No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America

by Darnell L. Moore

Memory is a tricky force, especially when brutality, poverty, self-hatred, and many other unseen hands, which turn beautiful people into monsters and victims, dictate what we remember.

Uncovering the history of the 1971 uprising, after sitting with the heart-wrenching pain resulting from the deaths of so many nonwhite victims of police killings today, affirmed for me the truth so many of us know: black cities in the United States have always been on fire. There is nothing good that comes from hiding this truth.

When we fail to bear witness to their presence, we aid in our own destruction.

The institutions supposedly designed to correct my father failed, almost expertly. He returned many times after the first.

Queerness is magic for those brave enough to make use of it, but it can feel poisonous for those who have yet to give in to its power.

Living, as a black youth without access to the collective empathy and safety granted to white kids, is a weighty struggle.

The belief that we have all we need within us, individually, to survive is a powerful, poetic idea, but the truth is, no one person can make it through life alone without the presence and support of others who are willing to draw upon their own strength to aid another at their lowest.

Not all gods are invisible, faultless, presumably straight, masculine, and white.