57 years ago today, right about the time this is written, I remember exactly where I was. On this hot Southern California afternoon, I was not swimming with neighborhood kids. I was not playing baseball or records, or even getting ready for my Junior year in high school which was just two weeks away.
I was watching television, or rather watching history. This was the day and time of the March on Washington, D.C. and the list of speakers and entertainers held my attention. I recall trying to get my sister and a couple of her friends to watch with me but they were only interested in their social scene about to be revived with the approaching new school year. My mom was in our pantry sitting by an ironing board. Periodically, I'd run back there and scream, "You gotta see this, it's history in the making."
"You can tell me all about it," was all I got in reply.
So I returned to sit by the old Packard Bell TV with the well-worn dials that adjusted volume or turned the channel.
I knew about Peter, Paul, and Mary, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez. Their music was just beginning to make an impact in my world of 16 year-olds. Of course, it was the oration of Martin Luther King Jr. that made the most impact. A year earlier I had found a copy of his book Why We Can't-Wait at my local drug store and was all too familiar with King's Letter from the Birmingham Jail. I marveled at the energy that King created within the crowd. The call and response of a Black preacher was still new to me, but it was spellbinding. Earlier, I had seen Black funerals televised as civil rights workers were laid to rest in news coverage.
57 years have passed and there is another March on Washington today. As police shootings continue and the Black Lives Matter movement continues to move the social justice agenda forward, it sometimes seems as if very little has changed. This is hardly the case because real change moves much slower than most would like. But in Dr. King's words, "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice."
Let's hope so.
Point of Interest: That year 57 years ago was 1963. Later that year, for my US History class I did a research paper on voter registration in the South. From an article in Newsweek magazine, I learned about the history poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests for Black people. I read of a Mississippi literacy test that asked potential voters, How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?" This was real...documented...systemic racism in the USA.
It's often said that what a person sees at crucial times in his/her life stays with them and impacts their values the most. For me, that is definitely the case.
I was watching television, or rather watching history. This was the day and time of the March on Washington, D.C. and the list of speakers and entertainers held my attention. I recall trying to get my sister and a couple of her friends to watch with me but they were only interested in their social scene about to be revived with the approaching new school year. My mom was in our pantry sitting by an ironing board. Periodically, I'd run back there and scream, "You gotta see this, it's history in the making."
"You can tell me all about it," was all I got in reply.
So I returned to sit by the old Packard Bell TV with the well-worn dials that adjusted volume or turned the channel.
I knew about Peter, Paul, and Mary, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez. Their music was just beginning to make an impact in my world of 16 year-olds. Of course, it was the oration of Martin Luther King Jr. that made the most impact. A year earlier I had found a copy of his book Why We Can't-Wait at my local drug store and was all too familiar with King's Letter from the Birmingham Jail. I marveled at the energy that King created within the crowd. The call and response of a Black preacher was still new to me, but it was spellbinding. Earlier, I had seen Black funerals televised as civil rights workers were laid to rest in news coverage.
57 years have passed and there is another March on Washington today. As police shootings continue and the Black Lives Matter movement continues to move the social justice agenda forward, it sometimes seems as if very little has changed. This is hardly the case because real change moves much slower than most would like. But in Dr. King's words, "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice."
Let's hope so.
Point of Interest: That year 57 years ago was 1963. Later that year, for my US History class I did a research paper on voter registration in the South. From an article in Newsweek magazine, I learned about the history poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests for Black people. I read of a Mississippi literacy test that asked potential voters, How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?" This was real...documented...systemic racism in the USA.
It's often said that what a person sees at crucial times in his/her life stays with them and impacts their values the most. For me, that is definitely the case.
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