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| *Photo: This portrait of my grandparents( this is James, Sr.) hangs at the entry of my home. They protect me still. I bring them daily water and sprigs of green life to feed their desires which in turn bless me. |
A question I often hear is: Why are immigrants and asylum seekers coming here? Many assume it’s only for financial or economic gain. But the reality is far more complex—and far more urgent. People flee not just for opportunity, but for survival. They flee violence, persecution, and systems that crush human dignity.
I understand this deeply, because my compassion comes from my ancestors who themselves were forced to make such choices. One of the push factors that drove my paternal grandfather, James Marshall McBride, Sr., to leave his home in Abbeville, South Carolina, was the 1916 lynching of Anthony Crawford, a substantial Black landowner like my great-grandfather. My grandfather was just 19 when he fled his family’s land and eventually made his way to Philadelphia.
We cannot imagine the fear and dread such a brutal, dehumanizing event created throughout the area. For those who stayed, the trauma lingered for generations. For those, like my grandfather, who fled, it meant starting over in a new place, carrying both grief and hope. Many decades later, my extended family and I visited that very land he had fled. We listened to stories from residents whose parents and grandparents had stayed, and we understood more clearly why a generation of Black people left Abbeville behind.
This is why I stand with people like Yero, who also fled gross, institutional violence in Mauritania, where dark-skinned Africans remain oppressed by a system of slavery and ethnic persecution. Just as my grandfather had to make an impossible choice in order to live, Yero too seeks not wealth, but safety, dignity, and a future free from violence.
By supporting Yero’s legal defense fund, we stand in a long tradition of solidarity, recognizing that migration, whether across states or across oceans, has always been about survival, resilience, and the pursuit of freedom.
Please contribute today to Yero’s GoFundMe. Any amount helps. Donations go directly to his attorney’s office to cover legal fees. Here is the link: https://gofund.me/ea76afe0| * |
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