FAFO
a reflection on Martin Luther King Jr, Day.
Beginning a week before I was born, Medgar Evers was killed. Then Goodman Schwerner and Chaney, then Kennedy, then King. Mississippi would become better. That’s what my book is about, but I was born into a world afire. My classmates are precious to me. I look at them now, and know how their parents fared and dared during the burning days of Mississippi. They were young then, most are lost to us now, but in 1963, they were in the fire.
You could say they all Fucked Around and Found Out. It’s a common phrase in MAGA America and feckless rednecks in the bad part of Rankin County--guys who left Jackson because it became “too black.” In Jackson, you’d be surprised how many people fucked around to make Mississippi a more just place, and quite a few found out.
Five days before I was born, WB Selah resigned his job as head pastor at Galloway. I would be baptised, not by my family’s pastor, but by his replacement. Selah resigned for the same reasons Medgar Evers was killed--the same reasons Ed King was almost killed. You could say that they all FA and FO.
In their case, FAFO wasn’t a fool’s errand. It was a calculated risk, and a willing sacrifice to make the world better.
I’m sure that both Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr would have loved to see their grandchildren grow up as my grandfather did, instead they chose the more painful route of FAFO to make the world better.
