WHY , THEN AND NOW

            The question has been asked and finally one young adult who made the 50^th Anniversary trip to Selma contacted me  and wondered simply if I would share my motivation and feelings about  both the original 1965 trip and the 2015 return trip.  To that young adult, I must apologize on two counts. First, I did not ignore your question but at the time that you asked I had the feeling that you deserved a more complete answer than I was able to verbalize off the top of my head. Second, as I indicated  to all present at the Friday night discussion before we left for Alabama, I am not  a public speaker…I am a writer and a person who has learned to think before I speak. Therefore, extemporaneous speech is not my preferred genre.

            The decade of the 1960’s was a tumultuous period for those of us coming of age.  The social changes that were coming  (much like the changes in process in current times)  caused a lot of furor  and consternation among  many naysayers of the time.  Certain elements of society will fight  change  because it frightens them and threatens their “status quo.”  As a journalist, it was critical for me to watch, listen, and analyze events surrounding me.  Part of my early training as a reporter required me to factually describe what I saw and heard  without  editorializing  (injecting a personal judgment).   Only in editorial writing was I free to touch on and discuss my analysis of events.  (Remember  my “keep your mouth shut” admonition at the Friday night panel discussion?)

            My decision to make the 1965 trip  (like many of my fellow travelers) was intensely personal, not professional.  As my fellow traveler and classmate told of forging her mother’s signature to the travel permission, I understood her reasoning very well. Since I was 21 and legally of age as well as a college employee, not a word was said to my father (until many years later).  That adult decision was me keeping myself in tune and in step with my personal beliefs.   I took my alma mater’s defining motto very seriously, GOD hath made of one blood all nations of men.  I believed that fact then, I believe it now. By that personal choice to believe….I refuted and condemned any person’s  option to denigrate, demean, disrespect  any other human being’s  origin (racial, ethnic, religious, even sexual)  in the nations of men!   Did I fully understand the symbolic cross I had chosen to shoulder?  Unconsciously yes, but consciously it would take me a lifetime to verbalize my decision openly in an understandable manner. Please do not misinterpret what I say, if Christ could shoulder His cross for the sins of mankind, I could certainly  take a stand for the equality of mankind…..all of mankind.

            The 2015 trip was for me a pilgrimage, a journey to a place (and time) of moral significance.   In essence I was revisiting my first pertinent  and the most important step into my witness to the world.  There would of course be stumbling blocks ahead, some foreseen, some unforeseen.  The commonality of those stumbling blocks would be that each one required me to take a stand, an open and therefore public step into the discussion and the resulting decision.  

            Who says I can’t vote?  I will vote.  Who says I can’t live here because I am black? That was the day I discovered that sometimes those who are supposed  to police “equal opportunity” are afraid to use their legal baseball bats. Just because he is male and I am female (or he is white  and I am black) he gets the job?   That was the day I confronted a person bowing down to political pressure.  Because this student comes from a poor Appalachian family and you think he is undeserving…you the almighty counselor did not submit his paperwork? The student lost a full scholarship to a prestigious engineering school and I didn’t find out in time to confront the counselor.   Because this senior student just became a single parent and you refused to send makeup work home because you are against high school students who become pregnant, you flunked    her for an honors math class? The student was assigned a different instructor, made up the work and received a full scholarship to college while raising her son!   

            There are times when the voiceless demand that someone  stand up and be counted and sometimes we are the voiceless who must be heard. Through my 35 years in  underserved schools, I actively faced the stumbling blocks and plunged on perhaps in the back of my head also hearing the words of W.E.B. DuBois in his discussion of the “Talented Tenth.”   My one  separation from DuBois is that any/all minorities in the 21^st Century are confronted  with “stumbling blocks” which must be eliminated for the good of all  mankind.  Now in my seventh decade…I must pass the torch. You, the young adult generation must face the fight. The battle is not over and it should not be abandoned!

NO BOYS ALLOWED?!! SO NOT HAPPENING

 

       Several years ago, one of my sons was running track and cross country.   Climate change was already becoming an issue globally but the majority of us were blissfully ignorant of the ways our everyday life could be impacted. I was no different from anyone else until one Sunday morning in the spring.  the grass was green but the air was still cool early in the day.  The sun was shining when I arrived at the track facility. I walked from the parking lot to green space beside the bleachers. I didn't feel like crawling over the possessions  (and outstretched legs) of other parents so I chose to sit in the grassy spot partially shaded  by the bleachers.   I kicked my sandals off and let the sun kiss my bare feet.  By midday the sun had grown much warmer and I put my sandals back on.  The straps were not as comfortable as they had been earlier so I put some lotion on my feet thinking that my skin was dry and the new sandals were rubbing the tops of my feet.  By evening I knew how wrong I was! The tops of my feet were red, swollen, and quite tender to the touch.  My immediate thought was that I had been near some poison ivy....but I hadn't seen any.   Off I go to CVS and run into Jim the pharmacist.  He looked at my feet and laughed  at me while handing me some aloe gel.  "Its kind of early but I think you are sunburned !"   Imagine my shock....up until that moment I assumed black skin didn't sunburn.  Along with the aloe gel I left CVS with sunscreen lotion.  LESSON 1 LEARNED!

        LESSON 2 hit me at a cross country meet that fall. I came from  my job just in time to find my son being loaded in an ambulance!  He had stumbled  and nearly  passed out  while running!  Off we went to sports medicine at a local hospital.  He was still a little woozy and admitted to the doctor that he had run out of water and hasn't asked for more.   The scathing lecture I got from the doctor remains in my mind to this day many years after the fact.  Water, Gatorade,  etc. should have been  easily  available  to  those runners!   My kid was lucky....he got popsicles and I got chewed out!  LESSON 2 LEARNED!

        There was no way I needed  to be knocked over the head again!  A case of bottled water would be in my car and/or my husband's car  for ANY future practice or meet! My kid would know that and his team mates would know it....you are thirsty....drink water.  The car windows are down, reach in and get your water out of the cooler.  No questions  asked!  Spring track began and the word was out. 

        LESSON  3   was coming down the railroad track like a speeding locomotive.  My son was in high school and high school track meets can be lengthy. Early spring meets were reasonably okay but the weather turned hot early.  An informal parent discussion in the bleachers resulted in the  (parental) purchase of a sun shade canopy for the track team (boys and girls).  The mothers thought the issue of hot and sunny afternoon track meets was solved (bottled water was available and the  canopy would solve the hot sun problem).  To our shock..the head girls' coach (a male newly appointed to the job) claimed the canopy for the exclusive use of the girls!  The boys were totally BANNED from the canopy! The word flew through the boys' parents.    The boys would be forced to use a tarp tied to a fence along with umbrellas provided by sympathetic onlookers.  After our family's years of  experience in CYO  (Catholic Youth Organization) track...I would always carry a cooler with fruit (usually grapes and bananas) , yogurt, bagels and cream cheese, peanut butter, orange slices, cubed melon  and Gatorade (for the kids) ......  and of course the tarp ( to shade parents in the bleachers).    Of course my son knew what I carried so he came and picked up the cooler and the tarp supplies and the boys assembled THEIR camp.   That day...parents had to "make do!"   

         In the vernacular of the day..I was smoking and the single eyebrow was raised ( trait  inherited from my father) when he was .....shall we say....ANGRY ?   This shenanigan was NOT acceptable and would be dealt with    MY .....WAY.   The meet day ended....round 2 would begin tomorrow after school.  It was time for a Walmart visit....to the sporting  goods department...my retaliatory mission had kicked in.  I found the perfect tent....large enough to fit the fellows and their gear bags.  A swipe of my debit card later...step 1 was done.  Evil smirk on my face, I grabbed a copy of the school insignia as I left   for work the next day. On the way out of the house the next morning.... woke my son and told  him to watch for my car in the parking lot and meet me with a couple of buddies to carry "stuff."  Did not explain further and admonished him not to forget.  

        Visited my friend (printshop instructor) as soon as I got to school and explained the banner I wanted and why.  He would do the setup for me but couldn't print it....that was okay by me because I was leaving our school  on time and could take the disk to a local (in my town)  print shop!  Later that afternoon, I walked into the local business....could they print a banner for me....well yes they could but if I wanted it today, they didn't have time to do set up.....no problem as I handed the owner   the disk with the set up!  He checked the disk format and yes....the print time in color would be 45 minutes. Think he was shocked for two reasons.....I handed him the set up already formatted and .....I did not blink at the price.  We shook hands and I left to complete my devious plan.  I had an extra Igloo cooler at home.....normal picnic size.  Went to the grocery store and filled it with water,  Gatorade, and ice.  Then I filled the smaller cooler with  the usual assorted fruit, my serving tongs  and paper cups (so each kid could get what he wanted).   Devious payback was almost complete....as I returned to the print shop to pick up the banner.

        I pulled into the parking lot at  the meet (in a nearby town) and several boys came running.  First cooler ,  second cooler ,  tent bag from the trunk, banner bag and as I reached for my chair in a bag,  that bag was grabbed by  another  young man. I handed  him the rubber mallet.  To his puzzled look, I simply smiled and said....."You will need it. Go set up your camp site!"   My son looked at me,  "Is that long bag what I think it is?"  I nodded my head.  To  his teammates he simply said,  "This is going to be fun." They flew back to their corner of the field.   By the time I got there, their tent was being raised close but not too close to the girls' team and they were busy figuring out how to attach their banner which loudly proclaimed  that this tent belonged  to their school's MEN'S TRACK TEAM!  They pounded the metal stakes into the ground,  entered the tent (no spikes allowed), unzipped the screened windows  and moved their gear bags into THEIR tent along  with the two coolers.  My chair was parked under the sun visor (guarding their space).