For John Callahan
Those four black girls blown up
in that Alabama church
remind me of five hundred

 (John F. Callahan on the left and Ralph Ellison on the right) 
 This poems dedication is to John F. Callahan, a close friend of Michael S. Harper and the literary executor for  Ralph Ellison. 
 Callahan wrote an article on Michael S. Harper (“‘Close Roads’: The Friendship Songs of Michael S. Harper”) and mentions they met the Sunday after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed – the day before the funeral. 
 The two have apparently been close friends ever since.
American History