Thirty days betwixt
August and September,
I offered up my debt to
Sherie Denise Spruill
my baby sister
She was so very sick.
Tied to a hospital bed,
life support machines,
unable to engage in
her favorite pastime – walking.
She valiantly fought
a courageous final battle
to maintain her
dignity and independence of spirit.

It was her last stand
after several fearless journeys
from here to there
along the much trodden sojourn
along the blended path
from now to eternity.
On one such excursion
between midnight and predawn
she detoured
to be with our beloved mother.
It was September 12, 2006.
During the twilight
of the previous day
she travelled
from there to here
for her last time.
She came back to perform
a miraculous farewell
for an audience of her choosing.
It was a quiet and still evening
on the hospice dormitory of death.
Her sister, her children,
her beloved cousin
and I were there.
It was a remarkable and loving
“until we meet again”
Her speech was easily discerned
though uttered through inaudible lips.
Sherie was not herself.
Her voice was bound by surgery.
Her eyes darkened by sickness.
Her hands and arms swollen
and unembraceable.
Through the strength of love
she offered an astounding farewell.
It was a divine exhibition
of the mercy and grace of God Almighty.
With her children by her bedside,
her lips silently spoke
to her exclusive audience.
In the end
Sherie gave us a peak at
the peace and reality
at the final upward exit
along the blended road.
As she ended her
last monologue,
she began to blow bubbles
with her last breaths of life.
I will never forget her lessons
of a challenged life and a serene death.
At her sunset,
Sherie gave me more than
I could have ever given her.

She was a focused portrait of faith and confidence
in her Christian life and what it means to have
a blessed assurance of a smiling Savior at the end of
the blended path from life to death to eternal life.
I pray that I am as certain that
all will be well on that great day.

From those of us who remain.

Farewell my beloved sister!

These words are to inspire remembrance to the witnesses
of Sheries farewell address on September 11, 2006.
It is dedicated to Timothy and Patricia Allen
for whom her life was totally committed.

copies are made for:

Michael Ray Spruill
Carlton C. Spruill
Adair Fern Spruill-Norfleet
Clementine Norman-Taylor
Timothy Allen
Patricia Allen

You brother, uncle and cousin, Larry Spruill.

Nick’s Pub
Harlem, USA

Jonathan Baptiste, piano
Phil Kuehn, bass
Joey Saycor, drums
Kenneth Oshodi, guitar
Aaron Holland, saxophone

and of course
Jennifer Sano, vocals

This poem is dedicated to the Jennifer Sano
for her delicious gifts from Lady Day.

The Lady Is Back

Orchid scented
sharps and flats
ascend like
sweetly painted
not quite off key
nasal dream tracks
of a new
Lady Day
softly flowing
through her
uniquely pitched tunes
once again
encore after encore
lyrically

just
above her
raspy whispers
slowly walking
through my ears
releasing salty tears
watering
strange fruited trees
planted at the edges
of a darkened smoke-filled
black and white picture show
of bluesy images
within my solitude
of sounds
from another time
another place
a surreal visitation

of a born again legend
a tender familar
ghostly mistress of song
haunting another
new harlem
waaay uptown
a grand seance
tonight
at Nick’s Pub
the ruby red lipsticked
Lady is back
embrace her sultry
melodic enchantments
a warm breeze from
the other side of now
no deathly powders
between stiff drinks

from swiveling bar stools
an appropriate place
for The Lady
to inhabit
to bewitch and captivate
her people
once again
welcome her
clap your hands
compel her to stay
she is back
from long gone
downtown cabarets
she is back
once again
in harlem.

Larry H. Spruill

By Larry H. Spruill

Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad

Our Father who art in heaven, Holy is thy name…

Qul hu wa La Hu Ahad
Al La Hu Samad
Lam Ya Lid Wa Lam Yu Lad
Wa Lam Ya Kul La Hu Ku Fu Wan Ahad

I open my address to my brothers, the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with prayers declaring the onenessss of God in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions. It is so important to establish the truth of what the Ishmalites say in the Arabic language…they talk about oneness, the indivisibility of Millatu’l Ibrahim which is translated as the religion of Abraham.

We all profess the oneness of God Almighty..El Shaddai…We all seek oneness with God…But it is the desire of our merciful God that we seek oneness in love among the diversity of His creation…that is among all of humanity.

This has been and remains the greatest challenge to humanity. How difficult it seems to be to create what Dr. M.L. King declared as the “beloved community on earth.”

In fact, on March 25, 1968, about one week before the brutal assassination of Dr. King, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel at the sixth-eighth annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly introduced Dr. King to those distinguished holy men of the Jewish faith with these powerful and challenging words…

Where does moral religious leadership in America come from today?…Where does God dwell in America today?…Where in America do we hear a voice like the voice of the prophets of Israel? Martin Luther King is a sign that God has not forsaken the United States of America. God has sent him to us. His presence is the hope of America. His mission is sacred, his leadership of supreme importance to every one of us. The situation of the poor in America is our plight, our sickness. To be deaf to their cry is to condemn ourselves. Martin Luther King is a voice, a vision and a way. I call upon every Jew to harken to his voice, to share his vision, to follow in his way. The whole future of America will depend upon the impact and influence of Dr. King. May everyone present give of his strength to the great spiritual leader, Martin Luther King.

Our God prefers peace over war…harmony over discord…prosperity over poverty…and knowledge over ignorance…These paths and options remain ours to choose and pursue. The choices we collectively make are our responsibility.

The topic this morning is the responsibility of knowledge. It is the title of a key note address scheduled to be given by Eli Wisel next spring to a group of educators in San Antonio, Texas. I do not know what the content and perspective Dr. Wisel will bring to these profound words.

In any case those four words…The Responsibility of Knowledge were engaging enough to capture my imagination. I could not wait until March 1998 to hear Dr. Wisel’s message. I am sure he will deliver a life altering presentation on the subject. I will be there to receive it.

However, I was provoked to discover their meaning for myself. I felt challenged and compelled to contemplate the meaning of responsibility and knowledge for myself and their influence on the direction of the community in which I live. The interpretation which has emerged is what I bring to you this morning.

My hours of contemplation will have been profitable if I have discovered meaning and present some application to help us better understand the social crisises prevalent in our daily lives here in Mount Vernon.

There is so much division, polarization, distrust, lawlessness, violence, moral depravity, racism, sexism, misunderstanding, poverty, premature death and most of all ignorance.

In the Old Testament book of Hosea (4:6) God said…My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou has rejected knowledge, I will reject thee.

The book of Proverbs says, Fools hate knowledge. When I was growing up the F word that would certainly get one a slap across the lips by my mother’s fat little hands was to call your brother or sister or any one “a fool.” I didn’t understand why she hated that word so much. Now I do.

Equally hated words from my our lips to my mother’s enormous ears were “I don’t care.” Those words were forbidden in our household. The reason is also clear to me now.

My mother understood the relationship between knowledge and responsibility. Thomas Jefferson left us the powerful maxim… Freedom requires knowledge and responsibility.

My mother did not know Dr. Wisel nor had she read the works of Thomas Jefferson. But somehow this very simple southern “Negro” woman knew that the key to success in this era was for her children to hunger and thirst for knowledge and to expand their sense of responsibility beyond the personal and the selfish concerns of materialism.

With her limited Jim Crow education my mother taught me and my brothers and sisters that the acquisition of knowledge must be driven by service to humanity. She taught us that to whom much is given much is required. So, I have spent my fertile and lucrative academic years in my local high school and the somewhat provincial city of Mount Vernon.

Why? Because as a child born in the segregated south and raised in the 50s and 60s I was taught that those with knowledge have broad responsibilities…especially community and societal responsibilities.

Responsible…Responsibility…
RESPONSE–ABLE
THE ABILITY TO RESPOND.

What separates humanity from the beast of the earth is not our thumb and tool making capabilities as some scholars suggest.

Yes, it is our ability to reason, to search for answers and solve problems. But, science has shown us that insects and monkeys also can make creative tools to sustain their survival. Even the lower forms of life instinctively solve problems and creatively overcome obstacles before them.

But, humanity has enriched minds and thought processes. I like Einstein’s definition of intelligence…He said intelligence is What to do when we do not know what to do. What to do when we do not know what to do. I love it…

So intelligence according to Einstein is not content…it is not how much we know…But it is content plus creative action based on what we know…and in that process of solving our problems we construct and create new knowledge.

So you and I are God’s greatest creation because we are responsible…free will agents… We are RESPONSE ABLE. We are able to respond in meaningful ways to God…to one another…and to every crisis, obstacle, trial, tribulation, every social problem we are confronted with…We are able to grow knowledge and be RESPONSE ABLE.

Everybody knows something. Everybody has knowledge. We are responsible for the quantity, quality, and use of what we know. (By the way, knowledge is simply what we know.)

So many know a lot about things that are worthless to the progressive development of humanity. Then there are those who know specific, finite areas of knowledge that can be fed to a small few and also not a direct benefit to the mass of humanity.

Each one of us must teach one. It is our individual responsibility to teach…our children, students, employees, congregations, etc…We are able to respond to those who need to know something that we know.

(There are many who have skills that could help in the new efforts to govern and lead our schools into a new era…into a revival of academic excellence. You and I are able to respond. You and I are required to respond because you and I have knowledge. This does not mean that the current trustees, superintendent, administrators, teachers, parents etc. do not have knowledge. It only means that this district has not had to select a new superintendent in two generations (25 years). It means that district has never had a majority of minorities on the school board.

To make mockery is irresponsible. I challenge you to step forward and offer your individual and collective knowledge to the emerging ethnic groups.) I know that the fear of rejection and the dynamics of politics are restraints but those things do not change what you know…nor do they reduce your responsibility. You know thus you are responsible.

Because we know we must not retreat but step forward and be selfless givers of what we know. Not for political manipulation but for the progressive development of our community and all of humanity. Because we have knowledge we are response able and must be risk takers.

Over the past year I have acquired a deeper understanding of the plight of humanity. I was taught a life altering lesson by an obscure young man named Herschel Greenspan…His story taught me the meaning of the RESPONSIBILITY OF KNOWLEDGE.

Herschel Greenspan knew about the destruction of life in the earliest days of the holocaust. Herschel Greenspan felt responsible for what he knew…with the vigor of youth he knew that he was able to respond.

Herschel Greenspan’s story brought the reality of November 9, 1938 into my life in way that has changed me forever. Today, I need to talk about Kristallnacht. I want to talk about Kristallnacht. I need to. I must. I have gone to talk to survivors. They are a tough audience. I immediately threw away all of the prerequisites for dialogue. I did not require them to talk about slavery and I would not allow them to require me to denounce Farrakan. We agreed.

I asked them to meet me where I was. A human of African ancestry trying to see the world through the eyes of Herschel Greenspan. I refused to let anyone trivialize my effort to experience the meaning of Kristallnact.

For a moment, the historical experience of my people in America did not matter. I only wanted to be allowed to really feel and know and be responsible for knowing the truth of Kristallnact. I wanted to be transparent…open and vulnerable. I knew that the survivors in the audience were skeptical. I knew that they did not really take me seriously. But because I knew Herschel Greenspans story, I felt responsible to talk about its meaning for all humanity.

The world is a delicious but very dangerous place. We know what must be done in our community. So I come to reaffirm the unity of our existence and mutual interdependence. I come to see you and talk to you. You have invited me so I think that you need to talk to and see me as well.

I want to rehearse what I learned from Herschel. I need your patience and gentle criticism of what I think I know about the Jewish experience in Europe. I know that I am talking to the converted and preaching to the choir. But I must say that it is important for me to tell this story today. I have committed myself to tell this story to non-Jewish audiences throughout the year for the rest of my life. It is now my knowledge and I am responsible.

It is critical that I tell this story today without apologies. Far too many people of all races are willing to succumb to neo-nazi propaganda about the authentic records of the German pogroms against the Jews. As an educator, African and human being I am honored to be here as your guest. Bear with me.

From 1933-1939 Adolf Hitler, by bluffs and threats gained control of Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, and conquered Poland. This was the beginning of his attempt to conquer the world. He also wanted to get rid of people whom he believed were “inferior,” and of less value than other people. This included several minority groups, but Hitler expressed most of his hate and anger against the Jews.

He established state sanctioned pogroms forbidding Aryan Germans to do business with Jews, and placed signs forbidding Jews in their Aryan shops and businesses. Aryans were not permitted to marry Jews, mingle with Jews, go to Jewish doctors, or live near Jews. Hitler tried to expel the Jews from Germany and any other country he conquered, but that was too difficult. Besides other countries refused to accept them.

Adolph Hitler was possessed with destroying the Jews. He drew up his “Final Solution.” His final solution was a cover-up for his plot to murder all the Jews in Europe. Some German people who were not Jewish opposed Hitler’s plans. He murdered them too. He put six million Jews to death. Many Germans had to work on the program to kill all of Europe’s Jews. This was one of the darkest times in the history of all humanity. We all know the name Adolph Hitler. Far too many children and adults do not know the name of Herschel Grynszpan.

The name Herschel Grynszpan remains obscure and insignificant for most of humanity. This seventeen year old German-Jewish refugee responded to evil and injustice the way young people tend to–impulsively. What he saw happening in Europe in the Fall of 1938 was horrifying. These terrifying events were so incredibly inhumane, he could not understand why this rolling and mounting snowball of evil was not being challenged and resisted. Herschel felt response able for action against what he knew.

It was not something he read about in the newspapers or heard on radio. Herschel was Polish, but had been raised in Germany, and had escaped to France because of the Nazi persecutions of Jews. The boy’s father had been among thousands of Jews deported to Poland in sealed boxcar trains. Herschel received letters from his father describing the terrible journey and the inhumane conditions in the camp. Herschel had knowledge. He felt responsible. He knew he was response able.

The teenage boy felt he had to do something to protest what was happening to his father and people. So, on a November 7, 1938, Herschel got up and while at breakfast he took out of his wallet–a picture of himself and wrote a message on the back to his relatives. First in Hebrew, he wrote the words “with God’s help.” Then the rest of the message was written in German: “My dear relatives, I couldn’t do otherwise. God must forgive me. My heart bleeds when I think of our tragedy and that of the 12,000 Jews. I have to protest in such a way that the whole world hears my protest, and this I intend to do. I beg your forgiveness.”

Herschel left the hotel… went to a gun shop and purchased a handgun. He went to the German embassy in Paris to kill the German Ambassador. Fortunately, for the Ambassador he was in the bathroom taking his morning constitutional. Instead Herschel shot and killed a low level German functionary.

Poor Herschel did not understand the monstrous events his sacrificial act of frustration would unleash upon his people and the world. Seventeen year old, Herschel felt personally responsible…he had no other choice. Seventeen year old Herschel knew the truth about to overtake his people. He felt that he had to do something drastic. So he bought a gun and killed a German.

The option chosen by seventeen year old Herschel Grynszpan was the long awaited excuse Hitler needed to escalate his Final Solution to the Jewish problem. Herschel gave Hitler the incident to set off an unprecedented wave of anti-semitism. Europe would never be the same again. The world would never be the same again.

November 9, 1938, marked the real beginning of the tragedy for the Jews. There are many Jews still alive who were in Germany and Europe at the time. When you mention November 9 survivors still shudder. I had to also learn to shudder.

On the night of November 9th, all the synagogues in Germany were destroyed. Small and large, elegant and plain, costly and inexpensive, small town shuls and huge urban showplaces—all were destroyed. Glass was smashed, buildings burned. Torah scrolls, arks, curtains, prayer books were torn and burned. Homes, furniture, china, artwork, offices, stores, and any other property belonging to Jews were also destroyed. It was as though a single torch suddenly passed over the entire German nation.

The Nazis used kerosene to start fires and bombs to destroy the synagogues. They forced their way into Jewish homes. They beat, killed, and humiliated the people. They stole or destroyed their property. Feather beds were torn and ripped open. Clothing was stolen. Violins were smashed. Every Jewish home was ransacked. They went in and out of apartments burning, looting, killing and smashing the things and lives of the Jews. This went on in big and small cities out into the rural hinterlands. This was a barbaric time. November 9, 1938 was beginning of the neo-dark ages in Europe.

From that day, more men were sent to Buchenwald. There was very little for Jewish families to eat. No one would sell food to Jews. Doctors refused to treat Jewish patients. Jewish children were banned from schools. All Jews were fingerprinted. A large J was stamped into Jewish passports. Jews were forced to wear a yellow star on their clothing.

The term Kristallnacht emanated from the sick minds of the masters of lies and Nazi propaganda, Goebbels and Goring. They denied that there had been any plundering or looting. Goring said, “No Jew had a hair of his head touched. Thanks to the outstanding discipline of the German people, only a few windows were broken in the riots.” Following the cynicism of their leaders, the Nazi rank and file labeled their night of terror and vengeance upon the Jews as Kristallnacht, or Crystal Night–The Night of Broken Glass.

Like Hitler, Herschel’s death is shrouded in mystery. His highly publicized trial drew international audiences. He was still a kid caught in the midst of violent and troubled world. He was detained. It was more advantageous to the Nazis to keep Herschel alive. He went from French jails for minors into German prisons and eventually concentration camps. He vanished. He became a mythical figure. No one knows when he died. Many claim to have seen Herschel as late as 1945. But no one really knows how Herschel Grynszpan died. Herschel’s parents and brother and sister all survived the war. They eventually found a home in Israel.

Poor Herschel Grynszpan did not know that it was not personal. He did not understand the magnitude of what was happening and soon to take place in Germany’s Europe. It was an attack on the entire Jewish people.

As an individual, he could not stop the volume of hatred and evil unleashed upon the earth by the Nazis. His simple and perhaps foolish act of heroism unleashed and opened the door for an unprecedented time of testing of Jewish faith in their God. Even Moses and the children of Israel were more secure than the Jews in Hitler’s Europe. Herschel felt responsible. In fact all of humanity was responsible.

The tinkling glass was the demonic announcement of death and destruction. Every American needs to internalize the Krystallnacht experience. We need to see it in Oklahoma City. We need to see it in the torching of the Korean Church in Queens. We need to see it in the scorched golf courses in Westchester. We need to see it in the LA riot.

There are lives today being shattered like the glass in Hitler’s 1938 Europe. Oh how we need to see the new SS Guards. Oh how we need to see the forces of evil and destruction walking through our families and communities.

Kristallnacht is a night of terror. Kristallnacht is not the broken glass of joyous Jewish weddings but the perverted sound of window panes crushed by clubs and the butts of rifles. This is a night of terror. It is a night of tinkling glass. Forgive me if I have been exhaustive. I am trying to understand the experience. I need you to help me do that.

When we can come together and share and remember and break bread and dream together we begin to build the bridges toward the Beloved Community Dr. King talked about. That America that community, that neighborhood, that city where people are judged by the content of their character and behavior and not by the color of their skin, religious faith, gender, physical handicap, language, national origin, or even their sexual orientation. It will not be easy…but we know from Herschel Grynszpan we have little choice.

The world is still a very dangerous place for those who love peace, truth and justice. The great American democratic experience, the hope of humanity is threatened with failure not from without but from within the hearts and souls of the American people. We are yet unable as a nation to confront the color line and all of its frightening ignorance with courage and rationality.

Time is running out. We are on a collision course with ourselves–that is with the unresolved contradictions between our creeds and commitments to authentic racial democratic practices and lifestyles. What will we do with the colorful peoples of the world that are flocking here and blanketing our nation from sea to shining sea. The browning of America is happening as I speak. Most are not coming solely for economic prosperity.

Prognosticators have declared our nation financially and creatively bankrupt. They say the year 2000 begins what many have called the Asian Century. The Noble Peace Prize winner, the venerated and sainted Mother Theresa has declared America the most impoverished nation in the world. She said that America has lost its moral treasures and ideas. It leaves little for its people to believe in and be nourished with. She said we no longer offer the world the moral guidance and hope initiated by the founding fathers.

So is there hope for a revived, renewed and restored America? If so, it will spring forth from ordinary people with extraordinary faith in the inherent goodness of all humanity. There is no place for bigotry and racism in balanced God-fearing American families.

We must resist the evil of racism. We must courageously support freedom, justice and equality for all Americans. We must courageously advocate life, liberty and the right to pursue happiness and prosperity for all Americans. This is the America Mother Theresa was talking about. Bigotry and racism cannot be a part of our 21st century. We must go back to the beginnings…basics. WE THE PEOPLE are America. We do not all look alike. We do not all have the same national origins. We do not all pray alike. We do not all speak alike. We do not all have the same gender. We do not all have the same sexual preference. We do not all have the same physical capabilities. We are diverse. We are different. We are America. We must sing as a chorus in complete harmony on the issue of never again shall WE THE PEOPLE allow a Krystallnacht, a holocaust, slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, Apartheid, pogroms.

I wrote a poem in which I closed my eyes, made myself a Jew and transported myself to Germany on November 9, 1938. The opening lines are as follows:
Kristallnacht

Larry H. Spruill

Night of tinkling glass
Shattered dreams
Surreal screams
Frightened souls
Terrified by
Unleashed evil….
upon indiscriminate humanity
Tinkling, tinkling glass…
Fractured mirrors of life…
Walking on broken shards
Crunch, Crunch, Crunch…
Goose stepping boots…
Coming to take me away…

[See my blog entry entitled "Kristallnacht."]

By Larry H. Spruill

I am deeply honored for being invited to be your keynote speaker this morning. Other than going to my house of worship, I could think of nothing better to do this morning than coming out to lovely Bear Mountain and having a conversation with you about the power of change, culture, diversity and the counting down of the minutes, hours, and days to the year two thousand. There are less than 100 days to the beginning of a new year, new decade, new century and new millennium. We are coming to the close of a thousand year period. This is an extraordinary event. No one living on earth will live to see another time as the beginning of a new millennium.

There is so much anxiety about 12:01 am, January 1, 2000. I am not one to panic about the computer glitch issue. If the worse case scenario happens there is nothing I can do about that anyway. As I get older, I find worrying an extremely wasteful activity. What I am most concerned about is January 2nd and beyond. I am concerned about the millennium changes that are already here. I am concerned about things like the impact of the increasing diversity at my workplace, in my community, in public services, fire, police, local government, schools and yes even the postal services. How will these agencies and institutions handle not only the technological changes taking place in the workplace but the ethnic and cultural shifts in our places of work and public service agencies.

I am from an old American family. Yes, I am of African descent. But I am also a very proud American. I have traced my family roots on both sides to 18th century America. I have links as far back as 1767, in North Carolina. There was no Declaration of Independence nor Constitution and Bill of Rights then. But my direct descendants were here as slaves. People of color are not new to this land.

In 1951, my mother and father moved from the South to Mount Vernon, New York. They were fleeing Jim Crow, rural poverty and limited opportunities. I was just a little boy. They came North because they believed that the American Dream was yet alive. My parents were an old American family. They believed in the American Promise and Dream. They had sense enough to know that if success was not available in North Carolina then they perhaps they could get it for their children somewhere else in America.

The Spruill family was among many Post-World War II families with a Dream and found themselves on the Move. All five of their children made it. Four of them now have Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D.s. None of us have been drug addicts or served time or been under criminal justice supervision of any kind. I have shared my short family biography to answer the next question. Why are so many people from so many different places on the planet earth trying to come to the United States of America? They have heard about and believe in the American Promise and Dream.

We are living in a strange time. There is a shift taking place. From sea to shining sea, America and Americans are changing. People from all over the world are still coming to America. But for what? Most come seeking a chance to experience upward social mobility. People want to improve the lives of their families.

Over the past 200 years, the English, Irish, Scotch, Germans, Swedes, Slavs, Italians, and Greeks have come and have cashed in on the promise and dream. I believe that the American Promise and Dream is still alive. It remains a global magnet drawing the tired and the poor and hopeless to our shores. As a nation, we are still trying to say yes…come on… work hard and be blessed in the land where the thirteen stripped and fifty stared banner waves. They still come. They still come.

I am a baby-boomer. I came of age in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of you may not know what the Post Office meant to poor people some 50 years ago. The Post Office was the one place that people of color could hope to get employment that would immediately put them on a pathway to middle class lifestyles.

When I was growing up, if your father or mother worked at the Post Office you were considered middle class and living well. A Post Office job was considered status employment. Poor people going to work at the post office were able to move out of slums and public housing and buy homes and send their children to college. One could experience the good life in America simply by working at the P.O.

Years ago, many a college graduate came home and went to work at the P.O. However, the beauty of working at the P.O. was that a college degree was not necessary for employment. Getting on at the Post Office was a blessing. It was prestigious, stable and steady work. Through dedicated hard work at the P.O. prosperity was assured. The P.O. was a ticket to the middle classes. People dreamed of retiring from the P.O.

Being a mail man (now mail carrier/the pc version) had status. The mailman was a respectable and trusted member of the community. The mail man was an admired and recognized public servant…on par with policemen, firemen, teachers, and city workers. Every day, Mr. Rodgers on PBS used to sing…It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood…well back then, the neighborhood was sprinkled with faithful and friendly mailmen, police officers, firemen, and sanitation workers. Times have changed. Things are different.

So, we are just 100 days from Y2K–we nervously sense that even greater changes are on the way. In the dark days of the Great Depression, FDR assured us by saying…We really do have nothing to fear but fear itself. The same is true as we enter next century America. We are entering an era of even greater opportunities with a different looking and speaking American people.

On every dollar bill there is the phrase…”e pluribus unnum“…”out of many one.” Multiculturalism and pluralism is so much a part of our promise and creed that we put it on our money. How are we doing with the promise today? That is what worries me one hundred days before Y2K. Can we…do we still have the will to try to make the many and the different. among us…that is you and me one nation…under God and indivisible?

I submit to you today that we are in the midst of our nation’s most difficult cultural crisis in its history. There is a cultural shift taking place. It is happening now as I speak.

Culture is everything and and culture is being expressed everywhere. We all must live with our own cultural baggage. Culture is what keeps us sane and balanced. Culture is what gives stability to our families and communities. Culture is about people. The increasing cultural diversity in our nation is complicated because people are complicated.

We bring our culture and ethnicity to work everyday. We have to live with the culture and ethnicity of all of our coworkers and they have to deal with our daily cultural baggage. Our cultural selves must flow and not be obstacles in the work place. Culture must not hinder productivity in the work place. But it is becoming an increasing problem.

If we do not deal with culture, diversity and change and their pervasive influence on our lives and relationships at home, in the community and at workplace Y2K will be extremely problematic not because of computers but our inability to create a sensitive and productive multiracial, multiethnic and pluralistic community and workplace.

By the year 2020–52% of Westchester County, the quintessential suburban community also known as the Golden Apple will be minority or people of color…Most of them will be Latinos. The Browning of America is real…the browning of our schools is real…the browning of our consumer markets is real…and the browning of our workplaces are real.

The nations Fortune 500 corporations have declared that the most valuable employees in corporate America today and tomorrow are not necessarily the most well educated (and education is important)—they are not those who are the most technologically proficient (and technical literacy is more important than ever)…but the most valuable employees of today and tomorrow are those who can effectively handle diversity and change.

At workplaces where everyone is not alike, diversity and change are real challenges. Did you know that by 2056, when someone born today will be almost 56 years old, the “average” American resident, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau of Statistics will trace his or her descent to Latin America, Africa or the Asian world, the Pacific Islands, Arabia–almost anywhere but white Europe. In San Jose, California people with the Vietnamese last name Nguyen outnumber the Joneses in the telephone book 14 columns to eight.

In Houston Texas, at the Sesame Hut Restaurant, a Korean immigrant owner trains Hispanic workers to prepare Chinese-style food for a largely black clientèle. Let’s bring it closer to home. In Mount Vernon there are two restaurants, owned by Greeks, who train Latino short order cooks to prepare soul food style breakfasts, fish and grits, etc. for their African American customers…

So we stand 100 days from a new century…a new millennium…a new America…a new county…a new sense of community…The tongues and voices will sound different…The people will look even more different…Our neighborhoods and workplaces will feel different.

But in this world of differences…In the workplace where everyone is not alike…how will I respond to you? How will you respond to me? Can I ask who are you? Can I tell you who I am? Can I tell you who I really am…that is my cultural being? Do you care to know?

In the workplace where everyone is not alike–I need to know how you feel about me? I know you really want to know how I feel about you? We do more than work when we show up and punch the clock? Don’t we?

We learn many things all day long. We learn how to get along…get through the day without conflict. We learn how to be culturally invisible. We learn how to take our difference and go unnoticed all day long. The changes in our society are escalating so fast that we will not be able to do this much longer. I believe it was an Asian man in a postal uniform that was singled out and killed in a hate crime this summer in Las Vegas.

In the workplace where everyone is not alike–that world of differences will eventually have to be dealt with. We must recognize and accept our differences and celebrate them…while at the same time place greater emphasis on the things that make us the same…

In the workplace our values are usually the same…What are they? Life…Liberty…the pursuit of happiness…Freedom…Justice..Equity… Due Process…and most of all…Opportunity… Opportunity…Opportunity to bless our families and children from our hard labor…What each and everyone of us want…with all of our differences…is peace and prosperity…peace and prosperity for ourselves and families. These values have no racial boundaries…they have no linguistic and ethnic boundaries…They are universal desires…They are human aspirations…They are also the essence of the American Promise and Dream.

The future is an eclectic one…it is a mixed bag of people. Along with the Browning of America…there is the Graying of America. Westchester County…The Golden Apple for example will become browner but also grayer and grayer…

Yes, nationally, women, people of color, and immigrants (many of whom are non-English speaking) represent more than 50% of the present workforce. Next year, 85% of the people entering the workforce will be female, African American, Asian American, Latino, or new immigrants.
An equally important fact is that two million “older” workers, between ages 50 and 64, are ready, willing, and able to work and are not being utilized. By 2020, one out of every four workers will be age 55 or older.

Will the workplace be ready to deal with these new realities of color, culture, and age? How will we respond when the workforce swells with a rainbow of faces of color and a bright tapestry of cultures and vibrant and energized graying elderly workers? Will they be allowed to enrich our communities, houses of worship, commercial centers and our workplaces.

This new America that I speak of can be a renewal, and exciting renaissance, a culturally vibrant and prosperous beginning of a new era. The unfinished business of the American democratic experiment began some 225 years ago is soon to face its greatest challenge…will it renew itself with the cultural infusion and integration of our new immigrants?

Will our nation recognize and embrace the potency and power of the brown faces and different tongues from Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and even Africa? Will we accept the truth that is before us…which is that the browning and graying of our beloved nation is a next century re-creative process? We are getting the youth and vitality we need through our recent immigrant families and our healthier and longer living seniors are remaining in the workplace to share their wisdom, skills and know-how with the younger and browner workforce.

In closing, I want to caution us all…the world is still a very dangerous place…especially for people who love peace, truth, justice and all of humanity. Our nation is still the bright star and hope of humanity. We are not threatened as a nation from without…the Soviet Union has collapsed and is struggling just to feed itself.

Just one hundred days from Y2K, our greatest danger and national threat is from within the hearts and souls of the American people. We are yet unable as a nation to confront the ignorance of racism and bigotry. We are yet to make a commitment…citizen by citizen…family by family…supervisor by supervisor…worker by worker and in workplace to workplace to courageously confront and root out insensitivity and discrimination against people who are different.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, and venerated and sainted Mother Theresa before she died declared America the most impoverished nation in the world. How could a nation who has so much of everything be so poor? She said that America has lost its moral treasures and ideals. She said that we leave little for our people to believe in and be nourished with. She said we no longer offer the world the moral guidance and hope initiated by the founding fathers. I am not sure that I entirely agree with her.

One thing for sure…we still have one another. We look different than the Founding Fathers. We speak different languages and even often have different religious faiths that the Founding Fathers. But one thing is certain…without the success of the new rainbow American workforce…our nation cannot succeed in the days and years to come after January 1, 2000.

One other thing for certain is that all humanity is creative and intelligent. Humanity…and I mean all of humanity…black, brown, yellow..red and white humanity have enriched and creative minds. I like Albert Einstein’s definition of intelligence…He said intelligence is knowing what to do when we do not know what to do. I love it.

We have an idea of what Y2K holds for those of us working in workplaces where everyone is not alike. We may not know everything we need to know. But we do know that our nation will need skilled workers to sustain its global leadership. We are the workforce of today and tomorrow. We will not let America down.

We will be the the workers who can effectively handle change and diversity. We will be the workers who will be the problems solvers in the work place. We have and continue to have the intellectual capacity to do what Einstein suggested…We will find out what to do when we do not know what to do. Our diversity will not be a deficit.

The browning and aging of our workforce will breathe new life into our national economy and enable America to sustain its competitive edge for another glorious century. The Postal Service will serve a model of what the American workers will be able to achieve in the Brave New World. God bless you all and God Bless America.

January 14, 1998
Mamaroneck/Larchmont
Emelin Theater

I give honor to the communities of Mamaroneck and Larchmont for inviting me to your neighborhoods. Tonight pre-faces the birthday of one of the most effective Americans of all times…Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King…

What is the function of the annual King Holiday and its celebrations…It is to bring our nation into a moment of reflection about the success of our people in the journey toward the realization of our basic creeds…Are we living and governing our individual, family, local, state, and national affairs as if all men…all of humanity are really, really created equal. Are we handling our personal, business, and government affairs as if all of humanity is really, really, entitled to life, liberty and the right to purse happiness.

During this time…we get to a chance to take a look at our values and beliefs…we get a chance to ask ourselves how faithful were we to the religious and multicultural slogans on our currency: you know…In God We Trust…and E Pluribus Unum…out of many one…

The holiday stirs our conscience…we look at ourselves again…deeper than the day and week before…we ask ourselves questions like…Who is my neighbor? I submit to you that we have a generation that do not know who Dr. King really was and represents…I submit to you that we have a generation that still do not know their neighbors.

We think that to hate means to spew racist doctrines, commit racial violence or burn swastikas in the lawns of golf courses. But hate can be a vicious and continuous assault of benign neglect of humanity not of your kin…klan…or kolor.

How does Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. get the privilege of representing the best of what is believed about American social and political culture?

18th century belonged to George Washington…
19th century belonged to Abraham Lincoln..
20th century belonged to Martin Luther King, Jr…

I submit to you tonight…that Dr. King was not a slain civil rights leader but a gospel preacher whose ministry was the civil rights movement. He was murdered because of his beliefs…

Murdered because of his belief in the power and unifying ability of unconditional brotherly love…He was murdered because he really believed that no other nation in the history of humanity had the opportunity and capacity that America had to create the beloved community on earth. How problematic this has become for us living in this salad bowl full of differences, colors, and textures…called the United States of America.

Rev. King preached about being a drum major for justice…he preached about leading us to stride toward freedom…He preached about the power of love and how we as a nation must develop the strength to love. Dr. King was not impatient. Nor was he a gradualist. But his life…cut short at the age of 39 was a testimony to his commitment to freedom now and why we can’t wait…In one of his final books he asked the question, where do we go from here: chaos or community? Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community?

I read the verse in Luke 10:27,36 Love thy neighbor as thyself…Who is thy neighbor…? I could hear the Hebrew, translated Greek, and Arabic text say…

Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad

Our Father who art in heaven, Holy is thy name…

Qul hu wa La Hu Ahad
Al La Hu Samad
Lam Ya Lid Wa Lam Yu Lad
Wa Lam Ya Kul La Hu Ku Fu Wan Ahad

I open my address through this ecumenical footnote from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic prayers declaring the oneness of God. There is this eternal desire among men to declare the unity and oneness of God and then desire to have individual communion and intimacy and relations with Him.

I would venture to guess that most of us profess the oneness of God Almighty..and that we think it good and worthwhile to seek oneness with God…But it is the desire of our merciful God that we seek oneness in love among the diversity of His creation…that is…among all of humanity.

This has been and remains the greatest challenge to humanity. How difficult it seems to be to create what Dr. M. L. King declared as the “beloved community on earth.”

It is easy to profess and seek a one-on-one relationship with our great God… Relations are the essence of Communion…Good relations are intimate…full of trust…full of compassion…full of healthy communication…full of caring…So many of us seek this kind of relation with the great God whom we have not seen…and hate our brother…The bible says that for he that loveth not his brother… whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from God, that he who loveth God love his brother also.

He that loveth not his brother… whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? I believe we ask the question Who is my neighbor because we have lost the ability to see…that is to really…really see…one another…

I live in the quintessential village
Westchester County…
the land of splendor
above the Hudson and by the Sea
As we fly over the good and the plenty
As we look down on the material dreams fulfilled
From a hawk’s eye view..
We can glimpse the Harlem and New Haven lines
twisting through our neighborhoods…
I know you can envision from above the…
manicured lawns, golf courses, country clubs…
range rovers, fur coats, convertible beemers…
IBM, Texaco, Pepsico…
strung along the Gold Coast…
in the core of the Golden Apple…
neighborhoods beaded along the waterway highways…
Sawmill, Bronx, Hucthinson, Route 22, Post Road
Tuckahoe, Scarsdale, Hartsdale, White Plains, Pocantico
Valhalla, Pleasantville, Mount Kisco, Bedford Hills
Katona, Somers, Chappaqua, Thornwood, Greenburgh
Mamaroneck, Larchmont, New Rochelle, Pelham
Yes there is a
Yonkers and Mount Vernon
I live on the block called
Mount Vernon
You know…down by Bronx County
The street still exorcising
Its schizophrenic demon…
Are we the Bronx or Bronxville?
Every villager wants prosperity and peace
But there is poverty and pathology in our village
I am here on your block tonight
To meet my neighbors…
I knock on your doors…

Knock…knock…
Who is it?
It’s me.
Who are you?
I am Roberto from the
candle-lit restaurant overlooking the sound…
you don’t know me…I live in Port Chester
I was in the kitchen…
You never saw my face…
I come to find out if you enjoyed your dinner last night…
I come to introduce myself…I am Puerto Rican…

Knock…knock…
Whose there?
It’s me.
Who are you?
I am Jim…Jimmy O’Brian…
I saw you yesterday…
You looked at me and turned your head quickly…
as in fear or offense…I am not sure which…
Don’t you remember???… at the park bench…
near the fountain and pool…
lunch time…downtown…White Plains…
you know…near Macy’s…
Yeah… the homeless guy…the derelect…
Yeah…I had been drinking…
But I really was hungry…when I asked you for the coins…
I know I was not dressed for
a salad and tuna-filled pita lunch…
But I saw you…
You looked at me…
and you quickly turned away…
erasing me from your life that day…
You can find me…
I live at the shelter…at the county airport…
You know…near Arrowwood…
You know…near the Greenwich line…
I thought I would just pay you a visit.

Knock…knock…
Who is it?
It’s me.
Who are you?
I am Dinesh…
I saw you at the Metro North depot…
You gave me a dollar bill for a newspaper…
I put fifty cents change in your hands
for the New York Post…
Oh believe me…I won’t tell your
Wall Street Journal friends
about your reading habits…
I come to tell you that you never said good morning…
You never looked up from the headlines…
You turned and walked away…
I was offended…It was a bad day for me…
There were kids who made fun of me…
They called me a “towel head.”
My skin is chocolate and my hair raven black…
but my heart is Ellis Island
and the lower East Side…
I am not the “immigrant problem.”
My name is not “foreigner.”
Can’t you see your grandparents when you see me…
I am a ribbon in the rainbow of humanity…
I am a thread in the Scottish Kilt
a colored pattern in the Kente cloth
a special patch in the quilt called America…
I live in Hartsdale…

Knock…knock…
Who is it?
It’s me.
Who are you?
I am Ethel…
I ride the #40 bus with
hundreds of other West Indian women…
We take turns getting off along Route 22…
all the way to White Plains…
I polished the brass railings on your spiral staircase…
I even did the door knobs the other day…
I meticulously cleaned the corners…
along the baseboards…
Don’t you remember???
the smell pine from my pail and mop…(smmmm)
can’t you smell it???…of course you do…
But my face and voice are unfamiliar to your
selectively blind and deaf eyes and ears…
Just remember the squeaky clean floors…
and the scent of pine in your nostrils.
See and hear me. I am Ethel…
By the way…I am not the “Jamaican girl…”
I am Ethel from Barbados…

Knock…knock…
Who is it?
It’s me.
Who are you?
I am Rakim…
You know from New Rochelle…
now residing in the palatial penitentiary in Valhalla
I could hardly read in your tenth grade English class…
You remember me…remember…
rear of the room…near the poster of Shakespeare…
You though I was angry…with a perpetual attitude…
All you had to do…was look a little closer…
and look a little longer…
I couldn’t read…I just couldn’t read…
You were afraid of me…
I needed you to see all of me…
slam…clanck…bam…
Now the bars…strip my face…
as the birds fly past my window…
making mockery of my failure…
But I remember you…
unable to look at me…

Knock…knock…
Who is it?
It’s me.
Who are you?
I am Hector…
From Oaxaca…in Mexico…
I live in Mount Vernon…
Every Monday…
I pull my Chevy truck into your yard…
I cut your grass…
I trim the hedges…and bushes so meticulously
placed around your Tudor house…
I am the one…noisly blowing the leaves…
and the twigs into circular patterns
until they are neatly piled into black plastic bags…
And I take them away…
I bill you…I dare not come to the door for payment…
You don’t know me…
By the way…
Soy Chicano…no soy Puerto Riqeuno…

Knock…knock…
Who is it?
It’s me.
Who are you?
I am Lin Su…
My sister knows your voice…
But I know your face…
I live above my restaurant…in Port Chester…
We deliver…
Two or three times a week…
you call my sister for Chinese food…
Chicken and Broccoli…
in the brown sauce…no MSG…
Hot and Sour soup…
no duck sauce but lots of hot mustard…
My sister knows your voice…
We are grateful for your patronage…
I am Lin Su…
I deliver…I ring your bell…
I stand at the door…
I know your face…
You do not look at me…
I am the one with the plastic bag…
filled with the white boxes of food…
I give you change…you give me a dollar tip…
You don’t know me…
I am the faceless one…
I can hear your children yell…
The Chinese guy is here…
I am not sure
if they are talking about the food or Lin Su…
I am not Chinese…I am from Korea…

Who is my neighbor…?
Anthony…the Italian…working with his hands…
blue collar…from Eastchester…
now living in Yorktown…

Who else is our neighbor? This is an intriguing question?

In fact, on March 25, 1968, about one week before the brutal assassination of Dr. King, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel at the sixth-eighth annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly introduced Dr. King to those distinguished holy men of the Jewish faith with these powerful and challenging words…

Where does moral religious leadership in America come from today?…Where does God dwell in America today?…Where in America do we hear a voice like the voice of the prophets of Israel? Martin Luther King is a sign that God has not forsaken the United States of America. God has sent him to us. His presence is the hope of America. His mission is sacred, his leadership of supreme importance to every one of us. The situation of the poor in America is our plight, our sickness. To be deaf to their cry is to condemn ourselves. Martin Luther King is a voice, a vision and a way. I call upon every Jew to hearken to his voice, to share his vision, to follow in his way. The whole future of America will depend upon the impact and influence of Dr. King. May everyone present give of his strength to the great spiritual leader, Martin Luther King.

Dr. King was a great spiritual leader because he challenged us to love one another in ways that were unconventional. He required us to look one another in the eyes and compelled us to say, “You are my neighbor and I love you simply for your humanity.” Establishing Beloved Communities is our obligation. It is the American Dream.
Thank you.

By Larry H. Spruill

I have known villages
both ancient and modern…
I have an ancestral village in Nigeria…
I know not which or exactly where.
There is the Southern village of my birth…
where horse driven buggies
creaked along dusty dirt roads.
My native place
My coming forth into this world.
But there is the village of my life and heart.
My place of nurturing and preparation.
My village…My sacred place..
My Mount Vernon.
The village from which I was sent forth
to walk the ends of our
delightful, delicious and dangerous earth.
The big blue marble floating in space.
My global village.
My life has been a journey,
a series of rest stops, experiences,
and divine nudgings to keep moving on…
safari after safari…
following bright lights
in purple-blue midnight skies
never getting too comfortable
one voyage to the next voyage
to the next…
Following an inner compass
with no true
north, south, east or west…
yet living a precise, infallible charted map
pointing to places of personal providence
itineraries laden with yellow brick roads,
strewn with pot holes, and ditches
which must be traversed
while looking for
the smooth downhill
black top of life
where there is no weariness…
no worry…no wanting …
just the knowing that the village…
yes, home, cannot be
to far beyond the horizon.
Which village? Which home?
Of course…
My beloved village
adorned with childhood friends
familiar playgrounds and school yards
houses and buildings
streets and avenues
changing their faces everyday
threatening to transform themselves
beyond recognition while
flexing their budding urban muscles.
but…I am not impressed.
It is still the village
of my life and heart.
My place of nurturing and preparation.
My village…My place..
Mount Vernon.
From which I was sent forth
to walk the ends of our
delightful, delicious and dangerous earth.
I am now the prodigal son
Home amongst childhood friends
familiar playgrounds and school yards
houses and buildings.
Home after
safari after safari…
following bright lights
in purple-blue midnight skies
Home after
one voyage to the next voyage
to the next…
Following an inner compass
with no true
north, south, east or west…
Just one footstep after the next
along the path to the village
of my life and heart.
My place of nurturing and preparation.
My village…My place..
Mount Vernon.

October 20, 2005
Mount Vernon, New York

African returnees speeding
from Accra to a Kumasi hotel
traversing but not touching
the lives of the Asante people
who one by one
whizzzz by the broad windows
of the sanitized, flyless
air conditioned bus
wrapping around the narrow road
hugging the center line
stretching east to west
adobe huts crowded by
banana and lime trees
interspersed with
rusted corrugated sheet metal roofs
in towns and villages stringed together
by sporadic power lines
darting down from timber poles
to cinder block houses
carrying quiet fire
for lights, radios
and primitive appliances

The burned out African sun
peeks through a hazy sky
signaling the end and beginning
of the daily dance
with life and death.

Everyone and thing is headed home
most on foot
racing with darkness
Virile boys herd goats and cows
alongside the road
making their way
to the certainty of home
and familiar pots of peppered food.

This day is closing its door
The owls and bats scream
dusk toned farewells
to the daily light
four girls briskly walking along the road
where the blacktop ends and the red clay begins
toting water to mama like breathing regularly
making ready the nights journey
through the purple night
step by step
deepening the familiar foot path
engraved by eons of ancestors
a foreboding sameness
like a scratched lp/cd
going round and round
with no one to push pause
and try another track
Decades of days and nights
weeks and months of
sunrise and sunset
and waiting for the
soft sunrise of monotonous routines
along the road in Asanteland

Sprouts of satellite eyes and ears
stirring hopes for forks in the road
digital visions and sound bytes
possibilities of newness
electronic promises
cyberspace openings
chances to break free
to taste the sweet
mango nectar of
modern life.

Bring the boy before the chief
that his deeds may be known
before the elders and ancestors
Let him hear the voices of the ages
speak thunderous warnings
of foolishness and folly…

Bring the boy before the sages
with mother and father in tow
to encircle the lad
with the forces of life, love and law
Let all look in his eyes
to see
what is growing inside–
to see
what is crooked
what is straight

If there be fear and trepidation
there is hope
If there be drops of water
streaming from his soul
down his face
mother and father may smile
If there be hardness of heart
may his days be full of mercy
If there be laughter and mockery
let there be libations of mourning
for the village has
lost a son
to death.

The African dream
of life, liberty and peace
is rooted in
an innate pursuit of
unrestrained happiness
erupting with joyful
exuberance
taking time with friends,
miles of smiles
dance and music
with very little
in purse and pantry
but hearts full of
sweet flowers
frankincense and myrrh
and honey flavored
tongues with delicious
poems and songs
and ancient
proverbs and prayers
mixing with time and talent
to make African dreams
prosperous realities…
but for the moment
simply put…
things deferred.

African students
are taught to
uniformly
fearfully respect
the headmaster
the teacher
the learning laboratories
the books and pens
honoring the things
of the mind
and one another
as a way of
demonstrating
self-respect