JAYFORCE

Above: The Talladega College Marching Tornadoes march in the parade celebrating the Inauguration of the United States’ 45th President, Donald Trump. The music selection played in the clip…“Dreamin'” (appropos in a way).

Complicated. Mixed feelings. I could easily sort them out by sticking to my President Trump = Cobra Commander = Ultimate Evil algorithm… but Trump is who we got. He is The President now.

And these kids. Children. OUR children. What would they have ‘got’ from listening to me, or to the many who’d tell the Talladega College band to turn down an opportunity to perform for The President on National TV and get exposure and funding their school needs? What would they have ‘got’…? Nothing!

Now, that is no justification either… because back when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and lifelong friend Ambassador Andrew Young and eventual U.S. Rep. John Lewis, CT Vivian, Dr. Bernard LaFayette and… what did THEY ‘got’ after being booed, beaten blue and bloody? Nothing! That’s what our heroes ‘got.’

I cannot, if I am real with my realest self, declare those TC band members ‘sellouts’ or say that they were fools for playing the Inauguration. Had I the talent and opportunity in that situation, I might have done the same or sent my kids if I had any. But being an official old man in the eyes of every student who went, I could have told them about optics (Omarosa being their ‘welcome committee’ and clamoring for selfies) AND what the event looks like from a historical perspective… melancholy at best.

Think of it this way: When you picture King, Lewis, Vivian, LaFayette and pictures from poignant moments of their youth… What do you see? Courage, strength in the face of adversity, a fight worth fighting, hope for the future. But when you see TC’s band in pics with Omarosa or playing the Inauguration…

That is for YOU to decide, perhaps over the next few years.

Either way, kids, the story ain’t over. By now you are back on campus. That scholarship money, new practice space, etc. can be used to learn to EXCEL… to prepare you to ENGAGE… to follow in the footsteps of the guy many of you hoped to see (Barack Obama) and CHANGE THE WORLD. You can take what ‘the man’ gave you and use it to fuel the revolution!

After all, Nat Turner ate the scraps ‘Massa’ threw at him and read the Bible he ‘let’ him have, kept up his strength and fueled his faith, THEN LED THE REVOLT!

– @ojones1