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The boycott had been effective for one day. There had been much dissension among the ministers and the civil rights leaders in their meeting the Friday evening before. Some wanted to debate the pros and cons, while others said there was no time for debate. Almost half left the meeting in frustration before any decisions could could be made. But that Monday of December 5th, 1955, the boycott went forward and it was a success. The buses came and went empty.
Monday evening in the Holt Street Baptist church, some of the ministers wanted to leave off the boycott and call it a one day success.
A little known young minister when it was his turn to speak, said this, "There comes a time that people get tired. We are here this evening to say to those who have mistreated us for so long that we are tired -- tired of being segregated and humiliated; tired of being kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression ... For many years we have shown amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we like the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice. One of the great glories of democracy is the right to protest for right ... if you will protest courageously and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations the historians will pause and say, 'There lived a great people -- a black people -- who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.' That is our challenge and our overwhelming responsibility."
We of America -- a people of every color and ethnicity on earth -- are a great people. We have many times stood up courageously and injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization. May we continue to do so henceforth, here and everywhere, forever.
[ December 20, 2003, 10:20 PM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
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I'm reading an early Christmas present, the book "Eyes on the Prize" about the civil rights movement from 1953 to 1964, and it's the exact same situation as we have in Iraq. There are some people determined that democracy will not exist, and they are bombing and shooting and beating up the people who are determined that it will.
You guys mostly don't remember what the U.S. was like before the civil rights movement. We forget what it was like, from being so long accustomed to it. And it's too easy to point to the racism that still exists and think we still have such a long way to go, yet America was transformed. Completely transformed. And there were many people who were violently opposed to that transformation. They bombed and assassinated people daily. It's the same exact thing that's happening in Iraq. And the Iraqi people deserve what we have. They deserve to have peace and freedom. We have to stay the course, to not back down to the thugs and terrorists, to be stalwart and determined, and to be willing to give our lives.
That's what the price of freedom is, and it's never paid once and for all. It has to be paid again and again. We enjoy the benefits that were bought for us by other lives, in other times. I, for one, am willing to do what I can to extend those same blessings to everyone.
[ December 22, 2003, 06:42 PM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
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When nine black high school students integrated a white school, Central High, in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957, there was a campaign of terror that sprang up to prevent it. The local authorities did nothing. They posted National Guard troops at the school to let white kids in and keep black kids out. In the end, President Eisenhower had to send the 101st Airborne from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to enforce the court ruling. He called out the National Guard again, too, but this time with orders to defend the black students, rather than block them. Each of the nine students was assigned a bodyguard from the 101st to go about with them all day in school.
"The troops were wonderful," remembered Melba Pattillo Beals, then 15 years old, "They were disciplined, they were attentive, they were caring, they didn't baby us, but they were there."
[ December 22, 2003, 06:45 PM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
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