"Callus On My Soul"

Inspired by Dick Gregory's memoir Callus On My Soul (2000). In a interview in 2001 with C-SPAN the interviewer ask Mr. Gregory how did he come up with the name of the book title, his response:

“…I noticed something about old Jewish waiters in New York City. I mean, it looked like the shoes they wore, the high tops, it looked like it had soup on it from the first day 40 years ago. But I noticed all the shoes had holes and little cuts, and--and they was turned up. And--and then I realized, thinking of those old black men and women who had calluses who didn't know there were such a thing as a foot doctor, OK? And you notice that they would cut the shoe. And then I realized when I look at them old shoes, they would start wearing out from the inside. And then one day, it dawned on me, there have never been a shoe that a human have made that could wear out a pair of God's feet. So if you wear a tight shoe, you get a little rub, then you get a blister, then you get a corn, then you get a callus. And thinking that a callus will wear a shoe out--and I realized that black folks, oppressed folks--we have a callus around our soul. And if you don't cut that shoe, the shoe will be wore out from the inside. Now the significance of this is I have no control over that. I don't care how much I like this shoe, there's a universal god force that says, You can't rub me like this, without me reacting.' And so I'm saying to America that we have a callus around our soul, and it have nothing to do with me being polite or trying to peacefully co-exist.”

The irritations of a profoundly sick society is igniting the spirits of the oppressed to break free from their callused prisons.