When Will My People Be Free? The Voices Of One Crying In The Wilderness

About the Book

This book of poetic expressions broad in scope and focus is written out of my own life experiences, the struggles, trials, oppression, and devastation that my people suff er. We have suff ered at the hands of the world and have endured hardships, inequalities, and injustices like no other race of people, and we yet are not free!!!! This book is intended to be a platform for discussion and discovery. The author believes that this work is inspired by God himself with very little personal input. Its purpose is to give people of color a way to esteem themselves and that society may see the long term eff ects of inequality past and present. It is my hope that this work will serve as a bridge for open dialogue among people of all races. For when good people do nothing evil triumphs and prevails.

About the Author

James P. Miller, Jr. is the sixth child of eight born to hard working parents who are originally from the Mississippi Delta. He grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast with the support of his family in his segregated world until the public schools were integrated around 1970 in Pascagoula, MS. There he was met with his first true encounter of racism as a 4th grader. In the classroom, there was this blonde haired little white girl who taunt him with the word “NIGGER, NIGGER, NIGGER, and he still has encounters of this evil even today although not as obvious. His parents instilled in him the importance of a good education, and that it was a means of progress and a portal of opportunity and success. After graduation from Moss Point High School in 1979, he went to Tougaloo College, a small predominately black school, just outside of Jackson, MS. Here he was presented with experiences and an initial cultural awakening of his black heritage and challenged to grow. He graduated from Tougaloo College with a bachelor of science in biology in May 1983. Then he was accepted to Howard University College of Medicine and was pursuing a career in medicine from 1983-1986, but he changed career paths. Upon searching for his calling and direction in life, he found teaching and taught in the Jackson Public Schools from 1986-1990. Teaching was an honorable and satisfying career that he enjoyed. While in Jackson, he also found that he had a void, and that God was the filler of that void by forgiveness of his sin and how to live a life of purpose. That purpose, he believes is to first be a vessel for God’s use, and he accepted the calling of being a preacher in 1990. The summer of 1990 in Jackson was a time that marked another awakening in his life. He was assaulted by three police officers in Jackson, became homeless, and saw the ills and havoc that crack cocaine caused in society, particularly black society. He remembers quite vividly seeing people scurrying around looking for the rock like pieces of cocaine on the ground.