Old footage of a Vietnam vet surprises his family when it goes viral. 'To be able to hear him in his prime, talking about the same things that he was kicking in the 60s, was really powerful.”
were Black, which was disproportionate to the general population. These new service members had a death rate more than twice the rate of the entire American armed forces. These factors, as well as the continued hardships they faced upon returning home, caused many Black Americans to oppose the war.
According to Lucks, many questioned why they should be fighting a war in Vietnam when the civil rights conflict that directly affected them was hardly resolved in the U.S. Lucks wrote that in 1972, Black service members received more than 20 percent of the bad-conduct discharges and close to one-third of dishonorable discharges. They were often the result of trivial offenses like giving the Black power salute or wearing their hair too long. Throughout the film, men complained that there were risks for standing up to authority figures or speaking up when they experienced racism. In fact Bracey told the filmmakers, “What I say now might incriminate me.” “It was a microcosm of the United States,” his son, Sylvester Bracey Jr., said. “So, the way that they would treat Black men in the United States in ‘67, ‘68, ‘69, ‘70 for speaking against what he was told to do — is the same way they would treat you in the Marine Corps.”“They really treated him like the enemy of the state,” he said. He also noted that his father believed he was surveilled by intelligence agencies for years after the war. When Bracey Sr. returned from Vietnam, he used the skills he’d learned there to work as an electrician, wiring L trains for the Chicago Transit Authority. He also worked for the U.S. Post Office and as a crane operator for International Harvester. All the while he continued to study and preach the lessons he’d briefly articulated in the documentary. He also wrote an unpublished work about the life lessons that he wanted to pass on to other Black men, called “Of Importance to Men.” “Most anything he wrote had to do with the empowerment of ‘the people,’" his grandson said. “This included his observations from before the civil rights era until the day he died.” Bracey Sr. experienced liver and kidney issues that his doctors linked to his exposure to Agent Orange, an herbicide used to destroy forest cover and crops that military personnel were exposed to during the war. He died from heart disease in December before seeing the documentary he had spoken about throughout his life. “He was a huge advocate for ‘Black Power,’ believing that Black people should have our own, own our businesses and support our communities,” said Angella Allen, Bracey Sr.’s ex-wife. “He believed that revolution might be the only answer to equal rights for Blacks. He was a dreamer. He dreamed big for Black people. His biggest desire was to create a spark in others, to ignite their own creations and to use their talents to create a legacy to be passed on and remembered.” Mimicking the smooth cadence of his father's voice, Bracey Jr. said that if his father were alive to see the interview and the reaction it received, he would say something like: “I've been telling y'all that when the people heard me speak they were going to be ready to move. Now, the video shows that people are ready. So now it is time to move.”
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