President Joe Biden spoke this afternoon in Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the 58th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when law enforcement officers tried to beat into silence Black Americans marching for their right to have a say in the government under which they lived. Standing at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which had been named for a Confederate brigadier general, Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan, and U.S. senator who stood against Black rights, Biden said: “On this bridge, blood was given to help ‘redeem the soul of America.’”
Thank you, Professor for lighting a candle today and every day. We will never be free until every one is free.
Langston Hughes, we hear your voice:
LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN
Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
You can help significantly (I promise) by contributing online to https://www.turnup.us/ Please let me tell you all about Turnup which is run by a brilliant Harvard junior Zev Shapiro. It is a 501c3 nonpartisan foundation (your contribution is tax deductible) with young high school age activists nationwide who are working to run nonpartisan voter registration drives in 1,000 high schools in competitive states and also among their friends in “relational” voter reg drives in 1,000 different schools. They need funds to reward these student leaders with a small cash reward for successful voter reg drives! Recruiting has been fabulous so far but much more needs to start. Please help this totally nonpartisan student led effort to enhance our Democracy!! I am actively involved and can vouch for Zev’s honesty and outstanding track record in 2022 in Georgia and elsewhere and these folks are legit! Many thanks; please discuss and pass it on, will you? And please go online and make a tax deductible contribution to these brave young leaders!! Thank you
Many many thanks to you, our really authentic patriots, getting into “good trouble” contributing to Turnup as a memorial to our dear friend and leader!
Loved the pix of the core team. Any group that includes a friendly dog gets a donation from me. In fact, I think we’d all be better off if more boards included dogs … 🐶🐶
Ira, thank you for being part of Turnup, so am I because you brought this important work to our attention. It was a boost to scroll through Turnup's work and accomplishments. I am passing on the link that you provided, along with encouraging words. Forward, we go, salud!
Wow. What a critically important and apparently effective organization. I will be contributing. And I will be passing the word! Please tell Zev this old timer is wicked inspired by him. Kudos! He is a world class change agent.
Get yourself on the boat to vote. Do your part to keep Democracy afloat. Grab a sail. or a paddle, or an oar. Arriving today, tomorrows dreamers are at our door.
Ira, I used to work with a guy named Zev many years ago. We made a great team. I'd have a problem; he would solve it! So it only seems natural to think that "your" Zev is equipped with the same traits as "my" Zev. Thanks for the link!
Zev loved your comment. Thanks for your for Turnup; it is imperative that eligible high school seniors and college students become voters to fully participate in our Democracy!
Thank you so much -- I just signed up for a monthly donation. It feels so good to do something positive like that, rather than fume in anger and frustration.
Thank you!!! I didn't know about this movement!! I've joined and am posting with Robert Hubbell's community. It's stories like this that add to my optimism for our country growing and thriving well beyond my lifetime.
Everyone:thank you so much for your generous personal response to our plea for financial tax-deductible support to this remarkable nonprofit and nonpartisan high school senior voter registration effort by Harvard students led by Zev Shapiro aiming at energizing 2,000 identified high schools in competitive states to engage in student voter registration drives! If you haven’t contributed in the last 24 hours, please click on
https://.www.turnup.us/ and check it out? I guarantee you will be impressed and hopefully you will contribute generously to them in order to make their peer-to-peer nonpartisan work a success in so many high schools! Thanks again and please let me know what you think of their efforts?
Irenie. thank you! for your comment and the brilliantly tragic poem by the great Langston Hughes. Why do some of us refuse to see greatness in all people?
Just think of the good we could do if we gave up weapons and gossip and meanness and instead helped one another learn to provide for ourselves....to share and care for and love those who can't provide for themselves.
We have so much to share : languge ,culture, joy. acts of encouragement, healing hurts, not creating them, food, dance, art....brilliant gifts of knowledge for exploration.....
Emily. You ask a question that so far too many people can’t answer. “Why do some of us refuse to see greatness in all people?” How can we ever justify hate and violence?
Professor Richardson, once again, gifts us with a perfectly powerful reminder of our recent past (not past). And now , Irenie, you offer us a powerfully apt Langston Hughes poem. Thank you for the "shot to the heart" poem.
"Thank you, Professor for lighting a candle today and every day. We will never be free until every one is free." Brava.
Too much, for this soul, all at once, Im afraid. I must take a few moments to "overcome" my own memories and experience of these last 50 years. But grateful thanks to you both.
I carry this in my heart. Now if we could carry it into actual happening. As a free person this grieves me dreadfully. I really have a hard time understanding where this vicious hate comes from. Keep sharing Irenie. 🥰🌈
thank you for sharing this. What a powerful poem after a really powerful letter. It felt weighty to read. I've posted my reading here: https://youtu.be/unjALkEBVrw
Maigen, I just finished listening to you read HCR’s powerful letter and you helped bring it to life for your listeners who may not have the same experiences we here have with our exchange of experiences , and comments, our respectful conversations and sharing. I’m so grateful.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I've wanted it for years, and realized "maybe I should just do it myself" and it's helping me stay accountable, but also my dad thinks "this liberal nonsense is more tolerable" which honestly, I'll take it. Anything that shines a ray of light into the life of someone who might not otherwise access this letter <3
Reading this, wearing my GOOD TROUBLE sweatshirt, I find myself vacillating between sadness and fury. Those of us who still have the right to vote must work to register more voters and encourage voting, especially among young people, so that we can start to undo the backsliding into oppression, repression, and white supremacy. It is up to each of us to find ways to contribute to the reclaiming of our democracy.
"...vacillating between sadness and fury." Your comment popped up as I was trying to find the words of how I feel when I read about this. As a young girl at the time, I remember seeing some of the horror on TV and asking my father if Selma, Alabama was part of the U.S. His response was along the lines of physically yes, but on a human rights level, NO! As a WWII veteran, this was not the America that helped liberate Europe from the Nazis. However, as we have come to recognize, the incendiary and destructive actions of racism is woven deep in our history and sadly continues today.
The sociopathic narcissism of an imagined "Master Race"'.
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." - Lincoln
Betsy, I have found young people to be surprisingly receptive to being encouraged to vote. Whenever I'm checking out at the grocery store checkstand I've trained myself to identify the late teen and banter with him or her. It's a great time to ask if they have registered or plan to vote. More than once I've been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic affirmative, and I think it helps keep them engaged and encouraged to enlist their peers. So little effort and such return on investment. If all of us "old folk" did this once a week it could have a significant impact over time.
I'm going to give that a try. I used "grocery stand conversations" when I was first starting out as a hostage negotiator to practice starting conversations with strangers. I guess that what you describe here can be viewed as the "crisis negotiation" tag that developed when it became painfully obvious that true hostage situations were rare, and what the bulk of our callouts were centered on people in crisis who chose threat and intimidation of others to try and resolve their problems. Different motivations, similar tactics.
Bravo Betsy Smith for rocking the GOOD TROUBLE sweatshirt, if only just to inspire others. You have! I just remembered Heather’s newsletter from March 3, about the democrats on the House Judiciary Committee pushing back on the false narrative of republican’s being victim’s of the deep state. Dem Rep Nadler and Dem Rep Plaskett wrote to the Committee on Weaponization of Federal Government calling their bluff of “dozens and dozens of whistleblowers....talking about what is going on, political nature of the Justice Department”. Nadler and Plaskett wrote: :”We urge Chairman Jordan to schedule the public testimony of these individuals without delay.” Sooooooo..... why don’t we help them along and ourselves write to: judiciary.house.gov and push Jordan to schedule these evidence hearings ASAP. This was the letter I just wrote: “Please schedule hearings ASAP. We want to know the evidence discovered of weaponization of the federal government. I remember how the federal government treated Michael Cohen, and I strongly believe the actions of former President Trump and attorney General Bill Barr need to be throughly laid out and examined. Just like all the evidence laid out thoroughly by the Jan 6th committee help so many of us to understand the depths of the involvement of the president and his people, your committee’s hearings and the presentation of evidence to the American People is so important. Again, schedule these hearings to present your evidence ASAP!”
Indeed, my sentiments exactly as I read the letter this am. Sadness at what happened and still happens and fury especially at the Supreme Court for undoing the Civil Rights Act. Thanks to Heather for this excellent history of Bloody Sunday and that year and to those of you who have suggested groups working to get the vote out and of course, poetry.
Sad to say, the Federalist Society is the group that has stolen the Supreme Court and reshaped it into the group that is willing to subvert our democracy & our environment, all to please the greedy and power hungry in our society.
Thank you for the much-needed refresher course in the bravery and tragedy of those who risked their lives for the right to vote. And the reminder of the brutality of those who oppose equality. They walk among us still.
The Roberts' Supreme Court poured the foundation for its own Hall of Shame in gutting the Voting Rights Act. And it's never looked back in building an America less free and more dangerous.
This is the outcome Lincoln rejected in the Gettysburg Address. Government of, by and for the people is not dead, yet greatly imperiled and in great need of rescue.
Shelby v Holder was shocking....yet I tried to believe it might be a decision with legal merit beyond my understanding. Over the years and multiple state legislative actions, this Heritage Foundation shaped activist Supreme Court has proven that it must be closely observed and questioned as to the validity, intent and impact of their judgements. And Ginni has added another whole layer to their problematic standing.
I would maintain that the Federalist Society under the leadership of Leonard Leo has shaped the activist Extreme Court more than any other group. The Federalist Society is doing the bidding of a foreign nation in taking control of our judiciary and so far has gotten away with it.
I've been referring to the SCOTUS as an Extreme Court long before the egregious Shelby v Holder decision. I've noticed recently that certain MSNBC hosts have begun to do the same.
The key to saving democracy is a post Watergate like Democratic election victory in 2024 that puts in the Senate members willing to repeal the filibuster and members of both the House and Senate willing to expand the Supreme court and pass a code of ethics for that now disgraced body which acts as a super legislature.
'Spending time with Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists awakened something in Webb-Christburg. "I gained some courage because I was around courageous people,” she said. "
'She witnessed Bloody Sunday in person. 58 years later, she’ll go back again.'
'There are only a small number of people who witnessed the historic, tragic event in person. Sheyann Webb-Christburg was the youngest of them'.
'MONTGOMERY, Ala. — On March 7, 1965, Sheyann Webb, a 9-year-old Black girl from Selma, Ala., sat in her bedroom, chest heaving, face streaked with tears, her throat still burning from tear gas.'
'Her parents were perched on her child-size bed having just calmed her screams. They watched as she wrote furiously, capturing the lyrics from a song, “Oh, Freedom,” she’d heard over and over during the past few months — ultimately gutted as they read to the end. She’d written about her own funeral arrangements.'
'That morning, Webb had been the youngest participant in the civil rights march that came to be known as “Bloody Sunday,” a 600-person demonstration in Selma that ended with law enforcement beating the protesters. She had dressed in capri pants, thrown her hair in a quick plait and put on her white and black oxfords — her “marching shoes.” Having snuck out of the house, she left a short note to her parents on the washing machine. She was apologetic for disobeying them. But ultimately, she wrote, “I am marching for our freedom.”
'It wasn’t the first time she’d done something like this. For two months, she had slipped out against her parents’ wishes, leaving to meet with and learn from civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and Hosea Williams.'
'Now 67, she goes by the surname Webb-Christburg. Sitting on a wide chair in her home in Montgomery, less than an hour away from her childhood home, …'
'But with the 58th anniversary of Bloody Sunday this weekend, the degree to which that day remains with her is abundantly clear. She will make her yearly sojourn back to Selma this weekend — revisiting the time in her life when she could have perished.'
“I used to hear Dr. King and others talk about how sometimes you have to fight for your rights and even die. For what you know that’s right,” she told POLITICO. “That was the day when I really, truly understood what the song meant.” (Politico) For more of Webb-Christburg's account the link to her story is below.
Fern- Thank you so much for posting the article. I've shared it to my political FB groups. It has a special meaning for me here in NH-it mentions Jonathan Daniels, a 26 year old Seminarian who was a Civil Rights activist in Alabama. He, another clergyman, and a small group of colored teenagers stopped for soda in Haynesville but were confronted by a part time deputy who shot @ them. He protected them but was killed outright and the other clergyman later died. The Episcopal Church added the date of his death to its Calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts, and in England's Canterbury Cathedral, Daniels name is among the fifteen honored in the Chapel of Martyrs. He was from Keene NH (my neighborhood)
Dear Barbara, the feeling you evoked is new and old and close at hand. Thank you for your words of Jonathan Daniels bearing witness, along with his company. Our sorrow and determination for equality goes on. Hands to hearts.
Thank you for this Fern. Such a great article about a very special woman. It just makes me so sad that people of color are still fighting the same fight for so long. Will people ever learn to look beyond the color of the skin? I just want to cry.
Gratitude to you Fern for bringing life, once again, (for there are so many stories yet to be told,) to one child’s experiences. What heartbreaking, yet affirming stories and the people in them. These tragedies were played out all over the South and we see that the United States of America continues to be tested. The tragedies look different but they are sociopolitical and again carried out by elected officials. And by racist white supremacists often in the name of one religion or another. We know there are some possible fixes, abolish the electoral voting system, give a voice to our representatives, do what to the the supreme court? We should be weary and afraid of the direction the courts have taken us. Should be.
Thank you, Heather. So very true! I walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge a few years ago. It was an amazing feeling! The name needs to be changed to The John Lewis Bridge! The experiences that I had in Selma was well worth the trip! I was having knee problems the day I walked across the bridge but it just made me appreciate the walk more!
It should be renamed the John Lewis Bridge, and Congress should pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act! The Republicans ought to be ashamed of themselves... but of course they won't be. It makes me so angry that these battles about the right to vote are still being fought.
No doubt it is based on Ron de Mussolini’s rule. I have no words for the disgust I feel for him and the rest of the Christo nationalist biggots that are creeping into our lives. We can still stop them and we can’t sit idly by.
Hi Stephen! Could you be more specific? Do you mean the poems of Langston Hughes? That's what the linking algorithm here indicates, but there's a lot of information shared that differs from that.
I was being somewhat sarcastic (that's what the "/s" means) but mostly I was referring to the aspects of American history like this are now labeled as "critical race theory" and are being scrubbed from school curricula and banned from libraries.
Thanks so much Stephen. I wasn't trying to put you on the spot.
For a while now, I've been trying to discover the official list of Florida's banned books (I know these lists vary by school district) but doing so is confounded by widespread circulation of fabricated lists compiled coincidentally as "satire." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/florida-book-bans-schools-libraries/
I thought, if you had some specifics out of those topics mentioned in the thread, I'd add them to the list that seems real.
I think book stores ought to prominently feature a shelf near the entrance with a label in large letters: "BUY a BANNED BOOK!" Embellishing the shelf with a picture of Ron Desantis pointing to or holding up the shelf would further increase my chances of buying one from the shelf.
It feels like the state of Florida seceded from the U.S. without really announcing it did so. The plan seems to place 49 other states under the Confederate Republic of DeSantistan in 2024. The Republican Party left the people of the U.S. under the administration of Ronald Reagan and began rebuilding the Confederacy then.
The lack of a single concrete list is, in fact, a feature rather than a bug. Legislation of this sort is always written vaguely so that any book could, conceivably, be declared as "woke" propaganda and anyone making such a book available in any setting in which a minor *might possibly* have access to it could be prosecuted by the law. The whole point is to empower the State to declare anyone a criminal after the fact.
This is another trick the right learned from the Soviet Communists, whom they increasingly resemble.
The whole point of such laws is to frighten people into self-censorship and to punish those brave or foolish enough oppose the will of the omnipotent State.
This, in a remarkable instance of doublespeak, is called "freedom."
Yes. It is why some teachers cleaned off their entire classroom bookshelves after DeSantis threatened them with prison time if an informer found a banned book in their classroom. It's more a version of North Korean Communism rather than Soviet--you destroy peoples' uniting to throw your ass out of power by convincing them to report any transgressions. The time to stand up to DeSantis is now. Buy a banned book, put it in a free library kiosk, and openly say "I did that" to the new emperor of DeSantisan. Maybe Ron will next try to convince residents of the peninsula that he doesn't poop if he keeps folowing the North Korean playbook.
Actually, I believe that "/s" dates back to the time when all we had was plain text based on ASCII aasci, to the time even before AOL. We cutting edge types of the era (now the elderly who are assumed to not understand computers at all) wrote batch files to create menus on our boxy computers to make them easier to navigate. And we had an entire lexicon of slash/letters or signs to indicate inflexions- and emoticons created with just what's on the keyboard. We also had keyboard art contests. You young-uns have got nothing on us!
I lived in SE Idaho for a while too, but never saw such an HOA document even though at times it seems I was living a Peace Corps experience that I never had.
I'm equally offended by state loyalty oaths that specify a citizen must sign away their rights of free speech and not criticize the Israeli government. Our state is a very blue state, but we have one of those loyalty oath abominations too. To me, these infractions on the First Amendment rights of Americans merit civil disobedience as a matter of conscience.
The same Israeli government which was accused by a General of the Israeli Army of condoning and supporting a pogrom last week by Jewish land thieves, er, I mean "settlers" against Palestinians. The same Israeli government that proves every day that the Jewish fundamentalists ARE Nazis.
However, opposing loyalty oaths imposed by any foreign government bullying and lobbying our corrupt officials sufficiently to impose such a law onto American citizens seems like it needs no further justification for civil disobedience other than being what it is. I'd react the same way if it were Ukraine or France. Americans supposedly decided by precedent who gets to govern this country in 1776, and it's not the King of England. It's about time some corrupt officials figured out the people of this nation likewise hold no place for AIPAC rewriting free speech out of our Constitution or Netanyahu governing our citizens either.
Gayle, thanks for making contact. I'll go into my post and edit out my query about non-whites. Since you've edited, my question isn't needed any more either.
This story can't be told often enough. The depravity of those white elected officials and law enforcement and out-and-out Klansmen can be seen these days in the halls of Congress, many statehouses, and even the Supreme Court. Never, never forget. Never, ever stop fighting for the right to have a say in the government(s) under which we live.
I couldn’t agree more that the halls of Congress are filled with haters who have been elected by haters. I don’t understand it and I have to wonder where all the sane people are. Why is all this hate acceptable? Doesn’t anyone care? Why isn’t Trump in jail yet? Why, why, why???
There's so much to weep about, so much to be enraged about in recent days, months and years. It's as if someone unlocked the gates of hell and countless demons descended on us. Do we really have to retreat 50 years and fight all of these battles again? When the highest court in the land, governors and state legislatures in more than half of our states want to break down the guardrails of democracy, what does it say about America? Sadly, the rescinding of laws does not make our nation more free, but rather more violent and more dangerous. Freedom actually occurs in the context of a well developed network of laws protecting us all from...one another.
What it says is that a lot of "Americans" have been lying about their real beliefs for the past 60 years, waiting for someone to come along and make it Ok for them to tear their masks off and reveal the hoods.
I think there is a lot of that, but also a bit of Jekyll and Hyde in all, with some being more malleable. Certainly there has been a highly organized effort to fool the rubes. Follow the money and power.
A good question. As far as stuffing it back, we have unevenly pushed the monster back in many societies in many eras, but never with finality. It's a war that is never "won".
Some haven’t been hiding. I’m remembering about 10 years ago a “beach” day in Virginia, actually a sort of sandbar frequented by locals, when a neighbor recounted some story using the N word at the top of her lungs. I confronted her with an admonition to Never Use that Word in My Presence. The silence was deafening.
Nathan. Great comment. But yes life must be constantly reaffirmed, mended and amended. Like old clothes we too must be sewn and patched with a new garment now and then, something refreshingly bold and daring. I think we are past midnight now.
Note that Republicans rescind laws that serve the common good, but pass laws, often very heavy handed laws that serve their partisan interests, or those of their super-wealthy sponsors.
Freedom is freedom from, as well as freedom to, and it not really freedom unless it is universal. One group with impunity that oppresses others is just straight up tyranny. Freedom aims to maximize a diverse array of responsible choices, and proscribes actions that impose unreasonable risks or harms on others. We also agree to solve legitimate disputes peacefully, as well as to protect public health and safety, such as protective rules for all who cross traffic intersections.
Dear Heather. I am 76 but clearly remember these events when I was in high school in Phoenix. I became race-aware then and hopefully have done some good.
I can only suggest it is time to balance the Supreme Court. We are in bad-trouble until that gets done.
I had the privilege when I got involved in politics there after moving to NOLA, of getting to know two very strong women who had helped to integrate schools there. For readers who took Roe for granted and think schools were integrated and remain so, there is much to learn about the strength of racism in America. After living in three southern cities and Paris, then coming to the Midwest, I find Chicago the most racist city of all. Looking back at LBJ, thinking of his background, he looks more the presidential civil rights hero than he is generally given credit for being.
Virginia, Were it not for the reported unprovoked attack in the Gulf of Tonkin President Johnson knew to be false but, nonetheless, led to the U.S. entering the Vietnam War, Johnson, I believe, would have been remembered as the President who did more to improve race relations than any of his predecessors, let alone for his Great Society and war on poverty.
Yes, I agree. Johnson did more than any other President for Civil Rights. I highly recommend reading "Leadership in Turbulent Times" by Doris Kearns Goodwin which focuses on Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and LBJ. Excellent.
Well, so, okay, another book I need to read! Our library is in temp quarters in the basement of our lovely refurbished Town Hall while its own historical building is being refurbished and updated. Time for me to pay a visit (and drop off my Town Meeting ballot). I'm pretty sure they have that book.
The Vietnam War, as far as I can tell, was one of the more toxic insults to the state of our union, and help the assent of present authoritarians. It also sidetracked Johnson's "War on Poverty". The "Domino Theory"? It was preposterous on it's face. I'm still not sure what we really thought were trying to accomplish there.
@J L Graham, Seeing your last statement is far too complex to tackle in a blog post, suffice it to say that invading Iraq was an equally “toxic insult…”. Regrettably the list goes on. While one might note that fewer American lives were lost, the same is not necessarily true of the other side.
Yes! When I lived in San Antonio in the early ‘60’s, my congressional rep was Henry B Gonzales (affectionately known as “Henry B), one of my senators was John Yarborough, and Bill Moyers was editor of The Texas Observer. It’s where I met and promptly forgot until two years into his presidency (hand to forehead moment), George and Barbara Bush. Was it John Connolly’s “accession” there after Kennedy was assassinated that tipped the scales toward the current disaster?
We just must keep fighting to protect voting rights, however we can, hoping it will still be possible to reverse the draconian voter discrimination laws that continue to be passed.
Such hatred and racism. It makes me ill. As a Jew, it’s never been as overt as it is now other than 1933. Biden has got to expand the court. I see no other option. TY HCR for the timeline.
SCOTUS MUST BE EXPANDED! There is no other way. If Democrats can win enough senate seats in ‘24, if they can take back the House, there is so much we can do. Meanwhile I am shilling for writers of GOTV postcards.
Hard to tap that ‘like’ box for the distress this brings to my head & heart.
To be reminded that our Supreme Court which I grew up being taught was a superior group of legal experts has ‘gutted’ the Voting Rights Act. ~How do they sleep at night? ~
(Don’t answer that.)
They have stomped all over our private lives as child bearing women, ... and
More is yet to come from these millionaire legal experts... seated till they die... or withdraw from their appointment ...
Please go back to the beginning of this excellent thread to see my comment about the amazing work of Harvard students to register high school seniors entirely nonpartisan! Thanks
SCOTUS was intentionally hijacked by zealots that have been on a mission to make the US of A their Kingdom for decades. How do we find the balance between constantly being on guard against our darker elements and living our lives in grace 🤷🏻♀️💔
The minister of our First Christian Church in Hayward, California polled the congregation for support for his trip to Salma to march. It passed with the slimmest of margins. While we exited the church I wanted to be a part of that movement so I handed my minister a twenty dollar bill. It was a lot of money in those days when I was earning $23.00 a shift on the railroad. I wish I could have afforded more but my wife and I were just starting out. We had just lost our president and were disillusioned with the course the country was taking. For many years we entertained hope for the country until 2016. Now in my eightieth year on this planet I am holding on to those old dreams when we as a nation could stand proud of our government and of the elected officials who promote democracy.
Reading today's LFAA, it seems that in real ways, not much has changed. How dare politicians suppress the right of people to duly register and cast their ballots and have those ballots counted.
And how dare they repress LGBTQ people, withhold medical treatment for transexual youth, the histories of Black and other minorities from school curricula, the right of women to plan their families and to purchase abortifacients by mail, then allow indiscriminate use of guns. "Next they came for me..."
I’ve had the great pleasure of going to Montgomery. And visited the National Lynching Museum and the associated outdoor exhibition. They play George Wallace speech about “segregation now, segregation forever “ speech loudly and on a loop. I’m not sure it’s changed there much since then. Thank you for the history Dr. Richardson.
I watched a Netflix documentary last night called "Descendants" about a small community near Mobile Bay that is made up of many who are the descendants of the Clotilda, the last (illegal) slave ship that brought Black slaves to the US in 1859. It is from the book "Barracoon" by Zora Neale Hurston. The National Lynching Museum was mentioned at the end of it.
Thank you, Professor for lighting a candle today and every day. We will never be free until every one is free.
Langston Hughes, we hear your voice:
LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN
Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Continue reading
https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again
From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used with permission.
You can help significantly (I promise) by contributing online to https://www.turnup.us/ Please let me tell you all about Turnup which is run by a brilliant Harvard junior Zev Shapiro. It is a 501c3 nonpartisan foundation (your contribution is tax deductible) with young high school age activists nationwide who are working to run nonpartisan voter registration drives in 1,000 high schools in competitive states and also among their friends in “relational” voter reg drives in 1,000 different schools. They need funds to reward these student leaders with a small cash reward for successful voter reg drives! Recruiting has been fabulous so far but much more needs to start. Please help this totally nonpartisan student led effort to enhance our Democracy!! I am actively involved and can vouch for Zev’s honesty and outstanding track record in 2022 in Georgia and elsewhere and these folks are legit! Many thanks; please discuss and pass it on, will you? And please go online and make a tax deductible contribution to these brave young leaders!! Thank you
Many many thanks to you, our really authentic patriots, getting into “good trouble” contributing to Turnup as a memorial to our dear friend and leader!
Great cause. Our youth will set us free! I also posted your comment on Facebook.
Loved the pix of the core team. Any group that includes a friendly dog gets a donation from me. In fact, I think we’d all be better off if more boards included dogs … 🐶🐶
Ira, thank you for being part of Turnup, so am I because you brought this important work to our attention. It was a boost to scroll through Turnup's work and accomplishments. I am passing on the link that you provided, along with encouraging words. Forward, we go, salud!
Glad to hear you're on board. You're a worthy advocate.
Wow. What a critically important and apparently effective organization. I will be contributing. And I will be passing the word! Please tell Zev this old timer is wicked inspired by him. Kudos! He is a world class change agent.
What a noble effort and worthy cause.
Will add it to our list of voting rights organizations to support @ defendyourvotingrights.org.
While visiting the site, see our Timeline of Voting Rights and Card Deck of Trump enablers of the Big Lie of election and voter fraud
Play ‘21’ to how voter suppression and election manipulation are exactly like playing a card game with a crooked dealer.
Support unfettered voting rights!
Get yourself on the boat to vote. Do your part to keep Democracy afloat. Grab a sail. or a paddle, or an oar. Arriving today, tomorrows dreamers are at our door.
Ira, I used to work with a guy named Zev many years ago. We made a great team. I'd have a problem; he would solve it! So it only seems natural to think that "your" Zev is equipped with the same traits as "my" Zev. Thanks for the link!
Zev loved your comment. Thanks for your for Turnup; it is imperative that eligible high school seniors and college students become voters to fully participate in our Democracy!
Thank you so much -- I just signed up for a monthly donation. It feels so good to do something positive like that, rather than fume in anger and frustration.
Will do this. Thanks so much. Rock on brother.
DONE!
Thank you!!! I didn't know about this movement!! I've joined and am posting with Robert Hubbell's community. It's stories like this that add to my optimism for our country growing and thriving well beyond my lifetime.
many thanks I really appreciate your participation; this is a very menaingful organizational effort
Ira, thank you for sharing Turnup! This is a powerful group that I will share and support. Young people can and will make a difference!
Wow! Thanks for this info! Turnup looks great - I just signed up to donate monthly!
Everyone:thank you so much for your generous personal response to our plea for financial tax-deductible support to this remarkable nonprofit and nonpartisan high school senior voter registration effort by Harvard students led by Zev Shapiro aiming at energizing 2,000 identified high schools in competitive states to engage in student voter registration drives! If you haven’t contributed in the last 24 hours, please click on
https://.www.turnup.us/ and check it out? I guarantee you will be impressed and hopefully you will contribute generously to them in order to make their peer-to-peer nonpartisan work a success in so many high schools! Thanks again and please let me know what you think of their efforts?
Happy to help. Please share updates from time to time
OK, tell Zev "well done" and that turn Up is now on our lists of voting rights orgs to support:
https://www.defendyourvotingrights.org/show-your-support
https://www.defendyourvotingrights.org/volunteer/
Thank you! I just donated and this is a group that I will continue to support.
Done.
Irenie. thank you! for your comment and the brilliantly tragic poem by the great Langston Hughes. Why do some of us refuse to see greatness in all people?
Just think of the good we could do if we gave up weapons and gossip and meanness and instead helped one another learn to provide for ourselves....to share and care for and love those who can't provide for themselves.
We have so much to share : languge ,culture, joy. acts of encouragement, healing hurts, not creating them, food, dance, art....brilliant gifts of knowledge for exploration.....
Just think of the good we could do…united
Lasley WE , in Our right Minds, should Also ask... " What Would JESUS Do?"
Totally...Mark! All faiths can agree on the power of love?
Appear in Super Bowl ads, apparently
Emily. You ask a question that so far too many people can’t answer. “Why do some of us refuse to see greatness in all people?” How can we ever justify hate and violence?
Thank you for sharing this. So pertinent.
Professor Richardson, once again, gifts us with a perfectly powerful reminder of our recent past (not past). And now , Irenie, you offer us a powerfully apt Langston Hughes poem. Thank you for the "shot to the heart" poem.
"Thank you, Professor for lighting a candle today and every day. We will never be free until every one is free." Brava.
Too much, for this soul, all at once, Im afraid. I must take a few moments to "overcome" my own memories and experience of these last 50 years. But grateful thanks to you both.
Thank you for this.
I carry this in my heart. Now if we could carry it into actual happening. As a free person this grieves me dreadfully. I really have a hard time understanding where this vicious hate comes from. Keep sharing Irenie. 🥰🌈
thank you for sharing this. What a powerful poem after a really powerful letter. It felt weighty to read. I've posted my reading here: https://youtu.be/unjALkEBVrw
Maigen, I just finished listening to you read HCR’s powerful letter and you helped bring it to life for your listeners who may not have the same experiences we here have with our exchange of experiences , and comments, our respectful conversations and sharing. I’m so grateful.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I've wanted it for years, and realized "maybe I should just do it myself" and it's helping me stay accountable, but also my dad thinks "this liberal nonsense is more tolerable" which honestly, I'll take it. Anything that shines a ray of light into the life of someone who might not otherwise access this letter <3
Reading this, wearing my GOOD TROUBLE sweatshirt, I find myself vacillating between sadness and fury. Those of us who still have the right to vote must work to register more voters and encourage voting, especially among young people, so that we can start to undo the backsliding into oppression, repression, and white supremacy. It is up to each of us to find ways to contribute to the reclaiming of our democracy.
"...vacillating between sadness and fury." Your comment popped up as I was trying to find the words of how I feel when I read about this. As a young girl at the time, I remember seeing some of the horror on TV and asking my father if Selma, Alabama was part of the U.S. His response was along the lines of physically yes, but on a human rights level, NO! As a WWII veteran, this was not the America that helped liberate Europe from the Nazis. However, as we have come to recognize, the incendiary and destructive actions of racism is woven deep in our history and sadly continues today.
The sociopathic narcissism of an imagined "Master Race"'.
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." - Lincoln
Great quote.
Betsy, I have found young people to be surprisingly receptive to being encouraged to vote. Whenever I'm checking out at the grocery store checkstand I've trained myself to identify the late teen and banter with him or her. It's a great time to ask if they have registered or plan to vote. More than once I've been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic affirmative, and I think it helps keep them engaged and encouraged to enlist their peers. So little effort and such return on investment. If all of us "old folk" did this once a week it could have a significant impact over time.
I'm going to give that a try. I used "grocery stand conversations" when I was first starting out as a hostage negotiator to practice starting conversations with strangers. I guess that what you describe here can be viewed as the "crisis negotiation" tag that developed when it became painfully obvious that true hostage situations were rare, and what the bulk of our callouts were centered on people in crisis who chose threat and intimidation of others to try and resolve their problems. Different motivations, similar tactics.
I feel your sadness and fury in myself. We must do as you say, to register more voters and encourage voting.
Bravo Betsy Smith for rocking the GOOD TROUBLE sweatshirt, if only just to inspire others. You have! I just remembered Heather’s newsletter from March 3, about the democrats on the House Judiciary Committee pushing back on the false narrative of republican’s being victim’s of the deep state. Dem Rep Nadler and Dem Rep Plaskett wrote to the Committee on Weaponization of Federal Government calling their bluff of “dozens and dozens of whistleblowers....talking about what is going on, political nature of the Justice Department”. Nadler and Plaskett wrote: :”We urge Chairman Jordan to schedule the public testimony of these individuals without delay.” Sooooooo..... why don’t we help them along and ourselves write to: judiciary.house.gov and push Jordan to schedule these evidence hearings ASAP. This was the letter I just wrote: “Please schedule hearings ASAP. We want to know the evidence discovered of weaponization of the federal government. I remember how the federal government treated Michael Cohen, and I strongly believe the actions of former President Trump and attorney General Bill Barr need to be throughly laid out and examined. Just like all the evidence laid out thoroughly by the Jan 6th committee help so many of us to understand the depths of the involvement of the president and his people, your committee’s hearings and the presentation of evidence to the American People is so important. Again, schedule these hearings to present your evidence ASAP!”
Indeed, my sentiments exactly as I read the letter this am. Sadness at what happened and still happens and fury especially at the Supreme Court for undoing the Civil Rights Act. Thanks to Heather for this excellent history of Bloody Sunday and that year and to those of you who have suggested groups working to get the vote out and of course, poetry.
Sad to say, the Federalist Society is the group that has stolen the Supreme Court and reshaped it into the group that is willing to subvert our democracy & our environment, all to please the greedy and power hungry in our society.
Fie on them too.
I know the League of Women Voters in Maine are working on pre-registering 16 year olds to vote with great success.
Thank you for the much-needed refresher course in the bravery and tragedy of those who risked their lives for the right to vote. And the reminder of the brutality of those who oppose equality. They walk among us still.
The Roberts' Supreme Court poured the foundation for its own Hall of Shame in gutting the Voting Rights Act. And it's never looked back in building an America less free and more dangerous.
Add the Citizens United decision to early Roberts Court misdeeds.
This is the outcome Lincoln rejected in the Gettysburg Address. Government of, by and for the people is not dead, yet greatly imperiled and in great need of rescue.
The Roberts Court is a travesty and they aren't done yet.
The "Reagan Revolution" was a veiled insurrection against the inconvenience of democracy. It has now left behind the mask.
Well distilled and articulated JL.
I like the phrase ”inconvenience of democracy” - simple fairness takes more trouble, but it’s worth it, for all of us
Shelby v Holder was shocking....yet I tried to believe it might be a decision with legal merit beyond my understanding. Over the years and multiple state legislative actions, this Heritage Foundation shaped activist Supreme Court has proven that it must be closely observed and questioned as to the validity, intent and impact of their judgements. And Ginni has added another whole layer to their problematic standing.
I would maintain that the Federalist Society under the leadership of Leonard Leo has shaped the activist Extreme Court more than any other group. The Federalist Society is doing the bidding of a foreign nation in taking control of our judiciary and so far has gotten away with it.
The Robert's Extreme Court.
I've been referring to the SCOTUS as an Extreme Court long before the egregious Shelby v Holder decision. I've noticed recently that certain MSNBC hosts have begun to do the same.
The key to saving democracy is a post Watergate like Democratic election victory in 2024 that puts in the Senate members willing to repeal the filibuster and members of both the House and Senate willing to expand the Supreme court and pass a code of ethics for that now disgraced body which acts as a super legislature.
Agreed.
'Spending time with Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists awakened something in Webb-Christburg. "I gained some courage because I was around courageous people,” she said. "
'She witnessed Bloody Sunday in person. 58 years later, she’ll go back again.'
'There are only a small number of people who witnessed the historic, tragic event in person. Sheyann Webb-Christburg was the youngest of them'.
'MONTGOMERY, Ala. — On March 7, 1965, Sheyann Webb, a 9-year-old Black girl from Selma, Ala., sat in her bedroom, chest heaving, face streaked with tears, her throat still burning from tear gas.'
'Her parents were perched on her child-size bed having just calmed her screams. They watched as she wrote furiously, capturing the lyrics from a song, “Oh, Freedom,” she’d heard over and over during the past few months — ultimately gutted as they read to the end. She’d written about her own funeral arrangements.'
'That morning, Webb had been the youngest participant in the civil rights march that came to be known as “Bloody Sunday,” a 600-person demonstration in Selma that ended with law enforcement beating the protesters. She had dressed in capri pants, thrown her hair in a quick plait and put on her white and black oxfords — her “marching shoes.” Having snuck out of the house, she left a short note to her parents on the washing machine. She was apologetic for disobeying them. But ultimately, she wrote, “I am marching for our freedom.”
'It wasn’t the first time she’d done something like this. For two months, she had slipped out against her parents’ wishes, leaving to meet with and learn from civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and Hosea Williams.'
'Now 67, she goes by the surname Webb-Christburg. Sitting on a wide chair in her home in Montgomery, less than an hour away from her childhood home, …'
'But with the 58th anniversary of Bloody Sunday this weekend, the degree to which that day remains with her is abundantly clear. She will make her yearly sojourn back to Selma this weekend — revisiting the time in her life when she could have perished.'
“I used to hear Dr. King and others talk about how sometimes you have to fight for your rights and even die. For what you know that’s right,” she told POLITICO. “That was the day when I really, truly understood what the song meant.” (Politico) For more of Webb-Christburg's account the link to her story is below.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/04/bloody-sunday-witness-58-years-later-00085480
Thank you, Fern. What a great story, combining Women's Herstory Month with Black History Month.
Oh, Lynell, seeing you, my friend, warms the day.
Thank you for relating that.
Fern- Thank you so much for posting the article. I've shared it to my political FB groups. It has a special meaning for me here in NH-it mentions Jonathan Daniels, a 26 year old Seminarian who was a Civil Rights activist in Alabama. He, another clergyman, and a small group of colored teenagers stopped for soda in Haynesville but were confronted by a part time deputy who shot @ them. He protected them but was killed outright and the other clergyman later died. The Episcopal Church added the date of his death to its Calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts, and in England's Canterbury Cathedral, Daniels name is among the fifteen honored in the Chapel of Martyrs. He was from Keene NH (my neighborhood)
Dear Barbara, the feeling you evoked is new and old and close at hand. Thank you for your words of Jonathan Daniels bearing witness, along with his company. Our sorrow and determination for equality goes on. Hands to hearts.
She was on MSNBC yesterday morning.
Thank you for this Fern. Such a great article about a very special woman. It just makes me so sad that people of color are still fighting the same fight for so long. Will people ever learn to look beyond the color of the skin? I just want to cry.
Jeanne, thank you. I echo Joyce Vance's signoff in 'Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance',
We’re in this together, Salud!
Thank you for this.
With heart and connection, Marva.
Gratitude to you Fern for bringing life, once again, (for there are so many stories yet to be told,) to one child’s experiences. What heartbreaking, yet affirming stories and the people in them. These tragedies were played out all over the South and we see that the United States of America continues to be tested. The tragedies look different but they are sociopolitical and again carried out by elected officials. And by racist white supremacists often in the name of one religion or another. We know there are some possible fixes, abolish the electoral voting system, give a voice to our representatives, do what to the the supreme court? We should be weary and afraid of the direction the courts have taken us. Should be.
Thank you, Heather. So very true! I walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge a few years ago. It was an amazing feeling! The name needs to be changed to The John Lewis Bridge! The experiences that I had in Selma was well worth the trip! I was having knee problems the day I walked across the bridge but it just made me appreciate the walk more!
It wasn't until 1940 that it was named the Edmund Pettus bridge after the racist confederate general and KKK leader.
Please, what was it before?
Formerly it was a 2 lane mule bridge.
Ahhh. That makes so much sense. Thank you.
It was built in 1940.
It should be renamed the John Lewis Bridge, and Congress should pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act! The Republicans ought to be ashamed of themselves... but of course they won't be. It makes me so angry that these battles about the right to vote are still being fought.
This information is banned in Florida. /s
No doubt it is based on Ron de Mussolini’s rule. I have no words for the disgust I feel for him and the rest of the Christo nationalist biggots that are creeping into our lives. We can still stop them and we can’t sit idly by.
Hi Stephen! Could you be more specific? Do you mean the poems of Langston Hughes? That's what the linking algorithm here indicates, but there's a lot of information shared that differs from that.
Thanks!
I was being somewhat sarcastic (that's what the "/s" means) but mostly I was referring to the aspects of American history like this are now labeled as "critical race theory" and are being scrubbed from school curricula and banned from libraries.
Thanks so much Stephen. I wasn't trying to put you on the spot.
For a while now, I've been trying to discover the official list of Florida's banned books (I know these lists vary by school district) but doing so is confounded by widespread circulation of fabricated lists compiled coincidentally as "satire." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/florida-book-bans-schools-libraries/
I thought, if you had some specifics out of those topics mentioned in the thread, I'd add them to the list that seems real.
I think book stores ought to prominently feature a shelf near the entrance with a label in large letters: "BUY a BANNED BOOK!" Embellishing the shelf with a picture of Ron Desantis pointing to or holding up the shelf would further increase my chances of buying one from the shelf.
Functionally, a banned book in Florida is any book that has not been approved by the state's "experts."
It feels like the state of Florida seceded from the U.S. without really announcing it did so. The plan seems to place 49 other states under the Confederate Republic of DeSantistan in 2024. The Republican Party left the people of the U.S. under the administration of Ronald Reagan and began rebuilding the Confederacy then.
The lack of a single concrete list is, in fact, a feature rather than a bug. Legislation of this sort is always written vaguely so that any book could, conceivably, be declared as "woke" propaganda and anyone making such a book available in any setting in which a minor *might possibly* have access to it could be prosecuted by the law. The whole point is to empower the State to declare anyone a criminal after the fact.
This is another trick the right learned from the Soviet Communists, whom they increasingly resemble.
The whole point of such laws is to frighten people into self-censorship and to punish those brave or foolish enough oppose the will of the omnipotent State.
This, in a remarkable instance of doublespeak, is called "freedom."
Yes. It is why some teachers cleaned off their entire classroom bookshelves after DeSantis threatened them with prison time if an informer found a banned book in their classroom. It's more a version of North Korean Communism rather than Soviet--you destroy peoples' uniting to throw your ass out of power by convincing them to report any transgressions. The time to stand up to DeSantis is now. Buy a banned book, put it in a free library kiosk, and openly say "I did that" to the new emperor of DeSantisan. Maybe Ron will next try to convince residents of the peninsula that he doesn't poop if he keeps folowing the North Korean playbook.
Love your last paragraph, Ed. It's a great idea!
Actually, I believe that "/s" dates back to the time when all we had was plain text based on ASCII aasci, to the time even before AOL. We cutting edge types of the era (now the elderly who are assumed to not understand computers at all) wrote batch files to create menus on our boxy computers to make them easier to navigate. And we had an entire lexicon of slash/letters or signs to indicate inflexions- and emoticons created with just what's on the keyboard. We also had keyboard art contests. You young-uns have got nothing on us!
Stephen, that is why I use <sarcasm font>. It is harder to write, but it conveys the message.
Well, yes, the use of the <sarcasm></sarcasm> tag is more of an HTML in joke, but it was late at night as I was lazy. :-)
I lived in SE Idaho for a while too, but never saw such an HOA document even though at times it seems I was living a Peace Corps experience that I never had.
I'm equally offended by state loyalty oaths that specify a citizen must sign away their rights of free speech and not criticize the Israeli government. Our state is a very blue state, but we have one of those loyalty oath abominations too. To me, these infractions on the First Amendment rights of Americans merit civil disobedience as a matter of conscience.
The same Israeli government which was accused by a General of the Israeli Army of condoning and supporting a pogrom last week by Jewish land thieves, er, I mean "settlers" against Palestinians. The same Israeli government that proves every day that the Jewish fundamentalists ARE Nazis.
No arguments with what you said above.
However, opposing loyalty oaths imposed by any foreign government bullying and lobbying our corrupt officials sufficiently to impose such a law onto American citizens seems like it needs no further justification for civil disobedience other than being what it is. I'd react the same way if it were Ukraine or France. Americans supposedly decided by precedent who gets to govern this country in 1776, and it's not the King of England. It's about time some corrupt officials figured out the people of this nation likewise hold no place for AIPAC rewriting free speech out of our Constitution or Netanyahu governing our citizens either.
Gayle, thanks for making contact. I'll go into my post and edit out my query about non-whites. Since you've edited, my question isn't needed any more either.
Not so /s. It's too true to be good.
Reality has indeed turned out to be as unbelievable as the finest fiction writer could conjure up.
We need Vonnegut back to put his rakish scathing pen to paper again. Sigh.
This story can't be told often enough. The depravity of those white elected officials and law enforcement and out-and-out Klansmen can be seen these days in the halls of Congress, many statehouses, and even the Supreme Court. Never, never forget. Never, ever stop fighting for the right to have a say in the government(s) under which we live.
I couldn’t agree more that the halls of Congress are filled with haters who have been elected by haters. I don’t understand it and I have to wonder where all the sane people are. Why is all this hate acceptable? Doesn’t anyone care? Why isn’t Trump in jail yet? Why, why, why???
You are so right, Susanna. It CAN'T be told often enough.
There's so much to weep about, so much to be enraged about in recent days, months and years. It's as if someone unlocked the gates of hell and countless demons descended on us. Do we really have to retreat 50 years and fight all of these battles again? When the highest court in the land, governors and state legislatures in more than half of our states want to break down the guardrails of democracy, what does it say about America? Sadly, the rescinding of laws does not make our nation more free, but rather more violent and more dangerous. Freedom actually occurs in the context of a well developed network of laws protecting us all from...one another.
What it says is that a lot of "Americans" have been lying about their real beliefs for the past 60 years, waiting for someone to come along and make it Ok for them to tear their masks off and reveal the hoods.
I think there is a lot of that, but also a bit of Jekyll and Hyde in all, with some being more malleable. Certainly there has been a highly organized effort to fool the rubes. Follow the money and power.
Once the genie got out of the bottle, there's no stuffing it back in, I guess. What is it about hatred, xenophobia that animates so many souls?
A good question. As far as stuffing it back, we have unevenly pushed the monster back in many societies in many eras, but never with finality. It's a war that is never "won".
Some haven’t been hiding. I’m remembering about 10 years ago a “beach” day in Virginia, actually a sort of sandbar frequented by locals, when a neighbor recounted some story using the N word at the top of her lungs. I confronted her with an admonition to Never Use that Word in My Presence. The silence was deafening.
Well put.
Agree ! TCnLA ! MANKIND, Needs to Read THAT, that is WRITTEN, in Mathew 24, Verses 3 through 15 !! WAKE UP! , Are YOU Ready ? !!
Nathan. Great comment. But yes life must be constantly reaffirmed, mended and amended. Like old clothes we too must be sewn and patched with a new garment now and then, something refreshingly bold and daring. I think we are past midnight now.
Note that Republicans rescind laws that serve the common good, but pass laws, often very heavy handed laws that serve their partisan interests, or those of their super-wealthy sponsors.
Freedom is freedom from, as well as freedom to, and it not really freedom unless it is universal. One group with impunity that oppresses others is just straight up tyranny. Freedom aims to maximize a diverse array of responsible choices, and proscribes actions that impose unreasonable risks or harms on others. We also agree to solve legitimate disputes peacefully, as well as to protect public health and safety, such as protective rules for all who cross traffic intersections.
People AND corporations function better within a well regulated system of laws. We are too imperfect to do otherwise.
"And it makes me cry to see the things some men do to one another. It makes me cry to see the things some men do." Rod McKuen
Crying is definitely the wrong response to this kind of story.
I like Malcolm X reactions and efforts MUCH better.
Dear Heather. I am 76 but clearly remember these events when I was in high school in Phoenix. I became race-aware then and hopefully have done some good.
I can only suggest it is time to balance the Supreme Court. We are in bad-trouble until that gets done.
WERSBA
I had the privilege when I got involved in politics there after moving to NOLA, of getting to know two very strong women who had helped to integrate schools there. For readers who took Roe for granted and think schools were integrated and remain so, there is much to learn about the strength of racism in America. After living in three southern cities and Paris, then coming to the Midwest, I find Chicago the most racist city of all. Looking back at LBJ, thinking of his background, he looks more the presidential civil rights hero than he is generally given credit for being.
Virginia, Were it not for the reported unprovoked attack in the Gulf of Tonkin President Johnson knew to be false but, nonetheless, led to the U.S. entering the Vietnam War, Johnson, I believe, would have been remembered as the President who did more to improve race relations than any of his predecessors, let alone for his Great Society and war on poverty.
Yes, I agree. Johnson did more than any other President for Civil Rights. I highly recommend reading "Leadership in Turbulent Times" by Doris Kearns Goodwin which focuses on Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and LBJ. Excellent.
MaryPat, Godwin’s book sits on my night table with a handful of other unread texts. Thanks for the incentive.
You are so welcome. Once you start. it's hard to put down!
Well, so, okay, another book I need to read! Our library is in temp quarters in the basement of our lovely refurbished Town Hall while its own historical building is being refurbished and updated. Time for me to pay a visit (and drop off my Town Meeting ballot). I'm pretty sure they have that book.
The Vietnam War, as far as I can tell, was one of the more toxic insults to the state of our union, and help the assent of present authoritarians. It also sidetracked Johnson's "War on Poverty". The "Domino Theory"? It was preposterous on it's face. I'm still not sure what we really thought were trying to accomplish there.
@J L Graham, Seeing your last statement is far too complex to tackle in a blog post, suffice it to say that invading Iraq was an equally “toxic insult…”. Regrettably the list goes on. While one might note that fewer American lives were lost, the same is not necessarily true of the other side.
A former senator from Texas. Times have changed.
Yes! When I lived in San Antonio in the early ‘60’s, my congressional rep was Henry B Gonzales (affectionately known as “Henry B), one of my senators was John Yarborough, and Bill Moyers was editor of The Texas Observer. It’s where I met and promptly forgot until two years into his presidency (hand to forehead moment), George and Barbara Bush. Was it John Connolly’s “accession” there after Kennedy was assassinated that tipped the scales toward the current disaster?
We just must keep fighting to protect voting rights, however we can, hoping it will still be possible to reverse the draconian voter discrimination laws that continue to be passed.
I wonder if we share a friendship with Susan Sharron?
Eadie, I don't know either of you, sorry. Why would you ask that?
My sister-in-law is friendly with a woman with your first and last name. She also originated in New York. Just a coincidence.
I thought I was the only Mim Eisenberg from New York. Indeed it's a coincidence.
(I thought I replied to this before. Sigh.)
You asked why I thought I knew you. I answered.
I know, and I replied, actually twice. This is weird. It's the first time I've been having an issue with Substack comments. Humph.
Such hatred and racism. It makes me ill. As a Jew, it’s never been as overt as it is now other than 1933. Biden has got to expand the court. I see no other option. TY HCR for the timeline.
SCOTUS MUST BE EXPANDED! There is no other way. If Democrats can win enough senate seats in ‘24, if they can take back the House, there is so much we can do. Meanwhile I am shilling for writers of GOTV postcards.
Hard to tap that ‘like’ box for the distress this brings to my head & heart.
To be reminded that our Supreme Court which I grew up being taught was a superior group of legal experts has ‘gutted’ the Voting Rights Act. ~How do they sleep at night? ~
(Don’t answer that.)
They have stomped all over our private lives as child bearing women, ... and
More is yet to come from these millionaire legal experts... seated till they die... or withdraw from their appointment ...
We have SO much work to do ...
Good night dear HCR Ltrs friends.
Be well.
Please go back to the beginning of this excellent thread to see my comment about the amazing work of Harvard students to register high school seniors entirely nonpartisan! Thanks
Between Thomas‘s and Alito’s words and actions, I feel they are Not just ideologically different, they are actually out to get those whom they scorn.
SCOTUS was intentionally hijacked by zealots that have been on a mission to make the US of A their Kingdom for decades. How do we find the balance between constantly being on guard against our darker elements and living our lives in grace 🤷🏻♀️💔
The minister of our First Christian Church in Hayward, California polled the congregation for support for his trip to Salma to march. It passed with the slimmest of margins. While we exited the church I wanted to be a part of that movement so I handed my minister a twenty dollar bill. It was a lot of money in those days when I was earning $23.00 a shift on the railroad. I wish I could have afforded more but my wife and I were just starting out. We had just lost our president and were disillusioned with the course the country was taking. For many years we entertained hope for the country until 2016. Now in my eightieth year on this planet I am holding on to those old dreams when we as a nation could stand proud of our government and of the elected officials who promote democracy.
Wow, Robert. You essentially gave him a day's pay. You contributed to good trouble, great history. Thank You.
Reading today's LFAA, it seems that in real ways, not much has changed. How dare politicians suppress the right of people to duly register and cast their ballots and have those ballots counted.
And how dare they repress LGBTQ people, withhold medical treatment for transexual youth, the histories of Black and other minorities from school curricula, the right of women to plan their families and to purchase abortifacients by mail, then allow indiscriminate use of guns. "Next they came for me..."
I’ve had the great pleasure of going to Montgomery. And visited the National Lynching Museum and the associated outdoor exhibition. They play George Wallace speech about “segregation now, segregation forever “ speech loudly and on a loop. I’m not sure it’s changed there much since then. Thank you for the history Dr. Richardson.
George Wallace’s *
I watched a Netflix documentary last night called "Descendants" about a small community near Mobile Bay that is made up of many who are the descendants of the Clotilda, the last (illegal) slave ship that brought Black slaves to the US in 1859. It is from the book "Barracoon" by Zora Neale Hurston. The National Lynching Museum was mentioned at the end of it.