Flag

I voted for Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente.
I never thought I would hang an American flag on my porch.
But when the inauguration started, I had to do something.
When I was in 9th grade I worked in St. Louis in 1954 to desegregate movie theatersas pat of a CORE/NCCJ campaign.
I went to high school in Tennessee where the water fountains at the train station had "Colored Only" signs.
I attended Highlander workshops where civil rights leaders met and strategized on weekends off from high school.
In school we stood up when we sang Dixie at assembly.
The event of the year in Chattanooga was the Cotton Ball where the guys wore Confederate uniforms and the belles wore hoop skirts.

Barack Obama is President of the United States.
I never thought I would see this day.
Watching the crowds fill the Mall, I cried.
Then I rummaged through the blanket chest where this flag was stored. It is made of wool and has 48 stars and lots of moth holes. My parents hung it from our house in Saint Louis every Fourth of July. The only time I ever hung it was for a Paper Tiger show with Conrad Lynn, civil rights activist and lawyer for Puerto Rican Nationalist Don Pedro Albizu Campos.
Albizu Campos went to Harvard too.

**********************
My friend Amina commented:
haha! who'da thunk it
nice that your flag is antique... the only large one I have has 41 holes burned in it and red paint like bloodstains in memory of Amadou Diallo.
The small ones I had were put back on their sticks upside down and last used during the funeral of Shaka Sankofa, outside the US consulate in Amsterdam. Viva Obama!