ON THE CUSP OF POLITICAL CHANGE

FUNERAL PROCESSION FOR MEGAR EVERS

 

History has challenged men at various times to fight for a social and political cause or sit it out allowing others to take up the torch of freedom!  Take yourself back to the Deep South during The Civil Rights Era and imagine the precarious threat many of black Americans faced having to defend their right to exist as free men on one hand and having to deal with the hatred and ignorance of the clan and its sophisticated, and oppressive network of white supremacists on the other.  It must have been the equivalent of a living nightmare but one that had by then stretched over hundreds of years.  Not one black family would have escaped the experience of the lynching of a loved one… or the threat of one at literally any time or place…  It was truly a living hell…

 

SEGREGATION IN AMERICA

The goal of oppression is to use a man’s fear of retaliation in order to render the oppressed impotent and ignorant; docility is the result of a cultural brain-wash, a Pavlovian crack, an operant conditioning standard administered by all successful oppressors to the oppressed. Black Americans living in the rural and urban south during The Civil Rights Era had every reason to fear they would be victims of focused violence if it became known by white racists that they were assembling for the purpose of organizing against racism but they understood that the alternative was even worse… at least some of them did… At a time when a black man could be hunted down for sport, hung in a tree, mutilated, violated and left as a warning for others who could blame anyone of color from shrinking away from the road of civil disobedience?  Even white freedom fighters were not immune to lynching by zealous racists.  It was a dangerous world of uncertain outcomes but clearly a world on the cusp of political change…

NONVIOLENT CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, PROTEST, DEMONSTRATION WERE FUNDIMENTAL ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL CHANGE DURING THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA...

 

The twenty-first century is not without its unique socio-political challenges and they are no less urgent then those faced by black Americans nearly seventy years ago in the rural south of these United States.  Every time a group of oppressed people are forced to fight for political change they will face certain inherent risks to themselves.  Depending upon how progressive the region they live in is these risks could be drastically different but this difference is always directly proportional to the amount of resistance that has been applied to that region in order to gradually push it forward.  This means that in some regions, while there may be a significant proportion of the population that is sympathetic to change, conditions have not improved because the status quo has not been effectively challenged. 

 

There is a difference between a dam that is sound and a dam that is about to break…  The sound dam has not met any formidable resistance, it is strong because it has been designed to be so and can still resist the forces it was designed to resist.  The dam that is about to break has been challenged with a series of small but well-planned forces applied over a period of time.  Each time force is applied it is stronger and better focused on its task.  The dam expects renewed resistance but braces itself and even fortifies itself to deal with new assaults but everyone knows that eventually the external agitating forces will exceed the dam’s ability to resist and then the dam will break…

THE NIAGRA MOVEMENT IN 1906 WAS THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT CIVIL RIGHTS  MOVEMENT AFTER RECONSTRUCTION.  IT'S MANIFESTO WAS TO BE THE VERY SOUL OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT OF THE 1960'S

When men are thirsty and they cannot drink because the waters are dammed they only have two choices; to die of thirst or to take down the dam.  Every time men are challenged with this classic dilemma they must galvanize themselves organizing a formidable opposition to the change they seek in order to experience and enjoy the fruits of change.  They might endure oppression and let others fight the good fight in other places and hope that eventually that change may spread to include them.  But sometimes when change is gifted and not fought for the beneficiaries fail to comprehend the value of that change having marginally subsisted during its slow transition.  Knowing that one can survive without change and understanding ones duty to take action to effect positive change and to continually protect the attributes of change are qualities which are so individually linked to a man’s constitution. 

THE HAYMARKET RIOT IN CHICAGO IN 1886 FORMED ONE OF THE EARLIEST UNIONS IN THE US. 

 

The sense of civic duty, of responsibility for things outside of one’s self, the instinct that drives men to assume responsible stewardship of their world, to take up important challenges and follow them through, all of these human qualities are inherent in every man but for reasons that literally shape and define the world in which we live these qualities are not equally manifested in all men.  For some men it is only a matter of maturity that will define the instant of revelation.  For some men who have a stronger instinct of selfishness, their internally focused activism for self-preservation will always prevent them from joining the ranks of progressive men.  For this reason alone change is never an instantaneous thing.  Because change is such a forgiving thing men who would not join the front lines of a cause, who shrunk from activism, who remained silent or even criticized and doubted the movement for change are free to enjoy its benefits once change has encompassed them having been fought for and won.  The men who fight for and accomplish change will never be so shallow as to bar any man from enjoying its bounty.  But until change is won those who fight must recognize friend from foe for as surly as many great victories have been won through brotherhood, many defeats are owed to disunity, lack of focus and to the debilitating blow of a bitter betrayal…  The landscape is often treacherous though precious when on the cusp of political change…

ENGRAVING COMMEMORATING THE TRUE BOSTON TEA PARTY OF THE 18TH CENTURY... PRECURSOR TO THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION...

 FIN

LUCRETIA COFFIN MOTT WITH OTHER ABOLITIONISTS AND SUFFRAGISTS

 

Written by D. Vollin…

BLACK AND WHITE BLUES MUSICIANS FORM A GROUP CIRCA 1920