I came home from work and instead of the usual puddle of piss in my doorway, there was a dead rat. It was the size of a cat and laid in state on a white paper plate; a message from the dealers, steerers, and lookouts who sat on stoops and lounged in tenement doorways on First Street; a drug supermarket where cars with Jersey plates and dudes in ragged sneakers came to cop. It was the eighties.

There were drugs on the block when I moved there five years before after serving every day of a three-year sentence at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary for the minor crime of passing bad checks and the major crime of being a smart-ass New York ni****r. Drugs on the block did not matter. What mattered was my ground floor loft, a former hippie belt factory more than twice the size of the railroad apartments upstairs. The rent was two-fifty a month and there was no heat, electricity, or plumbing when I moved in. A broken toilet in the middle of the floor was all that remained. With my overtime, I could make it a dream apartment. My arrogance had gotten me a job at a bigtime Wall Street law firm, where I worked sixty, seventy, sometimes eighty hours a week on deals worth billions. Every day I locked horns with biggety Harvard and Yale lawyers who decided I was a revolutionary.

After five years I knew my neighbors well enough to nod hello. My front door opened to the sidewalk and I did not have to enter the building with the weekend one-night stands from gay bars in the West Village.

Knock on Wood

Join the Democrats Abroad Global Black Caucus (GBC) Get Out The Vote (GOTV) Team - Helping to Achieve High Record-Breaking Voter Turnout in the US 2020 Elections.

Our goal is to reach every African American living outside of the US and Allies who are not current members of Democrats Abroad. We will help them register to vote and request their absentee ballots via votefromabroad.org and encourage them to return their ballots for the November 2020 elections.

We will encourage them to become active members of Democrats Abroad.

We will encourage them to perform GOTV efforts within their communities, networks, and alliances in the US.

Use the script before to help you make a short video.

Right now Democrats Abroad- Global Black Caucus is ramping up our voter registration and get out the vote efforts as we get closer to November. We want to make sure that every African American and ally living abroad has the opportunity to vote, and we need your help!

We are asking Americans living abroad to sign up to help us make GOTV videos to share on our social media channels. We also need people who would love to have conversations with us on Facebook Live about voting as an American living overseas.  If you are interested, please sign-up here and we will send you further instructions: https://forms.gle/Cxvz2sntmeva36A29

The following NAACP scholarships are now open:

1-   The Agnes Jones Jackson Scholarship

• Applicant must be a current member of the NAACP
• Scholarship amount: twenty (20) to forty (40) scholarships available. Maximum scholarship amount is $2,000.00.

2-   The Hubertus W.V. Willems Scholarship for male students

• Applicant must be a male majoring in one of the following fields: Engineering, Chemistry, Physics or Mathematical Sciences.
• NAACP membership and participation are highly desirable.
• Scholarship amount: twenty (20) to forty (40) Scholarships available.
• Maximum scholarship award is $3,000.00.

3-   The James Weldon Johnson Scholarship of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity

• Applicant must compose a 500-750 word essay that addresses how the life and legacy of James Weldon Johnson has impacted them, OR
• Compose a 500 – 750-word analysis of “Lift Every Voice and Sing”,
• Scholarship amount: seven (7) scholarships worth $3,000 each, available annually.
• One (1) recipient per NAACP region

This poem was written for Juneteenth 2020