I Am A MAN- Narrative Essay

“I Am a Man”: Narrative Essay of a Photograph
I am he who walks the earth, invisible. I am he who gets knocked down for being me. I am defined by the pigmentation of my skin. I am defined as the victimizer, but really the victim. I am he who fights, but never wins. I am a Man. I am a black man, deprived of my manhood. And yet I stand, fighting, predisposed to think that one day I too will be seen as who I really am. A Man.
How does one evoke the image of manhood? Or in simpler terms, what is a man? Being a man, in society’s eyes, means to be the head of a household, to earn a salary sufficient enough to support a family, and to have a voice in politics. How does a black man, living in Memphis, Tennessee, consummate these notions set out for me? I do all that I possibly can to make ends meet, but my children still go to bed hungry. Every day I am out looking for a job, but every day I am estranged. And when it comes to politics, the only voice I’m allowed to have is when I am sitting at the bar with other brothers discussing the many issues in society. How do I get to the place of manhood? “The only way to get through this time is to fight, son. You fight with love and with truth. Ain’t nobody gonna give you nothing in this world. What you get you work hard for. But remember this, there’s only one person who can stop you and that’s you. You fight until the war is won. You fight for me, your children, your grandchildren, and generations to come,” my father was right, to win this war I had to press on and fight. But, am I really capable of such a task? Who will ever listen to me? All I am in this world is an added problem to society. I, myself, wrangle with the exception of, me. I look in the mirror, and I fear the man that I see. His eyes are as dark as death’s eye. They define dander and discomfort. His full, dark, lips are gripped together tightly, hiding any form of happiness that could be found. His nappy textured hair depicts those of slaves. His skin: dark, dirty, valueless, and shameful. His hands, coiled together, are trying to hide the bruises and blisters he received from working in the fields. I close my eyes, trying to hide myself from this man that is looking back at me. As I open my eyes he is still there, and so is the shame that he carries day after day.
Can it be that all of this is, simply, a dream? Is it possible to open my eyes one day and see my children playing, euphorically, in the front yard of the house that I purchased? Can it be that my family can actually go to sleep at night with satisfied stomachs and satiated souls? Will I ever see my wife smile? Not just any smile, but the smile that vivifies the sun and orchestrates the birds to sing a tune just for her. Can I wake up from this tribulation and be the man that my wife and children deserve? I’m ready to wake up, but I can’t. Instead, I am faced with hungry, immaculate, children that carry their father’s burdens. Instead of a smile on my wife’s face I see tear marks engraved on her cheeks, eyes burdened with anguish and longing; a longing that I cannot give her. I need to wake up.
Each day is like the last. I wake up, not from sleep, but from my wondering thoughts. I put on my clothes, sit at the dining table and watch as my wife and children eat bland boiled oats and the last pieces of bread. My wife tries to feed me, but my portion is always shared amongst the children. As she clears the table, we continue to sit there, and pray that today will be the day that a job opportunity will open up for me. When the prayer is over I walk my children to their bus stop and plant a kiss on their cheeks with a bid farewell until we see one another at supper. I then walk back to my decayed shack to retrieve my briefcase and a kiss from my wife. And then I am off. With hopes that today will be the day that I will get a job, I walk out of the door with my head held high. Hope is soon to depart from me once I make my first stop at a locksmith store. As I open the doors to the old shop, I am greeted with a frown and a grimaced expression on an older white man’s face. Before I could say “Hello” he immediately begins yelling obscenities at me. After being rejected from every job, I finally decide that it is time to go home to the awaited questions, wanting to know if a job opportunity came up and seeing my families’ saddened expressions when I tell them that I am still without a job. But, before I go home I make a stop at Old Sam’s shoe shining booth.
Old Sam was my father’s best friend. He is well known and respected among all men of all races. He’s owned the shoe shining booth for as long as I could remember. As I approach his booth, I get a flashback of when I was just a young boy and my father would take me with him to get his shoes shined. He and Sam would talk about moving to California and starting their own shoe shining and barber shop. This dream was short lived when my father was lynched by a group of white supremacists, stating that my father was making moves on one of their women. After my father’s death, Sam made a promise to mother that he would always make sure that we were fed, sheltered, and safe. He’s kept his promise til this day. “Hey there old man. How’s life been treating you?” I ask Sam. “Well I’m still here, so I guess life’s been treating me pretty well,” Sam replies. “Look, I know that you have always been there to help me and my family out, and I hate having to ask you for help because you have already done so much, but I have been looking for work and am yet to get a job. Do you think it’s possible for me to help you out over here and shine some shoes to be able to provide my family with some food?” I ask. Sam replies, “Boy ain’t no need for you to ask. You can come down here whenever you need to make sure that that pretty wife of yours and those precious kids has some food to eat. Now you know that I’m not making as much as I used to out here, but I make enough to get by. I don’t mind you helpin out, just understand that I ain’t gonna be able to give you a whole lot of money.” I reply, “Any amount that you can give me will help out.” “Well then, you have yourself a job boy,” Sam replies. Before I head home with the news, Sam informs me about the meeting happening at St. Louis’ Catholic Church tonight. He says, “You need to go on down to the church tonight because King and his people is orchestrating a strike. This strike ain’t like no other. They are striking to reclaim us black men’s manhood. They are striking to get us jobs and to give us a voice. You need to go on down there and be a part of history.” I knew that this was something I had to do. It was time to fight.
As I am entering into the church I see men of all races and all backgrounds. Old Sam was right, this wasn’t any ordinary strike. They forged together a coalition of the religious community, the civil rights community, and the labor movement. There were sanitation workers and congressmen, preachers and atheist, young boys and old men, black men and white me. All forged together to make known that struggle for freedom, for dignity, for decency, and for equality. As I take my seat amongst the crowd Martin Luther King begins to speak. As he is speaking, the crowd is being moved. One statement, that he said, that spoke out to me was, “We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are saying that we are God’s children. And we must fight to get our birth rights back.” After he is done speaking Reverend James Laws takes the pulpit. He begins his speech by saying, “The heart of racism is the belief that a man is not a man. We are men, so we will stand up and declare that they see us as men.” As the meeting continues, all of our hearts are being uplifted, and we are ready to fight. That night we all were given a new dream; a dream that we, too, will be seen as men.
February 12, 1968, marks the day when history was made. We all joined, back together, at St. Louis’ Catholic Church where we prayed for God’s grace to be given to us, as we embark on this journey. At 2:15pm we began to walk. We walked for everything that we loved. We walked for our wives, our sons and daughters, we walked for our jobs, we walked for our happiness, we walked for our manhood.
And so we pressed on, in an orderly manner, feet stomping to our own beat, breaths heavy, hearts pounding, posters in hands, and heads held high; looking to the brighter day ahead when not only our wives and children, but society will see us as men. Without saying a word our voices are heard. We are seen. They do not want us to be seen. They try to stop and scare us with their pistols focused on our skulls. The looks in their eyes express the longing to make an imprint, in our minds, with their metal bullets. Our hearts raced on, and our feet followed. Still, we pressed on, with heads held high looking to the brighter day ahead.
“We’ve got some difficult days ahead, but it really don’t matter with me now. I’ve been to the mountain top. I just want to do God’s will. He’s allowed me to go to the mountain top and I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the promise land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know that we as a people will get to the promise land,” King was right; we would get to the promise land. And every step we took brought us closer to it. We marched as one. We fought as one. We conquered as one
And we did conquer. Shortly after the strike, a law was passed stating that all men are to be treated equally in the workforce. It stated that one’s race does not depict his qualification, but his skills determine his qualification. This was a joyous occasion for us all. This was the day when my wife smiled, and the sun was awakened, and the birds begin to sing harmoniously with our chants. This was the day that I woke up, and I haven’t fallen asleep again. This was the day that I became a man.