‘Finally, we are being heard’
Eric Sykes stands at the end of a checkout counter wearing black slip-on Vans, a Nike jacket and a black apron that says Publix.
Past him flow folks who ended up in Clearwater, Florida, from the Midwest, the Northeast, the Caribbean and elsewhere to start over, or relax, or disappear. He carefully packs their frozen pizza and chicken wings and Budweiser into plastic sacks.
“Have a great day, Honey,” says an older white woman, as he hands her groceries.
“Thank you,” he replies. “You, too.”
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A month shy of his 18th birthday, Eric is working 20 hours a week, tucking $100 into his savings account each month for tuition.
As a young child, he dreamed of becoming a Secret Service agent or a criminal justice lawyer. This year, his senior year at Clearwater High, a friend pulled him into an elective called Freedom Ambassadors. The group visited Southern cities, the settings for key Civil Rights movements of the 1960s. They studied lesser known characters from that era, such as Ella Baker, an organizer who worked in the shadows of the movement’s lions.
In January, the class commemorated the march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery with a Unity Walk. Sykes and 800 other students marched over the Memorial Causeway Bridge in Clearwater under a bright blue sky. There were no dogs, no police with batons.
In May, after Floyd died, Eric went with his friend and his sister to a march in Clearwater. The sky was cloudy, foreboding. He wasn’t sure what to expect. The scenes from other protests were dramatic. In nearby Tampa, police doused protesters with pepper spray.
But there was no resistance. When Eric and the other protesters marched through the streets, locals came out of their houses and cheered.
“I thought, ‘Wow, you all agree,’” Eric says. “Finally, we are being heard.”
Eric is quiet by nature, and he isn’t sure he belongs on the front lines. He no longer dreams of protecting the president or fighting for justice in a court of law. For now, the revolution sounds like the beep-beep of the Publix checkout line so a young man can save for community college.
He has decided he wants to become a speech therapist. He’ll help others find their voices.
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View this story on USA Today here
This story was one of the most difficult for me to write. I hadn't ever met Eric before I spent three hours at a Publix an hour away from my house watching him work and interviewing him while he wiped down shopping carts. For the first time, the story wasn't right in front of me. Instead of focusing the profile on an event, or a hobby, my profile would need to be more conceptual. Plus, I could only write 400 words.
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From this I learned that writing short and well can make a story accessible while still sharing the truth. The process requires more thought, making the story better naturally.