Death of a President

TIMES CNN http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1919303,00.html

As a student at Crane High School during the first half of the 1960's, I was among the hip & cool, tinted green glasses and short leather jacket wearing crowd.  We were all so cool back then; and what we called "suave & debonair."   It was the beginning of Black People feeling & exercising black racial pride.  The Sun times had written an unflattering article about our studentbody with many photos of my classmates, making them appear ignorant and thuggish.  We had given them, in good faith, interviews thinking they would say kind things about us, alas they did not.  It may have helped to helped push us towards becoming some of the first folks to refuse to cite the Pledge of Allegiance in Assembly--holding that the US Flag did not represent Black Folks.  (I think this practice still exists in some places.  However, by God’s grace and at 65 years golden, I no longer hold to this concept). 

Crane’s Principal was Dr. Lorraine Sullivan, a very stately, reserved, well dressed & head held high white woman.  I recall that she appeared to be untouched by her surroundings, an almost enigma compared to Chicago’s Westside young representatives (mostly Black students).  Whenever she was in the vicinity, there was a brief hushed silence to the constant chatter we made in the hallways, at our lockers, in the lunchroom, washrooms & sometimes in the classrooms of “certain” teachers.  We were a cool, laughing & noisy bunch of kids, although there were several students who were more reserved. 

On this particular day, Dr. Sullivan advised that President Kenney had been killed.  A painfully hushed silence fell across our school.  It was so thick you could cut it with a knife.  I was wearing a green & black plaid skirt and black sweater & remember crying as was many other students.  We were dismissed early that day & there were no Black students, no White students, no Hispanic students; we were just sad folks who had gotten some very sad new about OUR President. 

There was no way for me to know at the time that I would be experiencing that same pain, only 10 times worse, 5 years & 5 months later as news of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's assassination literally spread in wild fires across the City of Chicago.  Nearly 50 years has passed since that fateful November day, but it seems like it was only yesterday.  

Me, 48 years later

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