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The Next 50 Years
Author: BobR
Date: 08/29/2013 12:31:31
On a day to day basis (or sometimes even month to month), it is frustrating to see change occur so slowly that it seems we are stagnating. In some cases, extreme reactionary politicians try (and temporarily succeed) in rolling us backward. That's why it's good to sometimes step back and take a look at the big picture to see how far we've come.
This past week in DC, we've done just that. It was 50 years ago yesterday that Martin Luther King Jr made his "I Have A Dream" speech, and this city and the country have been celebrating it. When he gave that speech, Jim Crow laws were still being enforced, mixed-race marriages were still illegal in some states, and the notion of a black president was a pipe dream. Fifty years is a big chunk of lifetime, but to see from whence we've come to where we are now - that is an amazing lifetime to live.
Report Simeon Booker is one who's watched it happen. In an interview, he describes his experiences detailed in his memoir "Shocking the Conscience: A reporter’s account of the Civil Rights Movement":
The move "The Butler" also details the changes occurring through history from the 1920s to the 1980s, as seen through the eyes of Eugene Allen (character name Cecil Gaines in the movie), who was butler to the presidents. He too has seen the changes in law and society that have occurred through the decades. How different his perspective must be from young people today who were born into modern times and have not had to endure the same struggles and hatred.
In the past 50 years, the advances have been significant:
The advances, however, are not always set in stone, so long as there is someone (or group) trying to chip away at those rights, as well as poison the mindset that every person deserves equal treatment and equal opportunity. As I mentioned previously, for many young people, they assume these rights as a given. They don't seem to believe nor realize that they can be taken away if they do not remain vigilant. They don't seem to realize that they have the power to make further changes. Will it require that they actually lose some of these rights before they get angry and have to win them back again?
Seeing children and young people being dragged by their parents (who know the struggles first-hand) to events like we had here in DC this past week is encouraging and important. They will be required to grab the torch and continue onward down the road of time after we have fallen by the wayside as we all must do.
Several years after his "I Have A Dream" speech, MLK Jr said "The arc of the Moral Universe Is long, but It bends toward Justice". It does not bend on its own. I hope the children of today understand that as we begin the next 50 years.
This past week in DC, we've done just that. It was 50 years ago yesterday that Martin Luther King Jr made his "I Have A Dream" speech, and this city and the country have been celebrating it. When he gave that speech, Jim Crow laws were still being enforced, mixed-race marriages were still illegal in some states, and the notion of a black president was a pipe dream. Fifty years is a big chunk of lifetime, but to see from whence we've come to where we are now - that is an amazing lifetime to live.
Report Simeon Booker is one who's watched it happen. In an interview, he describes his experiences detailed in his memoir "Shocking the Conscience: A reporter’s account of the Civil Rights Movement":
For more than 60 years, Simeon Booker was a chronicler of black life in America, covering the murders of civil rights leaders in the South and the passage of civil rights legislation on Capitol Hill. As a reporter for Jet magazine, Booker would venture into the Deep South with little more than a bible and a beat-up car to try and disguise his identity as a journalist, filing stories about the courage and cleverness of civil rights activists and the racist terror campaigns waged on behalf of Jim Crow. Images of Emmett Till’s mutilated body that helped galvanize the civil rights movement were published alongside Booker’s reporting. His coverage of the trial of Till’s killers so inflamed officials in Mississippi that the local sheriff told another black reporter that if he saw Booker again he’d lynch the Jet reporter himself, not recognizing Booker was standing right there.
The move "The Butler" also details the changes occurring through history from the 1920s to the 1980s, as seen through the eyes of Eugene Allen (character name Cecil Gaines in the movie), who was butler to the presidents. He too has seen the changes in law and society that have occurred through the decades. How different his perspective must be from young people today who were born into modern times and have not had to endure the same struggles and hatred.
In the past 50 years, the advances have been significant:
- Elimination of Jim Crow laws
- Civil Rights Act
- Voting Rights Act
- Miscegenation laws ruled unconstitutional
- Women's right to abortion ruled constitutional
- Black Supreme Court justice (Thurgood Marshall)
- DADT (which actually helped reduce court-martials of gay people)
- Black secretary of state
- Black president and Attorney General
- Replacing DADT with an open policy
- Repeal of DOMA via the courts
The advances, however, are not always set in stone, so long as there is someone (or group) trying to chip away at those rights, as well as poison the mindset that every person deserves equal treatment and equal opportunity. As I mentioned previously, for many young people, they assume these rights as a given. They don't seem to believe nor realize that they can be taken away if they do not remain vigilant. They don't seem to realize that they have the power to make further changes. Will it require that they actually lose some of these rights before they get angry and have to win them back again?
Seeing children and young people being dragged by their parents (who know the struggles first-hand) to events like we had here in DC this past week is encouraging and important. They will be required to grab the torch and continue onward down the road of time after we have fallen by the wayside as we all must do.
Several years after his "I Have A Dream" speech, MLK Jr said "The arc of the Moral Universe Is long, but It bends toward Justice". It does not bend on its own. I hope the children of today understand that as we begin the next 50 years.
