The police slaying of Michael Brown and the Ferguson uprising, along with the death of Eric Garner in New York, threw a winding sheet over the Anniversary. As the #BlackLivesMatter Movement made the nation aware of daily killings by police against blacks, and challenged whites to examine white supremacy and privilege, the “celebration” felt tinged with anger, grief and shame. Something portentous was in the mix. Would it become compost for “an energy that can be recycled in the direction of our good,” as bell hooks speaks about? Or, as she warns “a debilitating and destructive force?”