"Move On, Black Man Move On"

If there was a platonic ideal of what a real African American Man was in my mind, it was Ed Bradley. Smart, intellectually honest, sophisticated and smooth as all get out. Here was a man who worked right within corporate America and amazingly seemed in no way diminished by that.

How many sixty-year-old men do you know that can rock a gold earring?

During the time I wrote about in Drop, I used to loiter in 30th Street Station on my lunch breaks from the electric company, in our shared hometown of Philly. One time I saw the man, with his perfectly trimmed white beard, waiting to get on the Metroliner to New York City. I remember thinking, "If he could get out of this town and make something of himself, then there's hope for me."

My only wish is that we could have said all this to the man last month, when he was still listening.