sterling high school, greenville
While my mother is away in New York City,
a fire sweeps through
her old high school
during a senior dance.
Smoke filled the crowded room
and the music
stopped
and the students dancing
stopped
and the DJ told them
to quickly leave the building.
My mother said it was because
the students had been marching,
and the marching
made some white people in Greenville mad.
After the fire the students weren't allowed to
go to the all-white high school.
Instead they had to crowd in
beside their younger sisters and brothers
at the lower school.
In the photos from my mother's high school yearbook—
my mother is smiling beside her cousin
Dorothy Ann and on her other side,
there is Jesse Jackson,
who maybe was already dreaming of one day
being the first brown man to run for president.
And not even
the torching of their school
could stop him or the marchers
from changing the world.
And not even
the torching of their school
could stop him or the marchers
from changing the world.
Woodson, Jacqueline (2014-08-28). Brown Girl Dreaming (Newbery Honor Book) (p. 111). Penguin Young Readers Group. Kindle Edition.