One Nation, Invisible: Lorenzo Thomas: Back in the Day

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Man on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial holding a banner for the Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention, at Black Panther Convention: photo by Thomas J. O'Halloran/Warren K. Leffler, 19 June 1970 (U.S. News & World Report Collection, Library of Congress)

When we were boys
We called each other "Man"
With a long n
Pronounced as if a promise
 

We wore felt hats
That took a month to buy
In small installments
Shiny Florsheim or Stacy Adams shoes
Carried our dancing gait
And flashed our challenge
 

Breathing our aspirations into words
We harmonized our yearnings to the night
And when old folks on porches dared complain
We cussed them out
....under our breaths
And walked away
....And once a block away
Held learned speculations
About the character of their relations
With their mothers
 

It's true
That every now and then
We killed each other
Borrowed a stranger's car
Burned down a house
But most boys went to jail
For knocking up a girl
He really............truly............deeply............loved
............really............truly............deeply
 

But was too young
Too stupid, poor, or scared
To marry

Since then I've learned
Some things don't never change:
 

The breakfast chatter of the newly met
Our disappointment 
 

With the world as given
 

Today,
 

News and amusements
Filled with automatic fire
Misspelled alarms
Sullen posturings and bellowed anthems
Our scholars say
Young people doubt tomorrow
 

This afternoon I watched
A group of young men
Or tall boys
Handsome and shining with the strength of futures
Africa's stubborn present
To a declining white man's land
Lamenting
As boys always did and do
Time be moving on
Some things don't never change
And how
 

......back in the day

Well

......things were somehow better

They laughed and jived
Slapped hands
And called each other "Dog"

Lorenzo Thomas (1944-2005): Back in the Day, from Time Step (2004)

Negro going in colored entrance of movie house on Saturday afternoon, Belzoni, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, October 1939 

 

Railroad station, Manchester, Georgia: photo by John Vachon, May 1938

Secondhand clothing stores and pawn shops on Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, October 1939



Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee : photo by Marion Post Wolcott, October 1939

Sign above moving picture theatre, Waco, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, November 1939

 

"Rex Theater for Colored people." Leland, Mississippi, in the Delta area: photo by Dorothea Lange, June 1937.

"Rex Theater for Colored people." Leland, Mississippi, in the Delta area: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, November 1939



Highway sign advertising tourist cabins for Negroes, South Carolina: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, June 1939

Lunch room, Belle Glade (vicinity), Florida: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, January 1939



Cafe in the warehouse district during tobacco auction season, Durham, North Carolina: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, November 1939



Cafe near the tobacco market, Durham, North Carolina: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940

Street near the bus station, Durham, North Carolina: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940



At the bus station, Durham, North Carolina: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940

People waiting for a bus at the Greyhound bus terminal, Memphis, Tennessee: photo by Esther Bubley, September 1943

 

Rest stop for Greyhound bus passengers on the way from Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee, with separate accommodations for colored passengers: photo by Esther Bubley, September 1943

  
  
Sign at bus station, Rome, Georgia: photo by Esther Bubley, September 1943



Fish restaurant for Negroes in the section of the city where cotton hoers are recruited, Memphis, Tennessee: photo by Dorothea Lange, June 1937



Negro drinking at "Colored" water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: photo by Russell Lee, July 1939

Photos beneath the poem from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress