Hip-hop

Forty years ago today, America awoke from a dream and opened its eyes to fire.

This country had long believed its black population to be subservient and submissive, restrained and resigned; no more of a threat than the spirit-broken animal confined and conditioned to reside in a cage.

All of that changed with the crack of a gun.

In 1968, following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., cities around the nation descended into frustrated and frightened chaos. It was as if a bullet had pierced the paper-thin, dividing wall between the black double consciousnesses that separates the community’s public face and its hidden angst, resentment and boiling rage. It was from this opening that fiery, hot anger spewed forth, igniting black financial and cultural epicenters across the nation. Violence, like a cloud of rising, blistering steam, hung heavy over the country for days, laying ruin to cities such as Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Chicago.

It was forty years ago to the day that black anger turned in on itself. And out of God-barren hopelessness, a people, in a fit of frantic desperation, collectively put a gun to their own heads and pulled the trigger.

In Washington, D.C., it was U Street. The once vibrant hotbed of financial and political influence of the capital’s black community was burned to the ground. It would be left in ashes for decades, a constant reminder of the price of true submission.

This is not a day to remember Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream. No, that should be his birthday. Today, the day of his death, should be remembered as the day that we, his people, cast aside the hopes of his dreams for a feral and visceral misplaced sense of reciprocity.

Forty years ago today, the flag of violence was draped over the casket of a soldier for peace and a nation awoke to the realization of its own troubled and violent potential.