A tale of two revolutions
I was thinking about writing this blog earlier and
contemplated how it would have made a great paper for a history class… a
thought provoking assignment from a teacher to speculate on our American
history. Maybe it would have… and it isn’t
a criticism of my history education that it wasn’t assigned – I had a
phenomenal high school history teacher.
But I was also a teenager… who was more interested in making up
melodramatic romances from my history lessons than reflecting on social justice
at the time. And honestly, would I have
come to the same conclusions in 1992 that I do in 2013?
Maybe. I did write a
paper on Malcolm X for that class. For
the which I read his autobiography… and through the serendipity of pop culture
timing (which may or may not have influenced my curiosity) several articles
surrounding the release of the Spike Lee film.
Reading that book and typing up the analysis of a man’s life cracked
open some of my small town, very Catholic … narrow perspective of the
world. But it faded into the recesses of
memory as soon as my teenage brain latched onto more important problems – like getting
cast in the senior musical.
That paper was the only education I had in any of my public
school years about the Civil Rights Movement.
And that was self-directed. There
were other options for that paper topic from other decades and other
issues. So… it wasn’t part of the
overall curriculum.
But, hey, I get it.
We started with Andrew Jackson – and even without the birth story of our
country, that was still a lot to get through in one school year. I mean that Civil War stuff was pretty
huge. Of course, we did get the birth
story many times before. In elementary
school. In junior high. In the American Government class which was a
reformed version of civics… when we learned about the writing of the Constitution.
Of course… even then… what I learned in school was pretty
standard. The stuff that would
correspond to a field trip to Lexington/Concord (although I think my aunt
Nicole was the one who brought me there, not my school) or the Freedom
Trail. You know, the standard stuff like
the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere’s ride, Bunker Hill,
crossing the Delaware, Prussian soldiers, John Adams, George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson… a lot of white men in wigs.
Oh, well, there was Betsy Ross… and maybe, if you were lucky, Abigail
Adams.
Maybe it is because I live in Massachusetts… or because I
gave so many tours through the early American rooms at Beauport that those
names and events are imprinted in my brain.
There are more… but last night as I watched a 1986 documentary about the
Civil Rights movement… I wondered why I didn’t know (or remember) James
Meredith, Ernest Green, Emmett Till, Melba Pattillo Beals, Medger Evers, James
Chaney, Little Rock, Montgomery… well some I do know, but some I still had to
look up even after just watching the documentary. Honestly, how many do you know?
Why don’t we know these names as well as our oft
misunderstood and deified forefathers and American War for Independence
revolutionaries? I know none of them
have a beer named after them… but, man… wasn’t their fight for FREEDOM worth
some lingering recognition?
Maybe I’m comparing apples and oranges when I want to
contemplate the American Revolution with the Civil Rights movement. Maybe the big bad (distracted because they
had other fish to fry) British government was more big and bad than the ‘Southern
heritage’ against which these citizens were fighting. Maybe the willingness to take up a musket and
form a militia is a nobler fight than boycotting and wanting to go to school or
filling buses and braving the threat of burning crosses in order to register to
vote.
But… when I think of what motivated this country to begin... That notion of freedom. The idea of basic, civil rights to be
educated, to vote, to fall in love, to not have to pay into a society that
doesn’t benefit a standard cost of living and survival… how far away was 1963
from 1776?
That word.
Freedom. Yes, it meant something
different in the 18th century, especially to a woman or person of
color. It means something different in the
21st century. But it is a
coveted notion. An ideal that we all
wish to celebrate, to take notice, to honor those who give their lives to preserve
it.
I suppose I noticed this as I listened to the news footage
of the persons trying to deny that liberty.
How far away from that was a redcoat?
Or some British governor? And
yet, those champions of preserving heritage never hesitated to invoke the
Constitution or word freedom over and over and over and over again.
Sound familiar?
I bet you could take any one of those sound bites from the
50’s and 60’s and exchange it with a conversation today. About gay marriage. Gun rights.
Immigration. Our president. It’s kind of creepy and hugely disheartening
to realize the language stays the same.
The stubborn refusal to yield to the notion that another person deserves
just as much respect, dignity… and freedom as the rest of us.
But then I think of those names etched in my memory from so
long ago. That they did stand up for
something – even if they owned slaves.
Even if I really wouldn’t mind being British. But they attempted to resist a great
wrong. Just as the names I am etching
into my mind now did 50 years ago. And better
yet, they did it without guns. Without
declaring anyone 3/5 of a person.
Without dumping tar and feathers on a person who didn’t join their fight. They changed a country founded on freedom, a
country that declared independence a virtue.
They made that virtue a reality.
And yet…
Why don’t we know their names? Why do we let that virtuous freedom slip away
without honoring their sacrifice? Why
are we more concerned with Miley Cyrus today than reflecting on the ambitions
of a peaceful mob 50 years ago? Why is
this fight for freedom not one we continue to challenge and speak up and defend?
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