Since this week we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the late Dr. Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech, I thought of a trip 48 years ago that I wanted to make. When I heard about the Civil Rights March proposed in 1965 from Selma, Alabama, I really, really wanted to be a part. I lived in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. At the time, my first child was one year old. Her birthday was March 25th, the day the march finally took place. I thought about leaving her at home, I thought about taking her with me, either option being difficult since my husband had to work. What finally stopped me from going was lack of money. There just wasn't any room in the budget for trips where you had to stay in a motel.
However, my sympathies were with the Civil Rights movement. We had two black friends when we lived in Norfolk, Virginia, from September through December, 1963. There were a lot of things I didn't understand, but came to understand. When we went over to their house, there were no problems or uncomfortable feelings. But when the couple came to our house, an apartment in former Navy World War II barracks in an all-white neighborhood, they were extremely uncomfortable going from their car to our house, frequently looking around. There is no problem with that now as my neighborhood here in Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.A., has many black folks and people of other races living here.
There were two times in my life I cried because of unjust laws. The first happened when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws protecting unborn babies in January, 1973. Horrible! That unleashed a flood of baby-killing resulting in 55 million abortions since then in the United States alone!
The second time I cried, really openly and uncontrollably wept, was several years ago when my youngest daughter #8, Jeannie, and I visited the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, Michigan, and went inside the historic bus where Rosa Parks decided to take a stand against black riders having to sit in the back. I sat in the bus seats, listened to a tape of Rosa explaining what happened and could almost feel that the bus was filled and I was there. It was too much for me to bear! After being comforted by Jeannie and crying on her shoulder, she asked me, "What's going on?" I gathered enough calmness to respond, "I just don't see how those people could do this to other people!"
So, have we made Civil Rights progress? From my point of view, we have made tremendous progress! I know of at least one hospital where all races are respected, the one I retired from - two of my direct supervisors were black women. Nearly half of my unit's nurses are black. We had a good time working and chatting! Surely we could all agree that there has been much legal progress.
But then, there is a lot of work to be done when close to 75% of black children conceived in New York City are killed by abortion yearly. When Margaret Sanger started pushing birth control in the 1930's, she specifically wanted to totally get rid of the black race. Looks like they 'bought' this, to their peril. I was surprised when the number of Hispanics in the U.S. surpassed the number of blacks. Somehow, we have to support black families, prevent everyone's abortions by helping the young women and men act responsibly.
Since I've recently retired, I get to choose what volunteer work I'd like to do. I was walking around my neighborhood and walked in front of our brand-new elementary school. I thought, "I think I'd like to help the young ones learn to read." Then it occurred to me, "They probably have a lot of support at home, I should seek out a school in a poorer neighborhood."
I don't have any answers, I don't have any grand plans. My deepest feeling knows that "One Person Can Make a Difference!" Consider the story about Starfish: "A man on the beach where thousands of starfish lay dying in the sun saw a girl tossing them into the sea, one by one. "Why bother?" he asked. "You won't make much of a difference."
Tossing yet another starfish into the sea, the girl said, "I made a difference to that one." (from a Nephrology Nursing conference 2012). Could we each be starfish tossers?
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