A Walk In The Park...

As many of us took the first true look at the park that looks us in the eye as we embark on our journey of knowledge everyday, we began to realize who we were in conjunction to the images we have of the past. I am not one that let's my past persuade my future but in those moments that I realized I was walking through a park that my grandmother would have been killed if she stepped a foot in; I saw how the past was the momentum of my present and my son's future.
Everyday we are confronted with the idea that maybe we are not as free as we think we are in a country that takes pride in the ideology of freedom, but in comparison to the past we are the writers of not only our own future as well as those to follow.
I am not from the area so I knew nothing about the park, nor did I realize that the section of land I drove around everyday to come to class was actually a park. So the reading we were assigned opened my eyes to view my surrounds not as a whole but as segments that represent the sum. The land was not a park to me because everything about it said "stay away"; from the statue to the broken benches and the poor landscaping I was not appealed to be there. But, as we began to speak on out interpretation of the reading in comparison to the visions we now hold of the park and its meaning I discovered I represented the "Lost Cause" of yesterday and the hope of tomorrow.
Yesterday was more than a picnic in the park to enjoy get food and stimulating conversation, and the stroll that we took was more than a walk in the park. For some it was the reminder of the hurtful past, a broken idea and the glorification of a dream. While for others it was the force that drove us to be were we are today and striving for more than our great-grand(anythings) were offered yesterday. The stroll revealed trees that seemed to be crying, homelessness that is overlooked, dreams that have become reality, ideas of power that fell short and prayers of a race that did not fall upon deaf eyes.
Nathan Bedford Forrest's statue is a poor symbol of what Memphis was at the time it was erected because it only represented the ideas of a class or group of people that were so high on power they could not sober themselves enough to see reality. At the same time this small look into the past helps to remind most of us that we have come so far...sometime we have to visit the past to understand the future, but we don't have to live there to appreciate our present.