Dear Readers,

I know this story has digressed several times, but I am about to do it again as other memories come rushing back to me. 50 years ago, a couple of weeks after I had enrolled at Alcorn State University, an HBCU located near Lorman, Mississippi, Alcorn was set to play Grambling State University, a SWAC rival, in New Orleans’ Super Dome, which had opened just a month before.

My roommate Eddie Young and several other friends were set to perform at half-time during the game as members of the Alcorn Marching Band. And so I set off to New Orleans on my recently purchased motorcycle with a new friend Dwight Thomas — who went by DT — as a passenger.

At Alcorn, the students from the Urban North kind of hung out with each other. We called ourselves Harambees. That’s how I met DT.

We set off on Friday night and stayed the night in Hazlehurst, MS before setting off for the Super Dome. As foolish college students — I don’t recommend this to anyone — DT and I were smoking weed as we made it to New Orleans and the Super Dome on this not so large motorcycle.