Photo by Koshu Kunii
Cornelia Fitzgerald
When One Door Closes, Another Opens. Grandmother Cornelia often used these words to console Pauli Murray in the face of loss and disappointment. Those times were many in Pauli’s life. Now is also a time of loss, loss of life for Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and hundreds of others who have died in police custody, in prisons, in poverty, as a result of mob violence and/or institutional racism. We also mourn the loss of life for the more than 100,000 Americans, an inordinate number of whom were black and brown people, who have died because of COVID 19. Grief is all around us but it is fueling more than sadness.
It’s also opening doors and streets, city council chambers and conversations about race and transformation. Protestors are reigniting hope that change can and must happen, that we can close the doors to hate, state sanctioned violence, economic inequity, and heartless greed.
Pauli Murray reading from Dark Testament
The drivers are dead now , Pauli Murray writes in Verse 10 of her epic poem, Dark Testament , but the drivers have sons. The slaves are dead too, But the slaves have sons. And when the sons of the drivers meet sons of slaves, the hate keeps grinding on. Today we are led by young prophets to acknowledge this dirge of history , Pauli continues in Verse 11, and tell it everywhere to all who will listen. We will lay siege, let thunder serve our claim. For it must be told, endlessly told, and you must hear it.
We are called by Pauli Murray to this work at the Pauli Murray Center, to tell and acknowledge this dirge of history in service to transformation. We can close the door to police and state sanctioned violence, slashing police budgets like they are doing in Minneapolis and open the door to building community safety through community wellness strategies . We can close the door to poverty by advocating for living wages and the Fight for $15 campaign and crack open the door to economic equity and opportunity. We can close the door to ignorance by informing ourselves of the work of The 1619 Project and open the door to truth, the truth of the past that we have to reckon with today. Thank you Grandmother Cornelia and all of our ancestors whose wisdom provides our guiding lights.
Dark Testament and Other Poems . 1970. Reprint, New York: Liveright Publishing, W.W. Norton, 2018