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SEEING CLEARLY NOW.
Leo Mosley has achieved new insight since he was shot and blinded by two White assailants in 1985.

By Reginold Bundy

Two teenage bikers had just left a group of friends and were strolling through McKeller Park in South Memphis. One of the youths was gangling with cold black hair that curled past his shoulders. He had run away from home a few weeks earlier. It was September, 1985, a Friday evening, and they were on their way to a friend's house, having spent most of the day drinking beer and smoking dope. The gangling teenager had a gun with him, a little .22 caliber pistol he'd allegedly found during a break-in. Earlier that day, the two youngsters along with two other pals, had attacked a middle-age man sitting innocently on a bench. Really beating him up. Now, as the two walked along, a young African-American came into view, jogging through the park.

Leo Mosley was out for a Friday-evening jog, his way of unwinding after a demanding week. Less than 10 minutes into his run, the 23-year-old sixth grade teacher from Whitehaven, was stopped short by the two teenage boys standing directly in his path. The taller kid was aiming a gun at him.

"Don't you know we don't allow any niggers in this park?" he screamed. "Your money! Your money!" he said in a violent roar.

Mosley was wearing a T-shirt and running shorts. "I don't have any money," he explained, breathing hard. He pivoted slightly to his right in an instinctive effort to continue running and heard, "You're dead nigger, you're dead." He felt blood pouring through his eyes and down his face, heard footsteps retreating.

Calmly, but obviously shaken, Mosley pulled off his shirt to mop up the blood in his eyes, which he assumed was the reason he couldn't see. He was walking, asking for someone to call the police or an ambulance, and then he became aware of the sound of footsteps running toward him. Somebody told him to lie down. It seemed like an eternity before he heard the sound of sirens and muffled voices around him.

Suddenly he felt his body being lifted and carried to the awaiting ambulance. Then he heard a man say, "He's going into shock." Mosley replied, "No, I'm not, I'm just relaxing." Two days later at the hospital, he learned from doctors that a bullet had entered his left temple, severed his optic nerve, and exited through his right eye. He was told he would never regain his sight. Apparently, if he hadn't made that pivot to the right, he would have not been blinded. He would have been dead.

Mosley, who had moved to the Whitehaven area just two months before school started, had heard that McKeller park was off-limits to Blacks. It wasn't a written law, but it was well known that it was occupied by White leather-jacket bikers and hot-rodders who would day-after-day hang out, drink beer, smoke dope, and prank around in their vehicles. And they were allegedly White power extremists who hated Blacks and Jews, especially Blacks.

That was 10 years ago, and after seven operations and a binding contract with God, Mosley can see again, not as clearly as he once did, but with the aid of special prescription glasses, he manages quite normally. He has been able to return to a profession he believed he had lost -- now in Jackson -- and Mosley gives all the credit to God. He now reads the Bible an hour every day.

When this writer caught up with Mosley at his home, he was reading aloud a Proverb:

"My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:
"My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain they foot from their path: For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood: And they lay wait for their own blood: they lurk privily for their own lives."

Police never caught Mosley's assailants, though they have since cleaned up McKeller Park. But Mosley isn't bitter about it, nor does he bear any anger towards the shooter and his companion.

For seven years, Mosley was forced to live in darkness, the victim of a racially motivated shooting. But the bitterness that should be erupting within him appears to be cradled snugly away, somewhere within his subconscious. Perhaps it has disappeared altogether.

"I have learned to be a good Christian," he asserts. 'Whoever they were, they must someday face a far greater judge than myself. I no longer feel the hatred I once felt towards them (the assailants). I now only feel sorry for them, and pray that they someday see the ills of their ways."

Mosley admits that for two years following the shooting he was all but forgiving. He wanted revenge, and prayed hard and often for them to meet with some kind of crippling accident. He pressed police constantly and even once accused them of "shielding the two White youths."

But then one day his mother, Alicia, and his young wife, Estelle, brought him the Bible.

For nearly a year, it sat unopened on Mosley's bedside table. He says he can't explain what prompted him to open it and begin reading, but he did, and from that moment on, he gave himself to Christ.

Paraphrasing Isaiah, Mosley says, "They that wait on the Lord shall mount up with wings like an Eagle."

It was from that Proverb Mosley gained his most faith, and he recalls uttering those very words when his bandages were removed for the last time.

"It was like the Lord had given me a second chance and provided me with a new path," he insists. Now I wait on the Lord."

Mosley admits his spiritual transformation and forgiving nature -- even under these circumstances -- came as a surprise to close friends.

His grandfather had been suspiciously slain in the Mississippi Delta region when he was only seven, and his grandmother and mother had accused White supremists of the killing.

"I grew up disliking and mistrusting Whites," reflects Mosley who graduated with a Bachelor's Degree from Tennessee State University. "And I was usually arrogant to those Whites I came in contact with. I guess I finally realized that my grandfather and I weren't the real victims. The people who committed the atrocities and the people who believe as they did are.

"Now I can confidently say that I am at peace with myself, and all other living things. I am certain that's not the case with those who shot me, or even those who killed my grandfather."
------ Ethnic News Watch


In September of 1985 a man, two intoxicated teenagers attacked Leo Mosley, luckily he was only blinded, he could have been killed. Mosley had just moved to the neighborhood and didn’t know that the park he was in was deemed “whites only.” Two white boys approached him and one held a gun to him and yelled obscenities. When Mosley came to he was in the hospital and learned that a bullet had passed through his temple and left through his eye. The doctors said if he hadn’t jerked away, the bullet would have killed him. 10 years and 7 operations later, Mosley can see again all be it not as clearly as before. During his stay in the hospital Mosley became a good Christian and still reads the bible everyday. He attributes the fact that he can forgive the boys to his new founded religion. Although Mosley admits that he did want revenge for a little while but now he just feels sorry for the boys. On an insight to his past, Mosley tells the reporter that he had grown up disliking whites because of what they did to his grandfather.


I chose this specific article from Ethnic News Watch because of a line in Zinn’s “Drawing the Color Line.” The quote is as follows, “while the whites received lighter sentences, Emmanuel the Negro to receive thirty stripes and to be burnt in the cheek with the letter R, and to work in shackle one year” (27). This quote stood out to me because of what Mosley said in the Ethnic News watch article said: “Whoever they were, they must someday face a far greater judge than myself. I no longer feel the hatred I once felt towards them (the assailants)”. This is a quote from the man who was shot in response to the fact that his assailants have never been caught. The reason Zinn’s quote reminded me of this article is because in both cases the whites were not punished as severely or at all. In this article the boys who attacked Mosley were never caught, therefore never punished. And the white servants who ran away in Zinn’s article received much less punishments then the black slaves who ran away.

Its hard to believe that “white privilege” is still part of the judicial system. Even though the Mosley’s attackers couldn’t be found, it could be argued that because he was black the police didn’t take him seriously, as he mentions in the article himself. No one should be privileged over another person for any reason. However though some people are more privileged than others in terms of money, but that shouldn’t transfer over into race. The story itself was pretty scary, actually. Many people have been attacked in a park at night, and it’s a very real danger.