Words to Me from Savant

Brother Timothy, you're about the most inspiring young brother in AA Forum. I am fortunate to be able to teach young people your age and younger. In the 70s & 80s I had to good fortune to be educated by high school teachers and university professors who were often student activists themselves during the 1960s They passed their legacy on to me, and I onto the next generation (yours), and you to the next. Hence we form an intergenerational legacy and continuum of liberation struggle that will end only with the total liberation of our black brothers and sisters, and of every oppressed human being on the planet.
It will/must be young brothers and sisters like yourself--the more CONSCIOUS among you--who must ignite the imagination of the millennial youth.
I agree that apathy is sad and deplorable. But I think I see an awakening. Yes, we're not where we want to be. How did Dr. king put it? "We're not where we want to be. We're not where we're gonna be. But thank god we're not where we were!"
I get the sense that we're gradually moving again. I see it in my students--not all of them yet--but a growing number of them. Young people launched the Occupy Movement, and more recently the movement against police terror. Black youth--and especially young SISTERS--took the lead in Ferguson. And this had aroused the enthusiasm of youth throughout America. The "historical moment" (as Angela Davis calls it in her typically Hegelian fashion) is emerging, and I think again it is the youth today--just like in the 1960s--who will spark the movement forward.
Yes, apathy is deplorable but not insurmountable. I think see an awakening in progress. And I probably differ somewhat from our friends Harrisson and Barros in my stubborn optimism--some call it naïve optimism. But freedom is the destiny of human beings. Dignity and freedom. New movements forged by yourself and others will push forward the quest for freedom, a community of freedom for our Black brother and sisters, and for every man, woman and child on earthy. Keep on pushing, young brother. I got your back, and I'm not the only one. I can still say on the fiftieth anniversary of Selma, and the 60th anniversary year of Montgomery that we can win the fight for liberation--for our own black people---for every human being on earth. Freedom Rising!

-Savant