Free, Illaek. and 21.

• Author: Singleton, Marilyn M.

Pre-pandemic, I ran into a twentysomething fellow wearing a t-shirt that said, "I Love Being Black." I had a wave of fond nostalgia remembering how my mother began our outings with: "I'm free, black, and 21--let's do it!"

What happened to that great attitude? We have allowed it to be hijacked by the likes of race baiters and charlatans. It remains an embarrassment that Al Sharpton was able to parlay a giant provable lie into hosting a TV show. It seems the media's flavor of the day is anyone who is black, female, or new to this country. Worse yet, white males are painted as evil for the sake of political gain with no qualms about the negative effect on social and race relations. (Beware: the white male-hating circle ultimately will engulf strong black men who support their families.)

White privilege is so yesterday. I would like to put my 10 cents in for those of us whose families have been here for some 400 years and earned our black privilege. It is a singular honor to be associated with the strength and ingenuity that runs through the blood of our freedom-seeking black Americans.

Take the incredible courage and desire for freedom of African-American slaves: Henry "Box" Brown, determined to escape slavery in Virginia, devised a daring plan. With the help of a freed slave and a white shopkeeper, he was stuffed into a 3' * 21/2 * 2' box labeled "Dry Goods." After some 27 hours, half of which was spent upside down, he arrived at the home of a Philadelphia abolitionist.

Then there was Harriet Jacobs of North Carolina: knowing the odds were slim that she would make it to the North, she spent seven years with rats as roommates in a crawlspace of her grandmother's place. In 1842, she made it to New York where she became active in the abolitionist movement.

In the spring of 1862, while the white crew was ashore, Robert Smalls, disguised in the captain's hat and jacket, and some shipmates hijacked the steamship CSS Planterin Charleston, S.C. After picking up their families, the slaves sailed into the Charleston Harbor, safely past Ft. Sumter. Smalls sailed to the Union blockade and hoisted the white surrender flag for the first U.S. Navy ship he encountered.

When black physicians were not allowed on hospital staffs, they started their own hospitals, sometimes in their own homes.

It is more important than ever to reignite that old can-do attitude, starting with thinking for ourselves. We cannot...