Night … 1969 Eight o'clock at night, the weather was chilly and muggy after a light rain outside of a mini-mall located in a harsh neighborhood where I used to live. It was not a good day for-businesses. The street was very quiet until... two gunmen rushed out of a clothing store screaming at each other.
"Man, what-what we gonna do now, man?" said one of the panic-stricken gunmen who was wearing a ski mask.
He looked up at the other thug, who was also wearing a ski mask and who had taken a 45-year-old African-American woman hostage.
She struggled tirelessly. She fought, cried. She tried to wrench her short, thin body from the gunman's arms but failed.
"No! No! No! Please let me go! Let me go to him! Please..." She wept, screamed as her voice got weaker and weaker then faded away.
A young man was dead. His dead body lay on the curb soaked in a river of his own blood. Meanwhile, I had just pulled my car over across the street a distance from where the tall gunman had taken the woman hostage.
As I looked closer at the scene, I realized that the weary lady taken hostage was my beloved mother! Panicked, I opened the glove compartment where there was always a gun. I took the gun out as Reggie looked for a public phone.
I jumped out of the car and ran to the scene. I heard shots fired once...twice...three times!
"Nooooooo!" I shouted.
"Nooooooo!" I woke up screaming and struggling in the middle of the night. I had this nightmare often.
This dream haunted me almost every night. My mother said my father used to have a similar nightmare before he died. He died the way his nightmare appeared. I was afraid that the same thing would happen to me.
"It's a shame to be a Negro because society scorns me." Audition Summer, 1969. I was 19 years old and on my way to an audition for an opera. I was running late in tied-up downtown traffic. Carrying up my violin I blindly crossed on a green light and narrowly escaped being hit by a taxicab.
"Are you out of your mind?" the driver shouted angrily at me with a strong Caribbean accent as I continued running.
I got to the auditorium fifteen minutes before they stopped auditioning. I got in the waiting line by the entrance on the curb. I was second behind a beautiful blond chick in her early twenties. I presumed she was also a violinist. I stood behind her, gesturing as if I were playing the violin. I was just practicing mentally. She turned around, glanced at me, then moved three steps forward, away from me. Five minutes passed.
"Next in line, please," said the security guard, a serious-looking white man in his thirties.
The blonde stepped forward.
"This way, miss," he told her, pointing to the entrance.
