I won’t say the situation is hopeless; but “bleak” does not do it justice. And barring the rise of some unpredictable earthquake comparable to the Selma voting rights movement, the new southern white supremacist GOP status quo looks from here in Carolina as if it will be very difficult to dislodge. Contra Raines, I could see it taking as many generations as the last one to dismantle.
For me, I’d rather focus on realities over symbols. And all the items here are real right where I live; not stuff I see only on TV, a tablet screen, or a license plate. (Oh wait – I do see the flag on license plates. Whatever.)
. . . The reality that at least 40,000 mostly black voters were successfully deterred from voting in the 2014 NC election by racist vote suppression tactics — and that 40,000 was the margin that sent another New Confederate to the U. S. Senate. (And in this case, I actually did get arrested two summers ago, protesting NC’s vote suppression campaign, which is expanding.)
“And to put ourselves into the proper frame of mind for these times of retreat,” Dr. King concluded, “we have always made it our practice that for the first two days we are in jail, we will fast.”
So there it was, finally.
As I say, these were not his exact words, but the cadence and content are all there. In any case, when the trusty heard the word “fast,” his mouth dropped open. Mine did, too.
The trusty frowned more deeply, and turned his head slightly, as if he was working up to ask a question, perhaps something like, “Say what?” Dr. King headed him off.
“And that, my friend, is why I very much appreciate the effort you’ve gone to,” he said, “but I’m afraid I am unable to eat your greens.”
“You mean – ?” croaked the trusty. Much of the rest of the disquisition may have gone over his head, but this last was sinking in.
Dr. King nodded.
The trusty looked genuinely confused.”You mean,’ he repeated, “you can’t – ?”
Now Dr. King shook his head slowly.
The trusty looked at Abernathy, who had moved to Dr. King’s elbow. He smiled apologetically, but shook his head also.
The trusty blinked and turned toward the other staffer, who had hung back silently through this whole exchange. His head shook too.
The trusty stood there for a moment, without a clue as to what to do next.
And then, he looked at me.
Among the attenders was Sojourner Truth, the rough-hewn but singularly eloquent advocate for abolition.
She is what moved me to cobble together this post. Here’s what the minutes say:
Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave mother, after uttering few impressive sentences, expressed herself as being deeply moved to sing, and she accordingly sung the following lines:
“I pity the slave mother, careworn and weary,
Who sighs as she presses her babe to her breast;
I lament her sad fate, all so hopeless and dreary,
I lament for her woes, and her wrongs unredressed.
O who can imagine her heart’s deep emotion,
As she thinks of her children about to be sold ;
You may picture the bounds of the rock-girdled ocean,
But the grief of that mother can never be told.
The mildew of slavery has blighted each blossom,
That ever has bloomed in her pathway below;
It has froze every fountain that gushed in her bosom,
And chilled her heart’s verdure with pitiless woe:
Her parents, her kindred, all crushed by oppression,
her husband still doomed in his desert to gay;
No arm to protect from the tyrant’s aggression.
She must weep as she treads on her desolate way.
O, slave-mother, hope! see — the nation is shaking!
The arm of the Lord is awake to thy wrong!
The slaveholder’s heart now with terror is quaking,
Salvation and Mercy to Heaven belong!
Rejoice, O rejoice! for the child thou art rearing
May one day lift up its unmanacled form,
While hope, to thy heart, like the rainbow so cheering,
Is born, like the rainbow, ‘mid tempest and storm.’”
Below is the complete text of two epistles issued by East Africa Yearly Meeting — North. I note that the 2007 Epistle comments on the statements at the FUM General Board session in Kenya, as well as responding to some reaction to them from a Yearly Meeting in North America. From this 2007 Epistle, it … Continue reading The Shame of Kenya: Epistles of Hate