WRITING IS CATHARTIC

An Open Letter to My Son

I was twenty-five years old when my son was born. I knew his mother and I would not unite in marriage. Though I would be consistent in his life, I struggled with the reality of my son being raised in a household without me. That discomfort motivated consideration of ways to embellish lessons, values, and principles to challenge and sustain him beyond my daily presence. Our most candid discussions started in his teens, and extended into early adulthood. Topics were relevant to his culture, risk-factors, influences, urban environment, and the persistent systemic resistance he will face in America. I’ve chronicled over 60 of the most impacting subjects of our engagements. For mothers raising urban males in the span of teens to young adults, I now publicize the second edition of An Open Letter to My Son.

His Name Was Robert

My biological father's name is Robert. I was eight months when he was murdered at the age of twenty-seven. I was never informed that the loving man who raised me is not my biological father. The accidental discovery occurred when I was fifteen years old. Because of a prideful matriarch and debilitating family secrets, siblings also refused to speak of Robert.

I was in my mid-fifties before finally discovering the gripping details of his short life, surviving family members, and the overwhelming evidence of my previously destructive traits, which were eerily similar to his. In my search for answers, I've learned much about Robert, and considerably more regarding the silence and complicity that surrounds my mother. Writing has been a catharsis. The cost of this candid and provocative book has been the unfortunate loss of nuclear family relationships.

The Megachurch Book

For centuries the brutal slave trade stripped our ancestral greatness and wonderment, and left them on the shores of Africa. Church became the foundational powerbase of the national Black community, as it was the only assembly allowed in slave-holding states. But on a whim that tepid allowance was frequently engulfed in flames by mobs of angry night riders, who caused physical and psychological destruction while spilling blood for sport. Yet through it all, the community sustained the church, and the church sustained the community. It is no wonder that our greatest historical leaders, particularly during the Civil Rights struggle, were ministers. We are 160 years beyond slavery, including 60 years beyond the Civil Rights movement. The Black church remains vibrant, to the extent that some have reached the stratospheric fiscal, visibility, and membership level now defined as megachurch.

That impressive ascent has not run parallel to community standing. This title explores the contrast. If the church persists in ignoring political and social aims against the community, it does so in conflict with its historical founding and assembly. A new generation is upon us, with a distinct set of demands and expectations. I believe continuous community neglect will surely reduce the church to irrelevance and isolation.