Mothers Day Shouts, Anniversary Greetings, and a Schedule Update

1. Happy Mothers' Day to all the women out there who have cared for someone other than themselves. It's called mothering and without that saving grace, humans would have extinguished themselves through general stupidity and excess testosterone millennia ago.

2. Happy (Late) Anniversary to my parents E&P, who, on April 30th, celebrated 39 years of marriage. I couldn't exactly call it bliss, but they still together.

On honeymoon in Nassau, Bahamas - May 1970

3. In keeping with my commitment to myself as a writer and you as my audience, I'm officially establishing a posting schedule that you can scratch yo back by. Starting today, fresh posts will appear on Fly Brother every third day. This week, look for new material on Wednesday and Saturday, followed by next Tuesday, Friday, Monday of the next week, etc. Dig?

Why not post on two fixed days, such as Monday and Thursday, you ask? Because I like variety and seeing different days in the postmark header. Nothing more.

In addition, I'll be responding to comments, should there be any, within 24 hours of receiving them, instead of each time I upload a new post. So comment, dammit, and then I can respond to the comments in a timely manner.

Meanwhile, I've seen some visual drafts of the blog redesign and I like, I like! Be ready, folk!

Fly Original: James Weldon Johnson

Black History Month ended on February 28th, and though it wasn't mentioned much on Fly Brother, all month long, my ninth-grade world history students had to present an African-American hero to their class for a test grade. One of these heroes seems to be channeling me from up above.

A native of my own hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, James Weldon Johnson was the son of an educator, who would later become an educator in his own right, in addition to being a diplomat, poet, novelist, lyricist, and civil rights activist. At only 24, Johnson became a high school principal and founded a newspaper, before being the first black person to pass the Florida bar exam. Soon, he collaborated with his brother, musician John Rosamond Johnson (who happened to be the musical director at the church I grew up in, decades prior, of course), on several theater projects, and penned the amazing lyrics of the Negro National Anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" (which I had learned at least by age six).


These ten li'l high school jitterbugs better sang! ('Specially the last verse at 2:45).

Tired of the racist buffoonery of popular music at the time (hmmm...so nothing's changed?), Johnson left that industry, entered Columbia University, and in 1906, was named U.S. consul in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. After being transferred to Nicaragua, where he wrote his impactful novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, he left the foreign service (they weren't trying to hook a brother up with a decent post back in 1913), settled in New York, became general secretary of the NAACP in 1920, published three anthologies on Negro poetry and spirituals, a collection of poetry, and his own true autobiography. Sadly, he was killed at the age of 67, when a train hit his car in 1938. Still, Johnson is remembered by the students of the various schools that bear his name (my brother went to the one in J-ville) and by the millions of black Americans who get teary-eyed at the last lines of "Lift Every Voice and Sing":

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

In belated honor of Black History Month, Fly Brother salutes fellow Duvalian, Renaissance Man, and Fly Original, James Weldon Johnson. May I be half as prolific as he.