Franks Blog: I Watched as a Generation Make History. The first time I drove through Alabama I made a diversion to drive through Selma and to drive on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. I have a thing about seeing things firsthand that I have watched on television. I took the drive slowly, traveling about ten miles per hour and remembering what I had watched on television on March 7th, 1965. I was in the fourth grade and not yet ten years old. I didnt know I was watching a turning point in history and a horrible violation of human rights. I had heard, mostly from my mother, that there were people in our country called Negroes who were not allowed to do a lot of things that white people like us could do. Thousands peacefully and lawfully marched across that bridge that Sunday, protesting against the violation of their rights and in favor of the right to vote. During the black and white television bulletin I saw uniformed men, wearing the garb of peace and law enforcement officers doing everything but keeping the peace or enforcing the law. In a hateful violation of the first amendment these men assaulted and beat these mostly African American protesters. The event became known as Bloody Sunday. It was one of those critical moments in the Civil Rights Movement that turned the nuetral and maybe uncaring into supporters of full civil and human rights for all. I wanted to visit and breathe the air of that historic site. I didnt know it but I witnessed a landmark event for civil rights firsthand when I was five years old. About three quarters of a mile there were some strange looking lights standing high atop some steel standards. On certain Friday and Saturday nights they shined brightly while the voices of thousands shouted and loudly cheered. A voice would speak out over this noise and annouce something like: Roland on the carry for the touchdown. That would be Johnny Roland, who was leading the 1960 Miller Buccaneers to the statew championship in football. When the Bucs defeated Wichita Falls 13 to 6, at Baylor Stadium on December 17th, 1960, they made history. Roland was one of six African Americans who joined 17 Hispanics and 18 Anglos in playing for the first racially integrated high school football team in Texas to win the state championship. Their achievement is honored with a display at the Bob Bullock Museum in Austin. This turning point in history was engineered by the head coach, Pete Ragus. He was an unlikely hero for civil rights. He was deeply religious and very conservative in almost everything else. He spoke to Roland and the other African American players when they were 9th graders set on going to the so-called Colored high school, Solomon Coles. He guaranteed them that they would win the state championship when they were seniors and then have a chance to play for for a big college. Roland became an All American at Missouri and became the NFL Rookie of the Year for the St. Louis Cardinals. The first and only time I ever cheered against the Dallas Cowboys, he led the Cards to a 38 to 0 victory in the first season of Monday Night Football. This achievement became legend at the high school I would eventually graduated from. The Buccaneers became a local football dynasty in the 60s. We prided ourselves for this and for our unusual acceptance of racial differences. It was not unusual to see a white football star hand in hand with a beautiful African American girl or a lovely African American cheerleader going steady with an Anglo member of the track team. Hispanic girls would often have Anglo or black dates to the prom. We didnt know how unusual this was in other high schools in Texas and in the south. We didnt know either that the surge of activism for racial justice known as the Civil Rights Movement was a remarkable event unlikely to occur again. We figured that by the time we grew up racism would be dead. Who knew, maybe wed see n African American man elected U.S.President. Well, we know now, that while an African American man can be elected president, most of white America would not accept this election, The very night Barack Obama was sworn in, top Republicans in congress began conspiring to negate his presidency. Even his most conservative proposals, such as Obamacare and the stimulus package received no suport from Republicans. Although there has been no high crimes nor misdemeanors in the Obama Administration, there is continuing talk of impeachment. Saving the economy from a total disaster was not good enough for them, they cant stand a black man being president. I had gotten used to this before the succession of violent and wrongful deaths of young African American men, usually at the hands of law enforcement officers. It seemed that Obamas election had ripped open a long closed wound and it is bleeding again. Once again millions are marching in protest. These demonstrations were held en masse in most major American cities. They received media attention for a short while when a hostage incident in Australia knocked it from the headlines. We have gone too far to head back now. Of course there will be other news but our relationship with each other is the most important. I have played with a bb gun in a park, I have stood on street corners of big American cities, sometimes selling items that police would not like, such as underground newspapers. I have looked at toy guns in stores and certainly went out for refreshments during sporting events. I never susoected I would be killed in brutal fashion while doing them. We are witnessing more firsthand history, we need to begin creating it..
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 19:48:49 +0000
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