WHY IS THE AMERICAN FLAG HALF-MAST TODAY? (FEBRUARY 15, 2025)

In Florida’s Capital City, I walk through Cascades Park, formerly the Hollow, a historical community of African-American homes. There are black and white photographs and markers situated throughout the park. You can read about it. The past. Racism. Segregation in Tallahassee. The Civil Rights Uprising. There is a plaque at THE HANGING TREE, just to be clear. We want you to know. Not to forget. It is massive and haunting, like most live oaks. Its limbs seem to sprawl for centuries and are draped with Spanish moss that sways in the wind you can barely sense. I’m guessing the tree is 150 years old.

Japanese Magnolia’s burst lavender blossoms, children spin their tiny bodies down the grassy hills, and college students gather on blankets. I observe the American Flag at half-mast. Ignorant, I ask myself why. Lazy, I ask another frolicking pedestrian with earbuds plugged into her ears, Excuse me, excuse me. She pulls out a plug. Do you know why the flag is at half-mast today? She is sorry, she doesn’t know. She is pleasant. I thank her. She plugs back in. I wonder how many people I would ask before I know the answer. My frontal lobe involuntarily flaps open and I flip from Kendrick Lamar’s “Reincarnation” to googling Why is the American Flag Half-Mast in Flordia today. Gov. DeSantos ordered….annviversary of Parkland shooting massacre…where….

We live in a political world. Thinking Bob Dylan.

Here’s Lucinda WIlliams cover of the 1980s Dylan Song.