Im feeling a little nostalgic tonight; I know Im going to have a hard time getting to sleep, so I thought Id share a little history with you, from 1964, while I wait to get tired. Its about the closest time Cochran, Georgia, ever came to having anything resembling a race riot. In the summer of 1964 I attended Middle Georgia Junior College, as it was known at the time. There wasnt much to do in sleepy little Cochran, about the only thing in town was the movie theater, and many of us would walk down the hill and attend. This was just at the beginning of the civil rights revolution, as it is called nowadays, and the movie theater was segregated. The balcony was for the colored people, and the ground floor was for the whites; this really didnt affect anyones enjoyment of the movies, as far as know, not that I was paying a lot of attention at the time. The movie that night was Zulu; it had just been released, and everyone was eager to see it, and everyone bought their tickets and sat down. Now, fifty years later, everyone knows that Zulu was about the Battle of Rorkes Drift, a small cattle station, where a small group of British Soldiers held off the Zulu nation. What they didnt say in the movie was that the unit consisted of the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 24th Regiment, 2nd Warwickshire, now known as the Royal Regiment of Wales. It was quartered, when at home, in Brecon, Wales, which is where the Welsh side of my family lives; and it is possible, even probable, that I had relatives in the unit, though I dont know who specifically they were. I know as much as I do because a year or two ago Mr. Toby Giese came to speak at our SCV Camp in Kansas City about the battles of Isandhlwana and Rorkes Drift, and I bought his little history. It contains the history of the 24th Regiment, the battles, and photographs of the men who fought there. Someday, if I live long enough, Im going to go more deeply into that history and find out if I really do have people in that regiment. At any rate, getting back to 1964, the movie started, and moved along to the battle scenes. If youve seen the movie, you know that those scenes consist of Zulu attack and British defense, with each side in turn being mowed down by the other. The Zulus attacked, and mowed down the British, and the balcony cheered...and the ground floor booed. The British slaughtered the attacking Zulus, and the ground floor cheered...and the balcony booed. The movie went back and forth like that a few times, and after the second or third time, everyone in the theater was laughing so hard, that it made a hash of the movie; but of course, nobody cared. The movie ended, we all left, and went home. It sounds very simple, and not very exciting, but at the time it was just a good time everyone had. No riot, no fights, no race baiting, no unhappiness...but it was the closest Cochran, Georgia ever came to a race riot. The link is one of the battle scenes, where the British sing Men of Harlech, the national anthem of Wales, as the Zulus chant in preparation for their charge. https://youtube/watch?v=s-lDY02DThk
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 06:30:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015