as liberal and conservative. Democratic and Republican don't even come close to defining the true nature of this nation. Sound bites and shrill voices don't do it justice. It's complex.
,edd
