Looking Backward from the Tricentennial

Part I - Chapter One

Part I:   Where have I been? (March 18, 2026)

The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice can not be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

I would not hesitate to let the minorities govern the country. This is no academic belief. The solution is attended with no risk. For under a free government the real power will be held by the people.

 - M.K. Gandhi

Chapter One

Sixty-eight minutes before he was shot, Julian West averted his eyes from the sidewalk-sleeping man in favor of the Washington Monument. Many in the crowd forming near its base, like him, carried signs. He wondered how many, like him, hefted lead pipes carefully concealed within innocent-looking cardboard tubes, held in place with generous amounts of hot-melt glue as the internet had instructed him. Julian squeezed the pole, simultaneously thrilled, reassured, and scared by the rigid core.

His stroll through the city had left him unable to estimate the number of homeless with any great precision. Some sprawled on benches, occasionally sheltered under blue tarps. Tents were strewn around McPherson Square like colorful candies. There had been a half-dozen ambitious panhandlers, whose handwritten signs all hit the same three points: announcing their status as a veteran by use of military rank; offering a few details of the circumstances or injustices resulting in their current plight and need for money; and concluding with a variation on the phrase "God bless." The closings often invoked America's name, punctuated by one or more exclamation points.

In the capital of the richest and most powerful nation on the planet, the glimpses of abject poverty through the veil of prosperity offered a little local flavor to tourists from around the world.

Movement from the sidewalk man caught Julian's attention, and the reason for the fellow's choice of sleeping location became apparent. It wasn't a random patch of concrete, but rectangular metal latticework and the source of the dull roar he heard. The dozing man shifted, the features of his white face tranquil, and rolled on his side. Air jetting from the grate tugged his tangled beard upward. As Julian walked by, he found the air warm and moist, triggering a childhood memory of holding his own hands under dryer vents at an apartment complex.

The morning sun was bright, waking the hangover slumbering in his skull; at thirty-four, the novelty had long worn thin. Joining the other pedestrians waiting to cross Constitution Avenue, Julian retrieved two aspirin from a jacket pocket and dry swallowed them. The pills went to work thinning his blood, which would be decidedly unhelpful in sixty-seven minutes.

A black woman approached from across 15th Street, illuminated by the morning sun as she stepped nimbly over the barriers of the bike lane, a rectangle of white poster board tucked under one arm. Julian appraised her discreetly. She was around thirty and sharply dressed, her skin as equally dark as his, and radiated confidence as she queued up for the walk signal. Julian took two steps backward and flashed a smile, tilting his head to make it obvious he was trying to read her sign.

She smiled back and pulled it from under her arm, effortlessly shifting her bag as she stretched it taut. The neatly hand-lettered words read, Power concedes nothing without a demand. Her grin widened as she studied him studying her sign. Racking his brain rapidly, trying to place the quote, knowing the light would change any moment, Julian made an educated guess. "Malcolm X?" he asked.

A flicker of disappointment prefaced her reply. "About a century earlier: Frederick Douglass." She glanced at the white foamboard stapled to his pole. "No justice, no peace," she read. "Classic."