April 9th 2025

                      Memories

             Are made of dreams long gone, hurts and pains, desires and unfulfilled intentiontions,

RELECTIONS of the past, of things to come and history of that which was.

  I remember Art Blakey at the Black Hawk in San Francisco, standing outside the club

taking a smoking break during Jazz sets. Later Sonny Rollins Trio creating moods from his

improvisational melodies. I remember the Black Panthers , Stokley Carmichael, Huey Newton

and Angela Davis. I remember The Congress Of Racial Equality members on a sit in at

Mels Diner ,San Francisco protesting black people not being able to eat at the lunch counter

     I remember drinking spring water from the rocks in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.

I remember the pictures of Emmitt till in Jet Magazine shortly after he was brutally murdered.

  I remember my first fights as a child, getting beat up one day then winning the next.

     I marched with Cecil Moore around Girard college accompanied by Freedom Frank always wearing 

his black red and green hat that attracted attention to his cultural expression 

and Black Shirley as she proudly chose to be called, her testament to black pride.

  Rise up you beautiful nation and preserve your history. Search your memories, there

in you will find our paths to the future.

                Ronald Dove