Them Cracked Old Boots

These boots, cracking from the ware and tear. The daily rigors of coming and going.

The old lady tells me, "Boy throw them raggedy boots out honey. You make enough money to buy you some mo'."

I know she means well, but there are history in these boots.

My grandpa used these boots in the field, picking cotton for the white man. Keeping a smile on his face, hiding the emotions that cannot escape.

These boots kept him grounded, when the ground started breaking. Knees started shaking, holding the heavy hold of the family as we was property to the land, property to the white man.

Then one day, these same boots, warn out gave him courage.

They whispered to his feet and the words traveled through his nerves, all the way up to his brain. It got his cognitive thinking all wired up.

Them boots said, "Run Earnest run as fast you can. Don't let them white men catch you black man. Run!"

And without hesitation, the part in his brain that controls his action, told his feet to move. Told him to plan an escape for his family.

As they run, the shouts got louder. Sounded like praise, but yet it was thunder. The lights shone on them as they made the brave adventure.

"Run Earnest run as fast as you can. Don't let them white men catch you black man. Run!"

As hard as he tried and as hard as the boots wanted to carry them, they couldn't.

What caught him were seven bullets to the back and some to the legs, as blood slid down and turned the once dark brown boots to that with a pool of crimson stained on them.

The family screamed and you could hear my kinfolk from miles away. My father ten at the time in the year 1867 was fond of them boots.

He too hear the same but with a different name.

"Run Wilbur run as fast as you can. Don't let them white men catch you black man. Run!"

My grandpa wore no boots to his funeral. As he laid in the ground, my father wore them boots in homage. Didn't bother to clean them, this ten - year - old boy was on a mission to - RUN!

The new man of the house at a young age. Incapable of allowing the rivers of emotion to escape, he was the back bone. The glue, the manuscript of how to run.

"Ain't no time to cry, have to run yo race. When you cry, they gonna take yo strent, the white man gonna steal yo pride." My father would constantly echo daily then he would go into his sermon lectures, preparing our little black minds for the world that does not want us.

I still remember the day and can even recall the hour when I last saw my dad walking out the house to work in them cracked old, crimson red blood stained boots. 1917 at the age of ten, my sixty year old father, took a trip.

Kissing our mama in her white sun dress, he tipped his fedora to us as he departed. Us ten kids, age 4 to 19 ran outside to wave good bye.

As the hours went by, we waited. Set the dinner table and left the head seat open for our father. Yet them cracked old boots didn't do no walking. Ain't no boom boom knocking from his heavy fist, followed with the joyous laughter as we his kids got ready to wrestle him.

No... my father was running in them boots. Not away from the problem but to it.

Fire broke out at the steal mill. The fire fighters were coming, but it would take to long. My father from witnessing his, knew how to wear the weight of the family on his back.

Them boots echoed a similar chorus but it was unique.

"Run Wilbur run as fast as you can. Run and save them black and white men, teach them what a hero is. Black as a berry, strong as an oax. Run!"

He did just that, saving twenty of his union. The firefighters came, but the smoke go to my fathers lung and he died from them complications.

The news spoke of a hero, although segregated, my father showed the world what a true hero looks like. What a true black hero looks like.

The funeral came and this barn owl landed right on them boots and looked at me. My siblings gave me the boots.

That owl with them wings taught me more about flying than running. The majestic sweep as it surprises it's prey. These cracked boots do the same.

Now in 1957, I looked at my wife in her ears and she said.

"Sug, I understand I know. But you don't have to run it alone. You're family got them running boots too. We is running together, this civil rights movement is a marathon and we got to keep going.

I smiled as she said that. Kissed her softly with my all black suit and my cracked brown boots caked in smoke and crimson red blood.

Tonight we was going to Ebenezer Baptist Church. Listening to our pastor, a revolutionary leader Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

All of us in that church wearing old boots. Carrying the stories, victories, cries from our ancestors.

We is not running from the white man no mo.' We running to the battle and our character and words gonna do the talking.

Change will come, "I Have A Dream" these cracked boots will keep the faith strong with generations to come.

"Run - run as fast as you can. Run to the battle, them white men can't stop you from standing and fighting. RUN AND DON'T STOP RUNNING!"