Civil Rights and Liberties Require Constance Vigilance...

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

Putting partisan politics aside, something America seems inept at of late, the following article by Sally Kohn is something we should all be able to sincerely agree on.

Of course the immediate problem will be the interpretation of civil rights, civil liberties, and how they stack up with the politics and stated agendas of progressives and conservatives. In short what they mean (without emotionalism) and how to best insure they are recognized and protected.

People are not robots or automatons. Most are intelligent, thinking, and caring people. But as much as some might like everyone to think alike humans are not wired that way, and if I may say so it is a it is a damn good thing!

Having stated the obvious, the next obvious observation is... how do Americans, a diverse people with many intelligent yet divergent ideas sort it out, make well thought out decisions, and continue to be the nation are fore-bearers fought to create, died for, and handed on to us. IN A Single and simple word, COMPRISE.

I won't be holding out much hope this will be achieved. I'll be keeping my bets in which party is the most responsible for this inability to put America ahead of political agenda. I'm sure honest people will be able to figure it out though.

Now on to the article below.

The civil rights movement is not some dusty antique—it’s alive and well today, and we need it as much as ever.

When we hear the phrase “civil rights movement,” our minds automatically click into history mode and visualize those grainy and often searing black-and-white images from Birmingham and Selma. But that same energy and spirit—and urgency—are alive and well today, and as necessary as ever.

On Friday, July 11, 2014, a group of a hundred or so young and racially diverse leaders from across the United States sat in the Civil Rights Room of the Nashville Public Library and watched scenes from the legendary documentary film Eyes on the Prize. They focused on the portions that had local interest: Student leaders in Nashville in 1960 had been staging sit-ins to protest segregated lunch counters while tensions in the city steadily rose. On the morning of April 19, 1960, the home of a prominent black lawyer was bombed.

That afternoon, in response, the students led a silent march through the streets of Nashville to the steps of City Hall. Mayor Ben West met them there, and repeated his usual explanation of how the city was powerless to change segregation. Diane Nash, a student who was the elected leader of the Nashville movement, simply asked, “Mayor, do you recommend that the lunch counters be desegregated?”
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West replied yes. A few weeks later, Nashville became the first major Southern city in which blacks and whites could sit together and eat lunch.

But what struck the young people as they sat watching the film this past Friday, many the same age as Nash and her compatriots had been, was how the students who marched silently through the streets of Nashville were yelled at, spat on, and even beaten, simply for standing up for their equal humanity and rights.

The next morning, as this group of young leaders marched silently down the streets of Nashville in the shadow of the civil rights marchers before them, a group of white women drove by and from the back of a truck hollered the N-word at the group. It was a searing reminder of how much things can change and yet stay the same. And it’s a microcosm of why we still need to fight actively for justice...

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Via: Memeorandum