Fifty years. In the course of human history, it’s a pretty short time. In the course of the history of the United States, it’s a significant portion. In the life of man, it’s amazingly long. 50 years ago today, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed one of the two or three significant bills that were enacted in his administration. Among the others were the establishment of Medicare and the Voting Rights Act (which has been since decimated). The one that took life today, 50 years ago was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was a seminal event to me. Because I knew what discrimination felt like, and because I had seen what and how the South- and the North and the West and the Midwest- treated folks different from the majority.
But, the enactment didn’t change things overnight. If it did, the passage of the Voting Rights Act would have been unnecessary. So would the carnage in Southern cities over the next two years. Registering folks to vote brought the “establishment” police and sheriffs (and other militia types) out with guns to chase away those trying to make this country meet its obligations and its promises in the Declaration and the Constitution. A decade later, after that debacle, I was confronted with schools refusing to desegregate in Virginia. Where a coterie (actually when there are hundreds, it’s way more than a coterie) of private white academies- about 1/2 of which claimed they were Christian- sprung up in Charlottesville to keep the White kids from going to school with Black children. A decade later, when I was running my nascent medical device firm, we hired folks with great attitudes. But, I still had to color code the labels of the products were were making, because Black high school graduates couldn’t read- and needed the colors to differentiate among the products. (We also started programs to teach them to read.) Almost 5 decades later, we have a Black president. Who is no more or less qualified than most of the other ones we’ve had. But, people still hate him more because he’s Black. Those same people didn’t hate the incompetent predecessor(s)- after all (t)he(y) was(were) White. Let’s end this civil rights nightmare now. We can do it with our thoughts and our actions- and making sure we don’t teach our children hate, either.
