Tag Archives: civil rights movement

national news

Donald Trump: master of impeccable timing

I’ll admit that the irony of this got past me initially.

Then I readĀ a pieceĀ from the Los Angeles Times: Donald Trump’s idiotic tweet about U.S. Rep./civil rights legend John Lewis is rife with irony because of its timing.

We’re entering the weekend in which we’re going to celebrate the birth of the great Martin Luther King Jr. — with whom Rep. Lewis marched during the height of the civil rights movement. Trump took the opportunity on this, of all weekends, to ridicule John Lewis as an “all talk, no action” kind of guy.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-in-a-weekened-celebrating-the-civil-1484407475-htmlstory.html?utm_content=buffer11bc9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Lewis, in remarks to be broadcast Sunday, said he doesn’t consider Trump to be a “legitimate president.” He is deeply concerned about alleged Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election. I share his concern, but I do not consider Trump’s presidency to be illegitimate.

Still, Trump’s moronic response illustrates the utter tone deafness of the president-elect — who built his political career by perpetuating the myth that sought to delegitimize Barack Obama’s presidency by alleging he was born in a foreign land and, thus, was unable to serve as the nation’s first African-American president.

As the LA Times’ Cathleen Decker writes: ā€œJohn Lewis is an icon of the civil rights movement who is fearless in the pursuit of justice and equality,ā€Ā said Sen. Kamala Harris, the California Democrat. ā€œHe deserves better than this.ā€

https://highplainsblogger.com/2015/03/rep-lewis-still-stands-tall/

national news

Nation faces its own past

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“A great nation does not hide its history.Ā It faces its flaws, and corrects them.”

Former President George W. Bush, in remarks dedicatingĀ the Museum of African-American History

Indeed, they dedicated a museum this weekend that pays tribute to the contributionsĀ African-Americans gave to this country’s rich history and culture.

It also revisits the grim aspects of that experience. Slavery, life under Jim Crow laws, the street battles that ensued as the civil rights movement gained traction.

It was a bipartisan affair this weekend, with Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama on hand to welcome the opening of this exhibit.

I wanted to share the quote from President Bush and put itĀ in another context.

My wife and I returned recently from two weeks in Germany and The Netherlands. It was in Germany where I saw how another great nation treatsĀ a grim portion of its otherwise glorious past.

Nuremberg became the site where Nazi Germany’s high command was put on trial for committing the most hideous crimes against humanity one ever could imagine. The Germans have erected a museum there toĀ remember that dark chapter. They do not honor it. They don’t celebrate it. They put it out there for all the world to see.

That’s how they remind the world — and themselves — that they cannot allow the persecution, intimidation and murder of their fellow citizens simply because of their religious faith. That, of course, is what happened in Europe prior to and during the Second World War.

The African-American museum that’s now open in Washington, of course, also honors the extraordinary contributions that African-Americans have given to this nation. It also remembers the terrible times brought on by the enslavement of human beings and the struggles they endured as they fought for the equality the nation’s founders had declared had been granted to them by their “Creator.”

President Bush is right. Great nations do not sweep their darker chapters away. They don’t ignore them. They don’t wish them away.

They stare those chapters down and declare never again will we allow ourselves to repeat these tragic mistakes.

national news

Rosa Parks: an American icon

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Sixty years ago today, a 42-year-old woman became an American hero, an icon.

She might not have known at the moment of her heroic act that’s how she’d be remembered, but that’s what happened.

Rosa Parks was riding on a public bus in Montgomery, Ala. The bus was crowded and Parks was sitting while some passengers were standing. One of them told the bus driver to order Parks to stand up, to give her eat to him. She refused.

Parks was African-American; the passenger who demanded her seat was a white male. One did do such things in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955.

Parks was arrested, booked into jail.

At that moment a middle-age woman took her place among the legions of Americans who fought for equal rights for all citizens.

She would lead a bus boycott of the Montgomery transit system. Parks would become the face of bravery in the fight against racial discrimination.

She had grown tired, she said, of “giving in.”

On that day in a capital city of one Dixie’s states, she didn’t give in. Six decades later,Ā the nation still salutes her bravery.

Rosa Parks wasn’t a gifted orator. One didn’t hear her make compelling speeches before monstrous crowds, a la Martin Luther King Jr. No, all she had to do was simply be there.

Parks made an appearance in Amarillo; I believe it was the late 1990s. My wife and I felt compelled toĀ see and hear her. The meeting room at the Civic Center was packed.

Rosa Parks was introduced. She strode to the microphone. ParksĀ saidĀ some truly forgettable things and then sat down. It didn’t matter one single bit that Parks didn’t stir our souls. Just seeing her — being in the same room with her — was enough for any of us present that day.

Parks died in 2005. Her courage will live forever.

 

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Tribute to Maya Angelou

Confession time yet again.

I am not a lover of fine poetry. I cannot comment intelligently about a poem, or about the body of a poet’s work.

I do know a bad poem when I see it. It’s the good ones that often go beyond my meager understanding of some things.

When I heard about Maya Angelou’s death this week, I wasn’t saddened because we’d never get a fresh work of poetry from her.

Indeed, it’s interesting to me that I haven’t heard too many tributes about her poetic skills. And I guess that’s the fundamental point here. Maya Angelou was far more than someone who could craft poetry.

She was a trailblazer, a champion, a woman of immense courage.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/05/maya-angelou-a-woman-for-all-seasons.html/

She didn’t just write poems. She wrote autobiographical prose, such as “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” as Dallas Morning News blogger Jim Mitchell notes.

Mitchell writes of that work: “But its greatest contribution was that it was almost a modern slave narrative, reflecting experiences shared by many of her contemporaries ā€” African-American women who came of age in the years of the Great Depression, before World War II and before Civil Rights became a movement. Her voice expressed the never-ending challenges of being black in America, mixing struggles for acceptance and respect with messages of communal and personal responsibility. She was part of a spectacular black literary era that included Lorraine Hansberry, Gwendolyn Brooks and James Baldwin among others who made possible Alice Walker, Rita Dove and Nikki Giovanni.”

She wrote the autobiography in 1969. She was an established literary giant by that time. She would go on to become a famed civil rights champion, sought out by presidents and other national and world leaders.

Maya Angelou’s work transcended the sometimes-esoteric world of poetry.

It’s that transcendence that gives me a measure of personal comfort in believing one didn’t have to know the nuts and bolts of great poetry to honor the memory of a great American.