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iq6	EPILOGUE	vAi,
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panding American identity. Becau^ of our habitual tend repeat the congratulatory story, excluding others that don?t-celebratory mood, we must resist the.collective pressure to* don, deny, or forget the particular stories of all our people and connection to them.
'if-
I grew up without knowing the full story of my father?s deathZ mother and my stepfather decided not to tell me until I started because they did not want me to grow up hating white folks. At? result, I wondered if the story were shameful?otherwise thrj have told me. I never knew my father. I had no memories of hml had no stories of him?only one blurry picture. I knew only hut sence. Several months ago, I went back to Mississippi in search c father. I didn?t know what I?d find after all this time, only that needed to go. I talked to aunts and uncles, cousins, and close fc friends. I found two newspaper accounts of his death, i spoke, the son of the man who killed my father. On the last day of my I went to visit my father?s grave. I had been there many times but for the first time, I suddenly began to cry. I cried for him,_/bf" mother, for my sisters, for a father and son who never met. Thtii,v if in memory, I saw him. I saw him laughing; I saw him ragin saw him shot, and falling, falling into my arms, into my life, i all these years of waiting, my father and I have finally met. 11 down, pick up some dirt from his grave and rub it on my head? the sorrow wells up inside me and merges with the joy of meeting finally for the first time . . .