The trip this year was outstanding.
It was serene and peaceful, as democrat and republican lions bedded down with democrat and republican sheep. Not an angry or radical word was spoken and all was well with the world.
But wait! It transpired during the most horrendous tumult the world has recently seen. Mubarake, the Egyptian dictator, had just fallen to people power as had Tunisia. Remember him, we’ve almost forgotten his name. Libya rose up against Kaddafi. Bahrain’s people were demanding rights while Saudi Arabia and the US were poised to prop up its ruling class. Yemen and Syria were suddenly afflicted with democracy and then the physical world fell apart.
Japan cracked, then went up in smoke and flood while their vaunted technology failed utterly, spewing radioactive clouds over its people before wafting on the winds to California. We were awed at the simple engineering mistake of putting backup generators in basements, vulnerable to the tsunami. Hawaii shook belching flame and ash while waiting for the tidal wave and its native people yearned for freedom. Seismologist and climatologist mused over the possibility that global heating might contribute to the outbreak of quakes and volcanoes.
Maybe we should not have been quite so out of it and serene, given the world situation, not to speak of Wisconsin and the continued assaults on our own democracy.
Another outstanding feature of the Faith and Politics Alabama Pilgrimage this year was the large size of the delegation and the enthusiasm with which everyone approached each new adventure – Birmingham local speakers at the 16th Street Baptist Church were inspiring with their stories of recovering from the bombing and death. The band for the p3 young peoples was mind blowing. Average age 14.
The Rosa Parks museum was a high point where every single pilgrim bought my book. It was fun for me to have such a high-powered captive audience at Rev. Abernathy’s church, which is so central to the civil rights movement. Everyone laughed with me over how timid us little white boys were as we got swept up in the movement with veterans like John Lewis and Dianne Nash, Bernard Lafayette, and those gorgeous singers, Betty Fikes and Dorothy Cotton. Every person in the church seemed to understand the power of Ms Parks saying to me that I had to take a stand, or as John Lewis says, “Get in the way.”
To Faith and Politics and its new and old leadership, I say keep the faith and the good works!
Bob Zellner March 21, 2011
wizardry
ReplyDeleteEven if Zellner recalls Bloody Monday in Danville, VA
I won't ask him about that painful day, its brutality,
don't have to. I know the local leaders, Reverend Campbell,
Reverend Echols, their children. I know about the beatings
and the beaten. Main Street, where they marched, did not part
for frightened protesters like a Red Sea although their blood
reddened Main.
That cruel day, I, an insignificant Jew, saw terrified young blacks,
jittery white cops anxious about administering
dour strictures familiar to their parents, their parents' parents.
That day no one asked me to impersonate Moses.
I knew the motions, had seen pictures,
the raised hand, its commanding staff, the steady eyes.
Zellner didn't try to be Moses that day, probably wasn't born knowing how.
But that June 10, 1963, Main Street wore a speckled banner
about Civil Rights:
Social Injustice Lives Here.
It died that day. With each bludgeoned marcher, with each bloodied baton,
another prejudice dropped like a broken chain on stiff asphalt. Segregated
movie theaters, public schools and libraries, color coded restaurants
began to disappear.
Without much help from me. Sure, I was there,
but my voluminous notes and Holocaust pictures, locked in my trunk,
didn't matter. I sensed that Jew hating was different from black hating
so I didn't say much.
Decades later, I am still waiting for my chance to march, waiting
for Zellner to call to say he's coming again to Main to start something,
something big enough to cancel anti-Semitism at its source.
Zellner would probably do that for us Jews. He would probably say
that it's way past time for that.
Of course, he'd find me first to make sure things were done
the right way so that profound change would take hold, would last.
He'd take me aside like a co-conspirator, would ask me about that Red Sea
trick, about the wizardry he'd need to pull it off.
B. Koplen 5/19/11
poetscry@yahoo.com