Cost of Defying a President

onday, August 3, 1981. Around two-thirty in the afternoon the eggs land wide of us along the highway. A group of air-traffic controllers, their wives, and kids, we carry signs emblazoned with the logo of patco, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, and chant a medley of protest slogans most of us are learning for the first time. “United,” we cry, “we will never be defeated.” I’m the one with the Phillies cap and the sky-blue Keds, Little Greg, walking the picket line beside his father, Big Greg. We are the only two black people in the group, but this isn’t why we stand out. Notice the downward cast of my eyes as my father bellows at the frothing traffic in response to the hecklers strafing us from passing vehicles.