A Change is Gonna Come...

A CHANGE IS GONNA COME…TOMORROW!!! By William Fredrick Cooper (Inspired By ‘A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke)

We were born by rivers and oceans in the motherland, in tents and huts of harmony, and had our culture stripped from us as shackles and chains brought us here. Running ever since, searching for something, grasping at anything to make dark skies of racism blue with unbiased love, through negro hymns we were brave when begging for better days that almost always never came. Hoping for a glimpse of respect and receiving none, somehow my ancestors knew, despite the pain endured in ways a modern day generation forged on sense of entitlement could not possibly fathom, that the persecution would lead to progress.

They knew a change was gonna come.

Oh, I wonder what Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Dubois are thinking right about now. Watching Barack Obama near the end of a grueling 21-month odyssey that started with a ‘Barack who?’ and now rests at the brink of what they lived and died for, I look to the heavens at my brothers and sisters. If it rains Tuesday, their tears of joy will heal so many wounds. Knowing the rest of the world will embrace a less fearful, more open society and that our kids will finally see black and white kids rejoicing because prejudice is a non-factor for the first time ever, somehow they knew what Sam Cooke would sing many years later.

A change was gonna come.

Martin, Medgar and Malcolm, none of them afraid to face the bullets from assassin’s rifles after being told “Don’t Hang Around” merely because of skin pigmentation and knowing that love awaited their return to the sky, want to measure the drapes of victory so bad, but are strongly suggested to wait until the final straightway is run, and the finish line crossed by our bronze-colored First Family. Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks and Betty Shabazz, courageous helpmates of the struggle who maintained the spit and fire of hope decades before rejoining their mates above, will send dozens of red roses from Heaven, with a simple message to Michelle only the strongest bonds of sisterhood could comprehend:

Get Em, Gurl!!!!

Somehow, our queens for the cause knew that a change was gonna come.

My 86 year old friend Norman, in Baltimore, can see the finish line. There were times where I know my brother, while getting drenched from holding the umbrella of “Charlie”, endured many moments where he thought he couldn’t last long enough to see it. Like an African-American Orphan Andy, he could never love tomorrow, for it was never a day away. But Sam Cooke, God rest his soul, told him to carry on and see the day he and so many others thought unforeseeable.

Those with eyes on the prize who couldn’t complete the race are watching CNN every hour right about now. in heaven. Helping us so much with their sacrifices, they hear the heartfelt ‘Thank You’ of millions here on earth, for all they have done. But wisely, they placed a phone call to earthly remnants who witnessed the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Brown vs. The Board of Education, the Movement of Black Panthers and brother Liberation Armies, and unfortunately, the ignorance of recent generations and the refusal to embrace the struggle. During the conversation, an agreement was reach to implore us not to celebrate prematurely, and to pull those curtains closed Tuesday Morning, and give Barack Obama that last wind he needs to blaze down that final straightaway .

The finish line is close, but after all the attacks by Hillary, hate radio voices who treat him as he were Bin Laden, and many who think of him as a half-a-Commie, he still must face a legion of millions who desperately want to thwart the ordained. They will have a desperate, last-gasp kick, all the while saying ‘Yes’ to archaic tradition just because they simply cannot bring themselves to vote for a black candidate. All tribes stay together, thus, helping us to understand White America’s inaccurate sense of racial grievance.

But something tells me, as well as many millions who want this so bad, that Sam Cooke was right. Tears stream from my eyes as I fight the onslaught of my emotions for just one last, agonizing day. Maligned, ostracized, criticized from all angles, for one day, the image of a African-American man might induce a worldwide smile of love from all.

It’s been a, long…long time coming, but I know that a change is gonna come.

Tomorrow.
William Fredrick Cooper
www.myspace.com/wfcooper AWARD-WINNING, BEST-SELLING AUTHOR of THERE'S ALWAYS A REASON
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR of SIX DAYS IN JANUARY
COMING IN 2010: LOVE IS ALL WE NEED
www.blackplanet.com/wfcooper