Gratitude and Freedom.
Celebrating MLK Day this year by reading Bruce Watson's Freedom Summer, about the Freedom Riders and Freedom Schools that forced the racism and violence of Mississippi into the spotlight and helped get the Civil Rights Act passed. It's a fascinating book and I highly recommend it.
It's weird to think that all of that happened not so very long ago at all. My mother remembers being made to use the "colored" bathrooms and water fountains as a child in the small Texas towns through which her family traveled as migrant farm workers. When I tell my white friends this they are stunned too. Wasn't that all over with a long time ago?
I remember and honor the sacrifices of the brave men and women of the civil rights movement who stood their ground and fought back, who in too many cases gave their lives, so that I might be educated in white schools, so that I might walk down the street with a white man without endangering my life or his.
Let us never lose sight of the work that still must be done to ensure human rights for all people, everywhere...and let us never lose hope that, if we stand together, we can help make it happen.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. You can comment here, or there using OpenID, or hell, both places if you want. It's all good.
It's weird to think that all of that happened not so very long ago at all. My mother remembers being made to use the "colored" bathrooms and water fountains as a child in the small Texas towns through which her family traveled as migrant farm workers. When I tell my white friends this they are stunned too. Wasn't that all over with a long time ago?
I remember and honor the sacrifices of the brave men and women of the civil rights movement who stood their ground and fought back, who in too many cases gave their lives, so that I might be educated in white schools, so that I might walk down the street with a white man without endangering my life or his.
Let us never lose sight of the work that still must be done to ensure human rights for all people, everywhere...and let us never lose hope that, if we stand together, we can help make it happen.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. You can comment here, or there using OpenID, or hell, both places if you want. It's all good.