This day deserves a song

For those of you looking for an idea for a song, the events today deserve many. The day that America elected a Black President. I’m not an American and although I am deeply moved, my experience is second hand. I can’t do this song justice.

I marched against Apartheid in South Africa having previously seen segregation there at first hand as a young boy passing through. I heard them sing We Shall Overcome. I heard Huddy Leadbetter (aka Leadbelly) sing “White men in Washington, they know how, throw a colored man a nickel to see him bow.”

I heard Martin Luther King say “I have a Dream” I loved the “Has anybody here seen my old friend John” when the child is asked what racial prejudice is and he answers “I think it’s when your sick”.

My late grandmother would be weeping today. She was a famous Dutch / German author and fellow of the Goethe Institute who wrote a book called “The unfinished life of Malcolm X” and was deeply moved by the struggle against prejudice of all kinds.

Although some people looked at me sideways when I was the only white man in several blues clubs in Chicago, I can’t begin to imagine how people of all persuasions are feeling today. This is a momentous day and I am hoping for some momentous songs.