May 14th, the 2nd Anniversary of The Tops Shooting: My Story
Part 2
In the last article, I wrote about the various events held to remember the victims of the shooting massacre at the Tops Supermarket. The day before the Memorial, I turned on my porch lights in memory of the victims of this tragedy. Less than two months before the massacre I had a book signing at Tops for my 12th book entitled: Eye On History: The Golden Collection of Articles on African and African American History - Lost History, Forgotten His tory. It was well- attended by dozens of people from the community. I was the first author in Buffalo to have a book signing at Tops – thanks to the manager who supported this event. The weather was stormy that day. However, people came out to support me. The line went almost to the door entrance of Tops. Tops sold some of my books for the next few weeks.
Less than two months later, I was at Hobson’s Dry Cleaners to pick up some overdue cleaning. While I was waiting in the drive-through, my cell was ringing non-stop. This was May 22nd about 2:00 p.m. When I answered it, my fam ily wanted to know where I was. They knew that I always shopped at Tops on Saturday. However, this Saturday I decided to go to the cleaners. I wanted to know why they kept calling me. That’s when I got the news that a shooting had occurred at Tops. I was stunned!! They thought I was at Tops. I am sure that many people reading this can say that they too might have been at Tops because it was a popular place to shop on Saturday and Sunday.
When I got home, I turned on the news and it was al most unbelievable that a white racist supremist came to Buffalo with one goal in mind, and that was to kill as many Black people as possible. It was revealed later that he had even come to Buffalo prior to the shooting plotting his racist plan to not only kill people at Tops, but to go down Jefferson shooting as many Black people as possible. My street and some of the streets around it were named in his racist manifesto.
I have posed this question in my mind: Was he present during my Black history book signing? I will never know the answer to this question. But it is a scary thought!! I told my story on CNN, ABC News, and other national me dia. An account of all of this is in my recent book.
The racist shooter was a radicalized white supremacist who is currently serving a life sentence without the possibly of parole. The government is seeking the death penalty, but no decision has been made. Some of the families are now being represented by legal counsel. This was a racially motivated crime filled with hate. The families and the community are still healing from this massacre.
I recorded my experience in my book because it is a historical account that we must never forget and never forget the ten people who were killed and the three who were injured. The names of these innocent citizens are all listed in my book. They were the “Best of Us.”
You can get a copy of the book at Amazon. It is entitled “My Journey of 45 Years, Teaching African and African History in the Home, School, and Community.” It was important for me to record this in my book because books will be here forever and the names of: Margus Morrison, Pearl Young, Deacan Heyward Patterson, Katherine Massey, Ruth Whitfield, Celestine Chaney, Andre McNeil, Geraldine Talley, Roberta Drury, Aaron Salter, and the three who were injured: Zaire Goodman, Jennifer Warrington, and Christopher Braden, will stand forever!!