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(Michael McCarty) It was a March day 1969, a school night.
I came home late after going to a meeting of the Black Panther Party in Chicago.
And I came home to find my mother sitting in front of the TV
with my brother and sister and my mother was in tears.
The reason my mother was in tears is she had just seen me on TV.
Those weren't tears of joy.
She had just seen that I had led or was the co-leader
of a walk out at St. Ignatius College Preparatory in Chicago,
a very prestigious institution of higher learning, and she knew there would be consequences.
But I had done what my mother had taught me to do.
My mother had always told me you had to stand up for what you believed in.
She told me, she taught me that if you saw something wrong you had to do something about it,
you had to tell somebody, you had to take action, and that's what I had done,
what my mother had taught me to do.
Now, I was at this school, St. Ignatius, anybody here from Chicago?
Okay, oh, oh, home girl.
[audience chuckling]
St. Ignatius is a very prestigious college prep which is in a Black community
but less than five percent of the students in the school were, uh, were non-White.
And so it was the '60s, Black students and other, uh, people of color all over
were starting demanding to be included in history books, to have their stories told.
And we had demands: more Black students in the school, a Black studies programs,
community outreach because this school was in the community but was isolated from it.
And we had taken our demands to the, uh, principal and the administrators
and they looked at it and said, "Ha, get out of here."
So we had decided to lead a walkout.
I was the vice president of the Black Student Organization,
my buddy, Gary, he was the president and we led this walkout.
And about a dozen or so White students walked out in support of what we were doing
and this was big news because this is where judges, mayors, and aldermen sent their kids.
And my mother found out about this on the news.
I'm 18 years old, I'm, as we say, smellin' myself.
So I come in the house, I see my mother all upset,
my brother and sister tryin' to console her.
And I'm like, "Right on."
Ha-ha-ha.
Fortunately for me, my father worked the graveyard shift.
[audience laughing]
Had that not been the case I might not be standing before you now.
[audience laughing]
My brother, my older brother, 14 years older than me, he decided to fill in for my dad
so I went into my room and he busted in the room,
he knocked me down, he raised his fist and I started talkin'.
Now, if you haven't already figured it out, I can talk.
And I talked and talked and talked
until he unballed his fist and listened to what I had to say.
The next morning my father came home, found out what had gone on,
amazingly, miraculously he did not kill me
and we went to the school to find out
that yes indeed myself and Gary we had both been expelled from the school.
This was our senior year, just a couple of months before graduation.
Well, my life changed from that point on.
I became a revolutionary then I was in the military then I became an acupuncturist,
Gary was a journalist and did var-various things, and we stayed in touch.
And some of my classmates we stayed in touch over the years.
Now, I told you that this story changed and it's became a story about friendship.
About 10 years ago, one of our classmates, Greg Meyers, he called me.
He said, "Mac, we're gonna get you your high school diploma."
I said, "What?"
Greg, who I have had no contact with in over 30 years comes,
he brings people together and starts this movement
to get me and Gary our high school diplomas
because the things that we had demanded had been implemented in the school.
There was a Black studies program,
there was an outreach to the community, they had a scholarship program,
all of the things that we had demanded had been implemented in the school.
So Greg went on a search, he searched every Black student who had ever attended St. Ignatius,
all of our classmates Black and White from the-from the time that we were in school
and he went and petitioned the school.
Now, two of the people he pulled in were two attorneys,
one Black and one White, who were our classmates.
Greg was an accountant.
Any accountants in the house?
You're gonna love this.
Greg, he... [chuckling] ...he said to the school,
"You'll notice that St. Ignatius receives no alumni support
"for-from any of the Black students from our time
"and there will never be any support until McCarty and Tyler get their high school diploma."
How about that for blackmail, okay.
[audience laughing]
The president and principal of the school interviewed us, they flew us into Chicago.
August 2, 2008, a ceremony happened, me and Gary,
or Gary and I received our high school diplomas in a big ceremony,
over 200 people attended the ceremony.
We got letters of commendation from the mayor of Chicago and two members of the U.S. Congress
for having stood up for what we had believed in.
Now, my mother wasn't alive to see this
but my brother and sister and some of my other friends had come to this, come to see this.
And usually at this point this is where this story ends but it's become much more
because I don't know how you define friendship
but some people define friendship I've heard somebody who you talk to all the time,
somebody who you see all the time, sometimes you someone you spend time with.
I hadn't seen Greg Meyers in over 30 years but this man was a friend, one of my best friends.
And the irony or I don't know what it is, a year and a half later he was dead.
It's as if he took this mission on 'cause he, for whatever reason, who knows
but I will never forget this man who was my friend, a true friend.
Three weeks ago his oldest daughter was married
and we connected and she had asked me to come to the wedding
and to tell a story about her father
and I told a truncated version of the story that I just told you.
Now, I'm gonna end with one more story.
This is an African folktale, a folktale from Liberia, it's called 'The Cow Tail Switch'.
Long ago in Liberia there was a great hunter whose name was Ogaloussa.
Ogaloussa had a wonderful and beautiful wife and six strong sons
who he was training to be a great hunter like himself.
One day Ogaloussa left to go on a hunt.
He was gone some days which was not uncommon.
Those days turned into weeks, those weeks into months.
Meanwhile the six sons were taking care of their mother who was pregnant
and would eventually give birth to a seventh son, Puli.
Puli was born and grew and developed quickly.
And in no time Puli could speak and the first words he spoke were, "Where is my father?"
And the six brothers who had gotten so caught up in taking care of their mother said,
"Yes, what's happened to father?
"We have to go and find out, we have to follow his trail,
"we must find out what happened to him."
Now, they had all been trained as hunters by their father
so they were able to pick up the trail
and when one brother lost a trail another one would pick it up
and in time they came to a clearing and there were bones and their father's weapons.
Ogaloussa had been killed by some creature.
But these six sons each had a power.
The first son said, "I can reassemble father's bones and connect 'em," and he did so.
The second son said, "Yes, well, I can-I can resuscitate father's organs."
The next one, "I was able to- to cover the body with flesh to restore the flow of blood."
Put in this and that until Ogaloussa sat up
and looked at his sons and said, "Where are my weapons?"
They gathered their father's weapons and they took him back to the village.
When the people in the village saw Ogaloussa
and came to understand that he had returned from the land of the dead, this was amazing,
this was a rare event but there was a ceremony for just this occasion.
Ogaloussa was to remain in his hut for eight days in preparation
and on that eighth day he would be presented again to the community.
While he was in his hut for those eight days Ogaloussa began making a cow tail switch,
it would be the most beautiful cow tail switch that anyone had ever seen in that village.
And on that eighth day when Ogaloussa came out
and went to the platform where he was to be presented
people saw this cow tail switch and they said, "Ogaloussa, that is beautiful.
"Oh, that is amazing.
"What are you gonna do with it?"
And he said, "I will give this to the son
"most responsible for returning me from the land of the dead."
Well, when the brothers heard this, the six brothers started arguing amongst themselves.
"Well, I found the trail first."
"But you lost it." "I restored the bones." "I restored the blood."
And they started arguing.
People in the village siding with this brother, that brother.
Ogaloussa said nothing.
He stood on the platform and he held up that cow tail switch and everybody became silent.
He said, "I will give this to my son Puli."
And they said, "The baby?
"But what did..."
Oh...he had remembered.
And from that day to this it is said in Liberia
as long as we remember our loved ones who have passed on,
as long as we tell their stories, no one is ever truly dead.
And my friend Greg as long as I am alive I will tell his story.
Thank you.
[audience clapping]