How To Overcome Fear And Climb Out Of The Bunker, Part 2-- On the 58th Anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
On the 58th Anniversary Of Signing Into Law The US Civil Rights Act--June 29, 1964
This introduction to a two year old Facebook shared memory post will serve as Part 2 of my series on "How To Overcome Fear, And Climb Out Of The Bunker."
It is easy to romanticize the leaders of the 1960's Civil Rights leaders as heroes, because in fact they were. They changed the United States and the world. How did they do it? Well, it started with confronting yesterday's MAGA, the Ku Klux Klan, which went by the name "White Citizens Councils". .
They were beaten with billy clubs, had their homes and Churches firebombed, were tear-gassed, bitten and dragged by attack dogs, hit with high pressure firehoses, arrested, tried and jailed on false charges, defamed and slandered, harassed by the FBI, lynched and murdered.
And this was for what? For wanting to register to vote. For marching peacefully. For wanting to sit anywhere on the bus, eat at any cafeteria, use a bathroom anywhere, stay in any hotel, play professional Baseball, buy a home anywhere, get a mortgage, have their trash picked up, enroll in any College or University, to not have Cops plant evidence in their cars. To do those things, to have those things that we children of privilege today take for granted. Those things currently being taken from us by fascists who call themselves patriots and Christians.
The only people I know who are living that have a real connection to this are the veterans of that struggle still among us, the people who were attacked in Charlottesville Virginia by Trump supporting Neo-Nazi Confederates, and the dozens of people in Portland Oregon from the Summer of George Floyd who faced similar brutality at the hands of "special units" of Federal Law enforcement. There are Congressmen and women facing death threats and personal destruction who sit on the January 6th Committee. There are other small and isolated pockets of progressive activists who are both brave and determined, but thanks to our Democratic Party and White House Centrists, have little or no backup. That is the uglier and uncomfortable truth.
The leaders of yesterday were people who "walked the walk" and were prepared to become casualties on behalf of their fellow citizens as soldiers for non-violent change. They would have meetings which lasted for ten hours to strategize and plan. Unfortunately, most people today who are our liberal political leaders are content to be purveyors of empty words, and thanks to the banality of the internet and shrunken attention spans, far fewer of them.
Today the people screaming loudest about the GOP, Supreme Court and Trump are far too often tucked away in their comfort zones of "self-care," in hiding in their mancaves, spas, breakfast nooks, working from home in their PJ's day trading or spacing out on Zoom calls for 2 hours a day, buying or selling Crypto or NFTs, and who actually call this "work." Then after two hours of mental exhaustion, they'll post some snarky memes on Facebook about mandatory vasectomies or Jeff Bezos paying more taxes. After that, it's entertainment time, meaning getting out some Beer or Chardonnay and binging on Squid Games or "Sexington", or whatever new Netflix piece of soft porn or snuff film masquerading as historical drama happens to get barfed up onto our devices that day.
Not that all entertainment is immoral. It can help with morale. But as a lifestyle? Uh uh.
Today's generation of anti-social social media addicts can't organize their way out of a paper bag. They have difficulty with the real world once they step out of their little cubbies when dealing with real people, creative tension, the unknown. Their comfort zones, their bubbles are their world.
That's why you lost Roe vs Wade, are losing the right to vote, are about to lose a vast array of rights for which the people pictured below risked everything.
I'm writing and posting this little Public Service Announcement on their behalf, since they couldn't be here. They would be pleased were we to remember them today by deciding to stand with them, whatever that means for each of us. We need not be beaten or die for the things we want. It will come to that for many people, but that is not even the point.
Our Civil Rights heroes sacrificed and worked for a future which was uncertain, on behalf of people they would never even know. Their heroism started with their sense of identity, rooted in the history of their people's rise from slavery.
They knew something which we of our generations have not yet learned. "It's not all about me". That's how they could give themselves up for people whose welfare they would defend to the death, but were either strangers or yet unborn. They were soldiers without weapons, except for truth and a passion for justice. They want us to come out of hiding.
Today's anniversary of their historic victory, 58 years ago, is a good day to begin.
≈=========================================================
Today in History, June 29th, 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed after 83-day filibuster in the US Senate
I'm proud to say that Martha and I had the opportunity to work with and know both Amelia Robinson, (shown here injured and tear gassed on Bloody Sunday, and commemorating it in 2014 on the 50th anniversary with President Obama) and Rev. James Bevel, (pictured with MLK) both leaders of the Selma campaign, and intimate collaborators of Dr. King.
Ms. Amelia was one of the handful of people present when LBJ signed the CivIl Rights Act into law, given her role in fighting for this and Voting Rights since the 1930's. If you want to understand why I am so strident and angry at the evil regime of hate under Trump, it's because of people like these heroes who are looking over my shoulder from their place in eternity.
They didn't allow themselves to cave in to hatred or violence, and neither will I. But, invoking moral outrage was their mission in this world, and they passed it on to me. Thinking of you both, my friends, on this hallowed day.
