Drafted into the Army,

September of ’65,

from my all-white world

in the tiny community of McAlmont,

originally an enslaved community.

Blacks, Latinos, and poor whites

were taken from our very separate worlds

and challenged to create a unified fighting force.

Hearing stories of Black lives

became my education, my enlightenment

concerning a world I had not known.

I can never again be blissfully ignorant

on the issue of race

as a southern white boy

who has known entitlement

in ways Black Lives could never know.