Tag Archive: Civil Rights

On this day

In 1968, just before 6:00 p.m., Martin Luther King Jr., walked onto the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel, outside Room 306. Two hundred yards away a sniper was lining up from a camouflage of bushes. Solomon Jones, Dr. King’s driver, said it was cold for April and thought Dr. King should bring a coat, just after that, a shot resounded and Dr. King was down. The bullet entered his chin and severed his spinal cord between the lower cervical and upper thoracic vertebrae. The wound was fatal almost instantly. James Earl Ray spent the rest of his life in prison for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., but there is some question as to if he was actually the shooter, or if he was, did he act alone? It is a question that will probably never be answered.

Dr. King had a dream that someday all people would be judged by the ‘content of their character,’ not the color of their skin. Or their gender or their country of origin etc. That is something we can all hope for.

Yesterday’s Post

Maybe I should have waited until today to post about Anne Braden, since this is the first day of Black History Month. My whole feeling on such things is we shouldn’t reserve good deeds for a certain day, or we shouldn’t just acknowledge the efforts people have made at a certain time. If someone has done something to make life better for other people, it should be acknowledged, there shouldn’t be a set time to remember them. Thanksgiving Day is one of those times that people talk about being thankful, why just thanksgiving? If we have a wonderful family or friends shouldn’t we be thankful everyday? If we have a good life, good friend and health, and we believe God is responsible, shouldn’t we thank him every day, not just on a random Thursday in November?

The actual reason I had for posting that video and song is I have been listening to it a lot the past week. I do that, I listen to one artist for a while, picking out which songs are my favorite. This is one of my favorite songs by Flobots. Also someone on Twitter was asking it anyone had family members who would object to a mixed relationship. That is not exactly the way he phrased it, but that is what he meant. Of course I do, with my Daddy’s southern roots. So all of a sudden, this song has greater meaning for me. So I decided to put it on my blog.

anne braden

Anne Braden, a young, white advocate of racial justice. She grew up in segregated Alabama, but it was not until her years in college that she began to actively speak out against that practice. In 1951, she led a delegation of southern white women organized by the Civil Rights Congress to Mississippi to protest the execution of Willie McGee, an African American man convicted of the rape of a white woman, and was subsequently arrested and put in jail.


Don’t Discriminate