Portside

A Black Man in Chicago Celebrates Emmett Till's Birthday
By Philip C. Kolin

It's July and I am thinking about
your birthday; today you would be 75,
a grandfather to the boy you were
when murder baptized your name
into history; the child became
the father of the man who never died;
you outlived your hollow assassins.

Seven cars dressed in black
met you at the Illinois Central station; lilacs bloomed
in every doorway on the South Side as they
passed through; your cortege wrapped
around streets and boulevards and avenues;
it was hard to tell where you began
and the people left off.

Your nightmare became our dream
singing, praying, marching holding
hands, marching, petitioning
across dark and desolate valleys,
the molehills of Mississippi, the bridges
over barricades, lunch counters,
and on buses streaked with dents and blood,
our present calling you.

Philip C. Kolin is Distinguished University Professor (Emeritus) at the University of Southern  Mississippi where he also edits the Southern Quarterly. Kolin has published more than 40 books on Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and African American women playwrights such as Adrienne Kennedy and Suzan-Lori Parks as well as seven poetry collections and a business writing textbook Successful Writing at Work, now in its 11th edition with Cengage Learning.