Most mornings, David Denny ambles around a Metro stop in downtown Washington D.C., in the signature neon-yellow vest of a vendor selling Street Sense, a newspaper largely written and sold by the local homeless.
But this week’s mornings were not like any other: Denny’s name was on the front page of the latest issue of Street Sense. He had received a letter from US President Barack Obama.
Fifteen years ago, Denny wrote a poem he called “Commentary to a Black Man,” a rumination on race, poverty and the drug trade that contained a haunting plea to his fellow black men:
“We are the patriarchs of this fallen tribe, We bit the carrot, we took the bribe,” he wrote. “This is a commentary we must all face, of the devastation we have caused our own race.”
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