I am a caucasian woman who was raised in the most suburban of suburban white neighborhoods - Chesterfield, MO. I now live in one of the most urban, and predominantly African-American neighborhoods of St. Louis City. St. Louis is a very racially segregated city with blacks and whites living largely without exception in their own sections of town. My daughter attends an excellent private, scholarship-based school which is also predominantly African-American.
City Academy was started out of a need for quality schooling in the city, which was dearly lacking in the 1980s and 90s and still is today with the public schools of St. Louis now unaccredited. Of the approximately 120 students attending school at City Academy there are perhaps 6 or 7 white children, which demonstrates pretty clearly how entirely divided our city still is.
The majority African-American population of the school means that every year Black History Month has special meaning. It carries a significance it would not otherwise have if my daughter attended a school where the population split was different. Special effort is paid so that these lucky dark-skinned children understand the opportunities they are being offered that others before them did not have.
Each year there is a special assembly where the children perform songs or skits, speeches are given, and some aspect of Black History is celebrated and shared. The overall effect of this is quite profound for someone like me who remains one of the few white people in the audience.
I felt particularly emotional last night as I sat watching photos of civil rights protesters flash on the screen. The images are stirring into the deepest parts of me, awakening the idea that these very regular people were able to stand and do something extraordinary at a time when it was needed of them. Even today there is still effort in bridging the divide between black and white, a careful consciousness in the warm smiles we all exchange. If I feel a part of the environment at City Academy it is because I am working hard alongside them every day. We look for the common ground and last night I was able to sing "We Shall Overcome" with a roomful of racially mixed people for the first time in my life and feel its meaning in the present.
I felt particularly close to the interviews and protest photos presented as well because of current events in the world today. In my heart I know it is time for civil rights action again, but this time not because of a divide between black and white but instead because of economic divides in the United States. The events in Wisconsin have helped bring that center stage and last night I read an article that every teacher in the Providence, Rhode Island school district has been laid off in a rash budget deadline maneuver. The world is starting to feel like it is on fire for working class Americans.
Many of the things the civil rights leaders of the 1950s and 60s were fighting for still remain to be achieved. Decent housing for all, fair pay, the opportunity for a good education, ethical treatment in places of employment, and just decency and understanding between all human beings. Civil rights are something due to us all and that includes the right to organize, to protest, to bargain, and to achieve fair treatment. Civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King knew that people needed to be organized and united to make an impact. It remains true today. One can make a difference but the difference is greater when we stand together.
For many of those individuals engaged in civil rights demonstrations decades ago their fight meant physical injury, imprisonment, even death. Having come from the insulated world of white suburbia those events are far from my life experiences. My path has been difficult at times, but never like that. I have never been beset by dogs, sprayed with a firehose, or beaten by the police. I have never had my life and my family's life threatened or had to fear that a loved one might end up lynched. I have been very lucky.
I watched the pictures of many of them being taken to jail and wondered if my place in a protest line will mean that may be me on some day in the not-too-distant future. It feels close, almost upon me as I watch the uprisings in Egypt and the Middle East and hear of the struggle only a few hundred miles away in Wisconsin. It has never felt so close....
To stand up for liberty often requires sacrifice. I hope I can be brave enough to stand up, though quite honestly it scares me deeply. The type of rampant, small-minded hate Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks were fighting then still exists today. It is spouted every day on radio and TV, and I see and hear it in the ignorant, hateful statements made by people in comment threads online. More hate and anger will not solve it.
At moments I feel a little like Frodo Baggins caught in events larger than himself and wondering what can one small Hobbit do against such evil? Why are we called to take on these extraordinary tasks? It would be nice to retreat, have our second breakfast and Elevenses and pretend that all will be well. But the Shire is in danger, and hiding will not stop that. It will cease to exist if we stand by and do nothing. If we are to solve the problems facing us the solutions will come from the best and most noble parts of us. There may be a price but the price for inaction is higher. Our forefathers knew it and we must know it now - freedom isn't free.
I hope those that know that love crosses all boundaries can stand together instead of being divided by the insanity that is sweeping through the world today. I will stand and do my best to embody the ideals of compassion, understanding, strength, kindness, sacrifice, and service that I have always believed in and now know we must fight for. I will stand.
