I trust that you’re in a better place. If you were here you would be filled with grief and rage. You who spent so much of your life advocating for civil rights and Detroit's Black community that your FBI file described you as "probably Afro Chinese.” You who loved Jimmy Boggs who reminded us that revolutions are made out of love for people and for place because our ancestors' blood is in the soil and because of what we believe our country can become.
You’d be happy to see how so many people are waking up and maybe even engaging in that spiritual transformation you told us we all need to undergo. Your own words capture it uncannily.
“Today’s good news is that Americans in all walks of life have begun to create another America from the ground up in many unforeseen ways. In our bones we sense that this is no ordinary time. It is a time of deep change, not just of social structure and economy but also of ourselves.”
You were a revolutionary and saw signs of it before you passed away five years ago.
“I believe that we are at the point now in the United States where a movement is beginning to emerge. . .demanding that instead of just complaining about these things, or just protesting about these things, we begin to look for, and hope for, another way of living . . . I see hope beginning to trump despair . . . in the many small groups emerging all over the place, to try and regain our humanity in very practical ways.”
You told me you didn’t know what the revolution would look like and challenged me to make my imagination rich enough to imagine it. I feel hope from your encouragement to “never stop believing that we can all be more than what we are.” I remember to live fully today, believing that “Love isn't about what we did yesterday; it's about what we do today and tomorrow and the day after.”