I had hoped to be more regular in my blog, but I am finding myself consumed with what's happening in the U.S. and the world. Unless really Big News happened, access to information back then was limited. There was news in the morning, at noon, and around dinnertime and late night. Although there were various updated editions along the way, the newspapers came out in the morning and late afternoon.
Today, we have a month's worth of news happening every hour.
Having grown up (sort of) in the 60's, each day is feeling less and less like anything has changed. My perception back then was that (painting with a broad brush) the South was openly racist while the North, for the most part, wasn't (it was, but it was better hidden.) I don't believe a lot of people now remember the incidents that provided the material for the movie "Mississippi Burning." I remember showing it in class, and students actually gasped at the opening scene. The real-life resolution didn't quite happen as portrayed, but overall viewers got a good look at how things were (and maybe still are).
The 'social unrest' we are seeing today following the knee-on-the-neck killing of George Floyd hearkens back to the demonstrations and riots of the 60's. I did my six-year stint in the Massachusetts National Guard back then (when it was still the National Guard), and was activated twice for incidents in Boston.
1967 was called 'the long hot summer' and saw 159 race riots across the country. 1968 saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the growing Vietnam war, and the Republican Convention, which was called a 'police riot.' Inside the convention, it was business as usual, but outside, it was pandemonium. As police beat protesters, the chant "The whole world's watching" (You can too, but the film doesn't do it justice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_9OJnRnZjU )
All too much for any more now.
I close with a couple of Langston Hughes poem.
***
"What happens to a dream deferred?" by Langston Hughes.
"Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?"
***
Warning!
By Langston Hughes
"Negroes,
Sweet and docile,
Meek, humble, and kind:
Beware the day
They change their mind.
Wind
In the cotton fields,
Gentle Breeze:
Beware the hour
It uproots trees!"
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