And please don’t tell me that “it’s so very very very much better now.”
So very very very much better? OVER? NO! Not over! How about the still-alive-today Ku Klux Klan?
Yes, better in some ways. No more lynchings. But still lots of killing. STILL! And more imprisonment and …
Visit the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Such sadness and pain and so much truth to hear and learn and embrace. Truth. Have you read the Emancipation Proclamation?
Are you familiar with Jim Crow laws and the 1896 Supreme Court decision Plessy versus Ferguson?
How long did it take to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson? Until 1954. Brown versus Board of Education. And here’s the timeline.
Did you and I think that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 fixed everything? How about the Voting Rights Act of 1965? One of the most beautiful stories for President Obama’s first inauguration: “Wish you were here.” Thank you Bob Herbert.
Do you know about the Southern Strategy – building a new majority based on antipathy towards the Civil Rights movement and the work of Lyndon Baines Johnson?
What have we done? What are we still doing?
Just read the news. Listen to the stories. Look in someone’s eye. Think in your mind and heart.
And watch this YouTube video. What will you do differently? Will you speak out? Will you and I learn more and speak more loudly? If not you and me, who? If not now, when?