Emancipation Proclamation of 1863
In the 1970s my life wasn’t easy. You would think with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, things for me would change. But it did not. It was that long ago, only 112 years that the slaves were freed. So think of my life being pulled on both ends, like a rubber band. Whites didn’t like me because of my color. Blacks didn’t like me because I was a nerd. So going to an all-white school in 1975, didn’t help me at all, it hurt me. You know the kind of hurt that is so deeply rooted that when you pull this weed of hurt it grows even larger. My escape from this was music and art. So I drowned myself into the love songs of the last 1970s. Singing groups Like the Temptations, Shalimar, and Earth, Wind and Fire, sang about love that I’ve never known.
This kind of love they sang wasn’t attainable by a 12 year old little boy. What would he knows about this so called thing of love. It those days I would run home crying because I got rocks throw at me. Only to run home to the arms of the bully’s in my neighborhood. This wasn’t a pretty sight for me. Now I understand the term, “Out of the frying pan into the fire.” Being picked on in this way only made me more of an introvert.
The one thing that this tall skinny boy had going for him was his singing. I would get lost for days in my room in the summer singing those same songs that I listen to on the radio. This was my escape from reality. It was one summer when a friend’s sister was playing outside my bedroom window, when she heard me sing. She said, she thought it was a record being played over and over again, until she peaked into the. This was the start of my singing career.
So my best friend in school was a Fender Stratocaster guitar. I carried that guitar everywhere I went. And I played it until my fingers bled. Only to put Band-Aids on the tips of them and play and play and play. To the point that my mother said, “Is there anything else you’re going to do with your life.” I would just answer, “No, I’m going to play in my own band.” She would respond back that I better get an education first. Knowing that school was important to me I would make my way to school to prepare for the kids to pick on me. How would anyone expect to concentrate on school with kids making fun of you? Calling you weird names, like Mr. Stick, paper ears, and other things I refuse to mention.
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