Personal Narrative: My First African American Wedding Day

I woke up that day to the sound a couple talking to each other about right and wrong. I turn to my wife and said “Janice remember when we were that young and naive.” She didn’t reply I assumed she must still be sleeping. I laid back on this old pile of cotton and sheets that we called a bed for the past fifty years. I still had the shoes she made me for our wedding day. Thinking about those shoes suddenly filled me with a sense of nostalgia as I reminisce on the old days like when I held my son for the first time and when I saw him go to college. He was one of the first African Americans to attend college everyone said it was impossible that we were nothing but the hogs that the white man created. Once he attended college there was a certain

It read “Mr Ray I’ll be back soon with a surprise - love Janice.” I grunted to myself I hated nicknames and she knew it but she called me Mr Ray anyway. I grabbed the rusty, old wrench and twisted the screw so the water would start running. Sometimes the water did not work fortunately for me this was not one of those times. “It must be my lucky day.” I said to myself with a smile. I splashed my face with the water. It was just the start of winter so the water was brisk but not freezing cold. I grabbed the least dirtiest towel I could find and dried myself as best as I could. My face was mostly clean but as much as I tried I could not get rid the lifetime of stains that marked my skin. There was another knock on the door. “John I’ll be ready in a minute give me a second” I shouted as I opened the door. It wasn’t John it was the couple that had been arguing early. “Hi I’m the Sheriff and this is my wife. I regret to inform you this but your son and wife have been killed by some local thugs we don’t know exa-” I tuned out after that. I could hear my wooden leg snap from my body shaking so much. The white Sheriff and his white wife sat down on the ground with me I could see the sympathy in their