Running Into the Fire

TracieSays:  July 2, 2013

Photo credit.  Hoover Library

 

We were reminded again this past weekend about the bravery of our heroes – recognized and unsung – who run towards the fire.  On Sunday in Yarnell, Arizona the heat was overwhelming and as is so often the case, the flames were fueled by winds that spread the fire too quickly for 19 ‘Hot Shot’ firefighters to escape.  And they perished.  We mourn their loss and pray for their families.

Like firefighters, those seemingly ordinary citizens, our friends, family, neighbors, who stand on the front lines for justice also run into the fire.  And this year we commemorate a particularly hot summer in American history:  the Summer of 1963, which marked several milestones.  After Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested on April 12 for protesting in Birmingham without a city permit, he wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” in which he responds to eight (8) white Alabama ministers who urged him to end the protests – to walk away from the fire – and be patient with the judicial process of overturning segregation.

On June 11, President Kennedy delivered a speech on civil rights from the Oval Office, to explain why he sent the National Guard to allow the admittance of two Black students to the University of Alabama.

On June 12, Byron De La Beckwith assassinated Medgar Evers, the first field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Mississippi.

Summer – 80,000 blacks quickly registered to vote in Mississippi, by a test project to show their desire to participate.

On August 18, James Meredith graduated from Ole Miss.

On August 28, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was held in D.C.  At least 250,000 people participated, and Rev. King delivered his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech. 

And on September 15, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham is bombed. Four young girls are killed (Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley).

1963's summer was very hot.

But Goddamn.

Nina our justice fighters did not Go Slow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVQjGGJVSXc).  Martin, Malcolm, Medgar, and 4 little girls weathered the firestorms, and helped bring to freedoms today we could only dream of on August 28, 1963.

They keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"
But that's just the trouble
"To slow"
Desegregation
"To slow'
Mass participation
"To slow"
Reunification
"To slow"
Do things gradually
"To slow"
But bring more tragedy
"To slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

Our justice work must continue because we are nowhere near done, we are nowhere near tired, and we are nowhere near bamboozled (Obama cannot cure our racial problems).

Today on The Good Morning Show we will talk to the adult children of Robert Hicks, who in 1963-1964 fought infernos set by Ku Klux Klan though out Louisiana with the Deacons for Defense and Justice.

And then we will turn to a conversation with Nicole Lamoureux (Executive Director, National Association of Free Clinics) and Rev. Al Sharpton (Human Rights Advocate & Host of Politics Nation on MSNBC), who are tackling a human rights hellfire abyss that is indiscriminately ravaging our nation’s poor and marginalized communities:  the inability to access health care.  These two warriors have made it their mission to call attention to this crisis and to act.

 

In the end, we remind ourselves that Go Slow is anathema to our flame-jumpers. 

They run toward danger because they know, today, tomorrow, or 50 years from now:

You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

[Lee, cut to Nina Simone – Mississippi Goddamn, then break]