Freedom Run

I complain, perhaps too bitterly, about the face of the nation morphing into one big strip plaza void of local character. Ah the joys of being wrong.  A visit to Jackson, MS kept hope alive. Surrounding neighborhoods of Jackson State University pose an intriguing exception. Many of the well-known social ills plague this area. Yet, it marches forward like so many women and men of the past did in this very city seeking full fledge freedom.  Civil rights markers dot Jackson’s roadways, demarcate empty lots and identify buildings keeping the present mindful of a movement of the past that paved the way of progress.

Here’s an interesting tidbit. Mississippi, a state notorious for brutal and horrific lynching, has a main thoroughfare in its capital city named for John Roy Lynch. As I ran along “Lynch Street”, a road filled with civil rights history, it seemed oddly morbid that in honoring a former political leader the street also stands as a reminder of some of the worst atrocities on American soil.

Nearing the end of the outing Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run cued on my MP3 player as I re-entered the campus. How could stop running or thinking about liberty with this song playing? I didn’t. Instead I increased the volume and had a strong finish to the morning run. I couldn’t help but to reflect on the appropriateness of the song, for this time, for this place, for me. I thought about physical and intellectual health, the tremendous opportunity to be in civil rights town on an academic fellowship and all that as a man of color who grew up in poverty on par with the area around Jackson State University.

Run for Freedom.

Tom