A young black child born and raised near the Mississippi Delta looks unkindly at the white farmer talking loudly to his father about some overdue bill he's owed--it's 1956. He recalls the farmer asking his papa "What the hell is that boy of yours looking so mad about?!" His father answered while stepping towards the white farmer with tight fist saying "He's probably wondering why I don't stomp you a new ass-hole for hollering and talking down to me all the time!" Fast forward in the life of young Earl Roberts to the year 1964--lower eastside Detroit's Black Bottom, by way of Chicago, Ohio, then on to Michigan, after living with two other families in the same rented house. Having tried to find a decent, less stressful city for the family to live and thrive in, the family was forced to receive financial aid from the Department of Family Welfare, while his father searched long and hard for a good-paying job. Big Earl is called June-Bug by his family friends as of his 10th birthday. He recalls overhearing a trench-coated white state investigator from Social Services telling (more like yelling) his mother "You know Damn well if I look around here and find me a grown nigger man in this house, a husband, kids' father, or whatever, we (the state) will stop your aid and you and your runny-nose children will be looking for a new place to sleep-out on the streets!" Young Earl remembers his father hiding in the back of the bedroom's closet, while the loud white man casually (without permission) searched his house looking for any signs of an older male's presence. Ever since those early days-young Earl would see his family and himself, as he grew into a man, threatened and disrespected and degraded, cheated and lied to by white America, time and time again. The time eventually came when Big Earl knew he had to begin to protest and use his people's skills, his fully developed talents, his art and poetry-sharpened from experiences in surviving several urban jungles to stand up and fight back. Better stated, to write back--against white America's continued destructive discrimination and racism. After selflessly protesting for civil rights in junior high-school, organizing black students in high-school to demand a name change of North-Western High-School to that of Malcolm X High in the early 1970s, and participating in equal-rights marches and Anti-Vietnam War sit-ins on Wayne State's campus, Big Brother Earl Roberts became a catalyst for community change by joining the police department in 1976. This black man, this father of two, this artist, and husband to the struggle-having suffered and endured enough of white America's overt and subtle hatred and racial fears of him and his people-decided to purge his pent-up frustrations and de-stress his soul. Contact Big Brother Earl at 313-933-1880 or email editorial@trafford.com
