(Pen Pressure is BTL's regular column about the best practices for activist writing. Guest columnists are welcome. Email info@nwuny.org if interested. -- Editor)
To show how our distinguished former chair Louis Reyes Rivera still influences the work and movement of the New York Chapter, BTL will include a tribute piece about him from an NWU member every May to mark Louis's birth date on May 19. -- Editor
The month of May tends to be an important month for me. My father's birthday was May 3rd, mine is May 8th, and my mother's May 13th (a house of bulls, that's a story!). When I was twelve, my mother told me I was due on the 18th or 19th of May. Now I do not play "the numbers," but the number 19 became one of those "special" digits. By the age of 18, I knew that Malcolm X was born on the 19th, but little did I know 32 years later, I would meet a man who gave me a deeper reverence for the 19th of May.
Louis Reyes Rivera would shun me for putting him on a pedestal, but he deserves it. He deserves to be placed on a pinnacle; he was a mighty poet, teacher and man. He is my hero - he saved me from my self- doubt and told me I am a writer. And facing the world, like a warrior riding a mighty "Waterman," he fought the battles so that I could write.
I remember being at the Harlem Book Fair a couple of summers ago when there was a tribute to him at the Thurgood Marshall Academy.
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