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Who do YOU want to go to the beach with???

Today Is the last day of Black History Month.

And while I didn’t get to honor every Black person I follow (in the way I wanted to) I decided to do something that feels good and represents my appreciation for you all. If I forgot to tag or add your profile from this list, my apologies. Please take from this post that YOU are included, regardless if your picture is here or not.

Our history can not be compacted in to a single month. Our history spans infinite. Black Culture, Black Excellence, Black Uplifting, Black Lives, Black Love is and should be observed, celebrated, taught and remembered every day of our lives.

To everyone that I follow and that are part of these posts, Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your stories, struggles, come ups and lives. Thank you for being excellent and preserving our history and changing the world with your incredible love, energy, hard work, knowledge, sense of community and spirits!

From the top of your head with natural hair that lifts in the wind as each tuft of hair drapes the air like a silk train. To curls, or coils and ringlets that drape your face, or a tight curl pattern, or full fro, or fade up or cornrows or a bald head…To the bottom of your feet that belong to a body dripping in melanin of all gradations, on skin that looks like gold and smells like sunshine. To full features and big noses and full lips and curves and muscles and structure and form that rival that of gods, I am honored by you!

To our Black Women and Men who love us and give us life and guide our way and give us dreams and build our hope and instill us with faith. To doctors, writers, poets, lawyers, singers, musicians, servicemen and women, politicians, teachers, dreamers, fighters, feminists, managers, workers, singers, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, professionals, regulars, comic nerds, photographers, business owners, grandparents, directors, actors and actresses, activists, philanthropists, humanitarians and every single other type of moment that continues to enrich and build up the lives of Black people:

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

YOU ARE PART OF OUR HISTORY!

OUR EXCELLENCE WILL NEVER END!!

WE ARE OUR ANCESTORS’ DREAM!

The Story of Paul Phillips

Excerpt from the book: The Other Side of Silence: Men’s Lives & Gay Identities - A Twentieth-Century History by John Loughery

Paul Phillips was a young black gay man growing up in the Midwest during the early 20th century. He was the son of a fairly prosperous middle class lawyer within a family exemplifying the aspirations of the talented tenth. Somehow, rumors of Paul’s extracurricular activities revolving around his “sexual behavior and preference” reached his father. Quite calmly and plainly, his father explained to Paul that he was living his life within an “unnatural” condition since he did not evince a desire for the opposite sex within their small segregated community. To help his son overcome this “condition,” a trip was planned to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

For a total of seven day, Paul was interviewed and examined. At the end, the doctors reported to Mr. Phillips and his wife that nothing could be done to change Paul; he would be a “homosexual” to the end of his days. And, that under Minnesota law at the time, they were required to report suspected gay men to the Rochester police, gay being a criminal offense. For whatever reason, the doctors, to the great relief of Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, declined to report Paul to the law enforcement authorities.

After returning home from an exacerbating trip that required them to camp out because they were not allowed to stay in white only hotels, Mr. Phillips came to a rather judicious conclusion about the sexual nature of his son. If his son suffered from an “illness” for which there was no cure, he would allow his son to lead his life as before, but lead it with DIGNITY and caution. Mr. Phillips said to Paul:

Find yourself a friend you can trust and bring him …What you do in your own room is your own business.

Mr. Phillips feared for Paul’s welfare. He understood the dangers of clandestine meeting spots where those like his son found one another and sometimes the law waiting for them.