Oh my God! He was right over there! Closer than I’d been to him when Paul laid into him.
Much closer. And Rashad was looking at me, too.
I locked eyes with a kid I didn’t know, but felt
like I did. A white guy, who I could tell was
thinking about those names too.
All I wanted to do was see the guy I hadn’t seen one week earlier. e guy beneath all the bullshit too many of us see rst—especially white guys like me who just haven’t worked hard enough to look behind it all.
ose people. I hadn’t known any of them,
and he probably hadn’t either. But I was
connected to those names now, because of
what happened to me. We all were. I was sad.
I was angry. But I was also proud. Proud that
I was there. Proud that I could represent
Darnell Shackleford. Proud that I could
represent Mrs. Fitzgerald—her brother who
was beaten in Selma.
I wanted him to know that I saw him, a guy who, even with a tear-streaked face, seemed to have two tiny smiles framing his eyes like parentheses, a guy on the ground pantomiming his death to remind the world he was alive.
For all the people who came before us,
ghting this ght, I was here, screaming at
the top of my lungs.
Rashad Butler.
Present.