Two Nights & a Lifetime with Dr. King Next Monday will be devoted to the work and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It was my good fortune to work under Dr. King in the great voting rights campaign he led with others in Selma, Alabama in 1965. Besides being historic for America, that experience … Continue reading For MLK Day: Stories from Selma, January 16
Jimmie Lee Jackson: One Who Went Before If I could, I’d add another stone to the crowded cemetery rows here, bearing the name of Jimmie Lee Jackson. He was shot by an Alabama State Trooper in 1965, and died several days later. The same trooper-shooter killed another unarmed young black man in 1966. Forty-five years … Continue reading Jimmie Lee Jackson: One Who Went Before
“As Friends, we must rise above the homophobic hysteria sweeping the country and seek to be a voice of reason, concern, and spiritual insight. We cannot afford to lose the soul of Quakerism by allowing ourselves to be caught up in the current compulsion to condemn and exclude. Naturally, we are stirred by the gay and lesbian rights movement. The civil rights movement of the sixties had much the same effect. Those of us who grew up in the South resisted and criticized it; we were hostile to it and felt threatened by it but, in the end, it compelled us to look within and what we found was raw prejudice that would not stand the objective scrutiny of the Inner Light.
The strength of Quakerism has always been found in our willingness to expose ourselves to that kind of examination and our further willingness to follow the revelation that the Light brings. It has been that willingness that has set us apart from other denominations and made us pioneers in areas of which we are now proud. It is time for us to hark back to our basic concepts in dealing with the present issue. The process has not failed us in the past. It will not fail us now if we have the courage to engage ourselves in it.”
Lewis and Sanders-On Almost Going Viral Thanks to everyone who read & passed along my Feb. 12 post about John Lewis, Bernie Sanders, and the 1960s civil rights movement. To my great amazement, the post went, if not quite viral, then at least contagious: as of Monday afternoon, it has garnered almost 12,000 hits; the … Continue reading Lewis and Sanders-On Almost Going Viral
I was going to review Ari Berman’s book, “Give Us The Ballot” for this Dr. King Day.
But I can’t. I can’t bear to. It’s too awful. I’m Sorry, Ari. I’m sorry, Dr. King.
But wait — I don’t mean “Give Us The Ballot” is an awful book. It’s up for some awards, and probably deserves them. And the part I read was well-written, and its clear ‘s researched the hell out of the subject.
But that’s the thing. I only read one chapter: the last. It’s called “After Shelby.” As a writer, I have no complaints with Berman’s work. In fact, it’s a fitting counterpart to my book, Selma 1965: The March that Changed The South. He even cites mine a couple times.
But I could just barely get through that one chapter, “After Shelby,” even though I’m in it (not named, but still). My book shows how the Voting Rights act of 1965 was made possible. Berman’s book tells how the Voting Rights Act was destroyed.
“Shelby” is the June 2013 Supreme Court decision that cut the heart out of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Berman shows in careful detail how this decision came about. (I didn’t read those parts, but I know they’re there.)
The last chapter is about good ole NC and the NAACP’s Rev. William Barber and the Moral Monday protests in 2013. I was one of nearly a thousand who got arrested in that classically nonviolent “uprising,” and weren’t those the Good Old Days??
Well, yeah, but not good enough, if you know what I mean.