August 28, 2013 We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech.” This was August 28, 1963. On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Three short months apart – two moments, two amazing individuals in our history that forever shaped our worlds. I was 11 years old. I did not march on Washington on that hot August day, but I remember exactly where I was when Kennedy was shot. I can still feel the chill that ran up my spine when the radio announcer gave us the news. The 1960’s were, for so many of us, the times that shaped the trajectories of our lives, because we had leaders who rocked our consciences, whose messages were imprinted on our DNA so tightly that it was unthinkable that we could follow any other path than one that led to higher personal responsibility and greater social justice. Look at our current leaders. Would you march on Washington for any of them? Would you turn your whole life around to follow any of their examples? What is our higher calling? Who is calling you? My mentor and hero, Kip Tiernan, founder of Rosie’s Place, the first shelter for women in the US, used to tell her audiences about the insidious injustices she witnessed over and over again against homeless women. She founded Rosie’s Place because women were dressing up as men to get into Pine Street Inn, a large Boston shelter, but only for men. City officials laughed at her when she told them there were homeless women out there. She proved them wrong. It’s so easy to ignore a problem if you don’t see it or don’t choose to see it. Kip used to charge us with this call to action: “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” I am thinking about those people today, the ones who shaped my life and made it clear that taking care of homeless women was my calling. Yesterday one of our ladies who is 72, has severe mental illness, and chronic medical conditions including breast cancer, all of which need constant attention, was finally given a key to an apartment. She has moved on from homelessness, at last. It took 3 years to traverse the morass of bureaucracy and her paranoia to make this happen. A lot of folks helped and we hit a lot of bumps in the road, but we persisted and here we are. Yes, it can take years to get an elderly homeless woman off the streets and into her own place, but we don’t give up because we can’t. It’s too important. We started with her 3 years ago, but it really began in my bones on August 28, 1963. RMeans, MD © 2013
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 10:44:39 +0000
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