We Also Still Share Your Dream, Dr. King

When I think back on the 1950's and 1960's, I remember the instutionalized and governmentally supported racial discrimination that prevailed in many parts of America.  It took the many efforts of hundreds of thousands people who did not agree with these discriminatory policies to bring changes in our society.  The leadership provided by the many brave, progressive, and outspoken advocates for freedom for majorities (women) and ethicnic minorities (African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, etc.) and other social and religious miniorities have resulted in substantive improvements in this aspect of our complex multi-cultural society.  Much work still remains to change attitudes.   

Today, we stop to think of our progress and our failures in this area.  We remember our friends and leaders who have passed on who shared and worked for making our dreams a reality.  We honor the memory of leaders, like Dr. Martin Luther King, who led non-violent social/political movements to bring needed changes. 

In 1963, George Wallace stood on the steps of the University of Alabama to deny entrance to black students. Governor Wallace said, "In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."  The tyrannical Federal government ruled that public school segregation was unconstitutional and intervened, supporting the first black students to attend the University of Alabama.  In 1964, the Civil Rights Acts was passed.  Some of the key leaders for social change were assassinated by 1968: President Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin L. King.  Those were angry and violent days.  

In 1970, Karen and I, and our friends from Alabama, all attended an important college football game in Birmingham, Alabama.  Most of us were serving in the United States Air Force and stationed then at the Biloxi Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi.  The University of Southern California (my alma mater) was playing the University of Alabama.  Both teams were nationally ranked in 1970.  USC soundly defeated Alabama, 42-21.  The USC team was integrated, whereas the Alabama team had only white players.  USC won the national football championship in 1972.  In 2012 and 2013, the University of Alabama fielded an integrated football team and won the national championship; and, the University has been, of course, integrated for decades. I guess homo ludens trumps homo racist in the long run. 

I hear many folks in my Red Bluff, California, rural area whining about the loss of States' rights due to the intrusion and domination and tyrrany of the vile, corrupt, and liberal Federal government.  These Redoubters and Tea Party and ex-Wallace populist supporters want to create a new State, the State of Jefferson in Northern California, to uphold their own "rural" values.  They are typically "white" folks, many are seniors, many are gun fetishists, they rant negatively about immigrants, they are often male-chauvinists, and many proudly boast of their "Conservative Fundamentalist Christian" allegiance.  Somehow, they remind me of that pompous, defiant, racist, and mean spirited sourpuss, George Wallace.