I turned the cardboard sleeve over in my hands, looking at the photograph on the front, the text on the back. I propped it up beside the television screen which my son thought of as “small”, though it seemed immense to me, as it sat on top of the dead machine that had once been a top of the line television-stereo record player. I opened up my laptop, found the album and began playing it.
Pete Seeger sang “If You Miss Me At The Back Of The Bus”. I recalled how cheery it had sounded when I was small, not really understanding the background, the struggle against cruelty and humiliation it represented. Lehi joined me in clapping along, smiling, but when it was over, he turned to me and said, “Why did they want black people to sit at the back?”
“It was so black people and white people didn’t sit together. They wanted to keep people separate so they didn’t get to know each other and learn that they were all just people.”
“Why are you playing the album off of YouTube, instead of putting the record on the stereo?”
“The stereo doesn’t work. I can’t play any of the records on the shelves, or the tapes in the boxes. I can only play music if I can find it online.”
Pete sang “Little Boxes” and I said, “I used to visit my aunt every year, and my father pointed out the houses across the way as we drove up to her house. They were the same little boxes that Malvina Reynolds was singing about.”
Pete sang “We Shall Overcome”, and as I leaned forward, hands clasped, my face tight with emotion, Lehi put his hand on my arm and said, “Are you all right?”
“Yes. This song just always affects me, a lot. It did when I was little, and it does even more now, because I understand it more.”
He put his arm around me. I put my arm around him. I noticed he was singing along, and I joined in. God, it felt good.
We Shall Overcome Someday….
The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Damn right we shall."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49355/ninas-blues
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