Author: Ernie McCray

San Diego has company coming to town this weekend, about 10,000 librarians. My kind of people. I mean I just…

I hadn’t written anything for a while and decided, in a spirit of fun, to check into “www.creativewritingprompts.com” and craft…

Portraying a runaway slave
I chose
to just let go
and let the character
unfold
naturally,
looking at him
somewhat literally
as me, …

Some time ago, the University of Arizona asked its Alumni: “What does being a Wildcat for life mean to you?”…

November 30th of 2010 was a good day. In many a way. First of all, from the beginning, the day…

With all the negative vibes flowing through Arizona regarding Latinos I’m reminded that it wasn’t so long ago, around 1994,…

When I was coming up in Tucson, the Old Pueblo, I would go this way and that way, to and fro, trying to keep a step ahead of Old Jim Crow. Somehow I survived that dude’s hateful antics and grew up with a lot of love in my heart and soul. But he doesn’t give up easily and seems to have a toe hold in Arizona and just won’t let go.

A few years ago the idea of a holiday for Martin Luther King came up and Arizonans freaked out …

I wrote recently about how addressing the Class of ’60 at the University of Arizona, as we celebrated our 50 Year Reunion, was an honor of a lifetime. Well, on that same trip home I received another honor of a lifetime: the UA Black Alumni’s Outstanding Alumni Achiever Award.

To be honored by my people, people who have come down the same road as I, a road upon which we had to struggle to hold our heads up high with Jim Crow …

I recently enjoyed the honor of a lifetime: addressing the University of Arizona’s Class of ’60 with my take on our times at our alma mater. My classmates and I showed up brimming with youth and Rhythm and Blues and Rock and Roll, more than ready to “Go! Go! Wildcats! Go!” and the school welcomed us with open arms.

In the background, besides the up tempo music, the likes of I Love Lucy had us laughing crazily and we relied on Ed Sullivan giving us a “Really good show” every Sunday but the world, at large, was in no way like a picnic on a carefree sunny day.

No discrimination is reasonable but there, to me, is nothing more screwed up than the discrimination inherent in our “Don’t ask, don’t tell” world.

Now, thanks to old Jim Crow back in the 40’s and 50’s and 60’s, I’ve faced more than my share of discrimination but I overcame all that, beginning in my childhood …

I can’t shake the sadness I feel for Tyler Clementi, the 18 year old Rutgers University student who recently took his life by jumping off the George Washington Bridge after a classmate broadcast his intimate encounter with another man online.

My goodness, how many more gay people must die due to society’s hateful attitudes towards them? Tyler wasn’t the only gay youth to end his life in September. There were about seven ….

Man, did I have a good time
in OB,
much like the time a whale
I saw in a watercolor
on a table
in the middle of the street
seemed to be having
to me –