This morning I am in Norfolk, Virginia attending the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Conference. I woke up thinking about Nolan Wells, Black children, racial violence, and the great literary icon James Baldwin.
In 1963 after four girls were murdered in the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, Baldwin stood before a Black audience in New York and said: “It is time to let the nation know that the death of my child… cannot be met by sending down a commission to find out what happened. We know what happened.”
We know what happened.
Sit with those words, Y’all. Let them circulate through your blood. That was 1963. And 63 years later, here were are again and we * still *know.
Baldwin was telling us that Black folks were raising children in a racist system that makes dead children possible without threatening the moral legitimacy of the nation itself. Nolan Wells, another Black child is dead. Another set of Black parents are left with questions. Black America has to once again hear “no criminal charges,” nothing here to see, go home, continue your lives with all that terrible ache and grief.
At some point, Black folks need to understand that the repetition of Black death is evidence. And more importantly, in this audio piece I want us to consider a harder question: Why do we keep behaving as though we are not living in a country with the historical habits of a serial killer and then acting shocked every time another Black family receives the phone call? When will we start radically protecting and fortifying our children against this country’s inherited and irreparable instincts.
Come sit down with me and listen . . .
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THIS CONTENT IS WRITTEN IN THE AUTHOR’S PERSONAL CAPACITY. ANY OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE THE AUTHOR’S OWN AND SHOULD NOT BE ATTRIBUTED TO HOWARD UNIVERSITY OR MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY.
