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The work continues.
Author: Raine Date: 01/18/2010 13:34:31

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.

This past year, these two statements have shown themselves to be self evident. The work of Martin Luther King Jr. and others is far from over. The uptick in overt racism around our nation is unsetting, from pictures of the President with a bone in his nose, to pools excluding children based solely on the color or their skin. It has been a rough year for equality in this country. Some people are fighting to keep the status quo but many others are trying to push for progress. The thing about change, is that it can be glacial, and it can wax and wane, but it will NOT happen if one gives up. It's not enough to recite "I have a Dream", you have to help make it happen. I refuse to let the status quo continue in this nation. For every step back, there are stories of success in this nation. Many of them come in strange and amazing places, that you would never expect. (hold on, this blog is going to make a hard left turn)

Last week, American Idol aired their Atlanta Auditions. The show ended on a strange and quirky tone. Watch:

The song is becoming a pop phenom. It has a message for the kids of today, and it is catchy. But there is another side to this story. Maybe, the people at American Idol knew this as well. You see, "General" Larry Platt was and is deeply involved the civil rights movement. This is an email he wrote in 2005:

"The home-page photograph for this website shows six singers. I am the young man (16 years old) on the left looking at the camera.

We had come by bus in 1963 to a church in Savannah, Georgia to plan a march to desegregate the city. Reverend Hosea Williams and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were our leaders. That particular planned march was canceled and we were singing to raise our spirits before returning home.

This photograph was published in the following book: The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-1968 by Steven Kasher (New York: Abbeville Press, 1996), p. [100], with the caption "Singing at a Rally, Savannah, Georgia, 1963, Kenneth Thompson [photographer]". The picture is part of the fourth chapter which summarizes events in 1963, particularly in Birmingham, Alabama.

Although not yet a published author, I have been active in the civil rights movement all these years and have many stories to share."

There is far more to this man.

"General" Larry Platt was not an actual General; he was given the nickname by the late Reverend Hosea Williams. Williams dubbed Platt "General" because of his courageous efforts in the Civil Rights Movement. Platt was also a student of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
[...]

Platt was part of the Selma to Montgomery march and suffered a beating on "Bloody Sunday", March 7, 1965. Williams, Dr. King and 600 others marched to claim voting rights as they made their way east of Selma on U. S. Route 80. As they approached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, only six blocks away, they were met by state troopers who threw tear gas and brutally beat them with billy clubs. Seventeen of the marchers had to be hospitalized, thus, the name "Bloody Sunday."

[...] Along with thousands of other volunteers, he helped scour the wooded areas of Atlanta for its missing children in the 1980s. A murdered Atlanta child was discovered during their first search.

On Sept. 4, 2001, The Georgia General Assembly proclaimed Larry Platt Day in Atlanta, because of "his great energy and commitment to equality and the protection of the innocent and for his outstanding service to the Atlanta community and the citizens of Georgia."

The General is still out there fighting for equality, so when he tells you get your pants on the ground, you should listen. We will be hearing snippets all day of the great Dr. King, and we should, but we should also focus on the legacy that he left us -- all of us -- and the work that continues today, in whatever strange and wonderful forms they may occur. The status quo can only exist if we stop moving forward. No one ever said this would be easy, but no one ever said it was impossible. I refuse the believe the bank of justice is bankrupt. There is still a fierce urgency of now, no matter how hard the forces against change are pushing back.