Thread by @AlHendiify

I saw a pride tweet talking about the ones who came before us and it made me think of Mr Jay Henderson.

He was an elderly Black man who subbed at my high school. Dude was beloved by almost all the students.

He was the kinda old dude who would had the same intro to every class he taugh and wrote his name the exact same on that chalkboard

Mr Jay was that “Learned Black Man” ya know?

He had his suits.
He had his hats.
And he had his quips.

Occasionally tho he’d have these moments where he’d slip and start talkin about “the brown babies” and we never knew what tf he was talkin about.

It was always “uh oh Mr Cray back”

Well one of the kids at school had detention or something and had to hang w Mr Jay. They was talkin and it turned out that MJH lived in Germany for a time.

At some point around the Holocaust/WWII he wound up inside of this orphanage that had been abandoned, an orphanage with exclusively brown and black children/babies that had been completely abandoned.

I don’t know if the children or their bodies we’re still there, if they were alive or not. There’s really no way of knowing at this point

But it must have marked him so deeply that the memory would sometimes overwhelm him decades later.

Now all cards on the table it’s hard to know how much of these hs stories are true and how much get exaggerated by the other kids, but this is a reminder to ask your elders about themselves.

They’ve seen more than we can imagine and so will we.

Anyway, a good friend of mine saw Mr Jay Henderson at KC Pride maybe a decade back, dressed in a suit, havin a good time, vibin.

I like to think that he was in a place where he felt safe and at peace. I hope his family is doin well.