Amy (“Mother Dear”) and Horace Dickerson Sr. (“Paw-Paw”)
© June 6, 2024, the Griot Poet
History kissed me on the forehead,
And told me to call him “Paw-Paw,”
After I reflexively called him Reverend.
“You married my granddaughter. You’re my
kid now!”
His wife, Amy, said, “Hello, darling. I’m your grandmother,
Mother Dear.”
Both moved me because I had no experience with having living
grandparents.
Both of mine were deceased before my birth.
The history of this reunion started with a story,
Repeated with many African American families,
The patriarch almost lost his life for the audacity of voting.
Assaulted by Klansmen,
Three years before the lynching of Emmitt Till in Mississippi.
The inspiration for the March on Washington, eight years
later.
The cowardly Klansmen’s ancestors dressed in sheets,
Pretending to be malevolent spirits,
Attempting to frighten newly freed citizens from voting,
Helped by Poll Taxes, Constitutional Quizzes, and guessing the
number of soap bubbles.
(They now use repealing parts of the Voting Rights Act,
gerrymandering, voter suppression, and voter purging.)
Paw-Paw was assaulted,
Eleven years before the assassination of a fellow Traveling
Man, Medgar Evers.
Both men understood their assignment from Heaven:
“Very truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat
falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it
produces many seeds.” John 12:24
Left for dead by two ravenous wolves,
Saved by two other men, angels sent from Heaven,
The Worshipful Master understood his assignment.
Despite the protestations of his wife, Amy,
He went out of his threshold the year after his assault to
vote again.
Because some things are [just] worth dying for.
Freedom is one of them.
Ask the Buffalo Soldiers.
Ask the Tuskegee Airmen.
Ask the young men who, 80 years ago, stormed the beaches of
Normandy, France.
Ask Crispus Attucks!
Paw-Paw did not die, thankfully. It was not his time yet.
He entered the pantheon of unsung Civil Rights heroes.
Living long enough to be the history that kissed me on the
forehead.
And I can today; I can tell his spirit,
I have taken the honorific “Paw-Paw” in his memory.
I’m sure Mother Dear is very happy.
“Honoring our heritage,
“Preserving our present,
“While building our future.”
We are their seeds.
Honor them accordingly.
