windthread

2 responses to “All that goes Unseen and so, unknown”

1. 

   Marti

   January 18, 2024

   What would he say? What would he say when one of the Republican candidates for President, a child born of immigrant parents from India, recently said that America has not been a racist country??? In my mind, I see Dr. King, arms linked with John Lewis, standing tall, despairing but not giving in and saying simply, :”there is more to be done, more good trouble is needed, the march continues…”..
   And to that end, some months ago, I left several comments on Dee’s blog:
   https://deemallon.com/2023/08/28/look-what-i-found/#comments
   “60 yrs ago, I was 15 yrs old, sitting on the floor in my living room, watching the TV, waiting for the March to be televised. It is an event that I have never forgotten .The crowds, Dr. Martin Luther King, his voice, his passion, his courage, our nation on its feet…My family was scattered about, Mom was in our outside porch embroidering pillow cases,my Dad and sister were out in back, in the garden.
   A story that I have told before but has significance here:
   My mother came here in 1932, sponsored by her married sister who had settled in the central valley of CA. Mom was 19, did not speak a word of English. As she boarded the train to go across country, an African American porter reached out to help her. She shrank back, afraid,because she had never seen an African American until coming here. He was patient, smiling all the time and she said he had kind eyes so slowly, she relaxed. He would check on her to see if she was ok and helped her decide what to choose for her meals by pointing out dishes on the tables of other passengers.
   From Union History, the A. Phillip Randolph Pullman Museum:
   “During the heyday of railroad travel, the Pullman Porters were the workers aboard the trains. They provided service to and attended to the needs of the passengers. In the beginning, the Pullman Company hired only African-American men for the job of porter..” I read elsewhere that they were chosen because African Americans had a history of serving and helping…!!!
   From further research I learned: “It was a Pullman porter named E.D. Nixon who paid Rosa Parks’s bail in Montgomery, Alabama and asked a young Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead a bus boycott there. Not only did the porters improve their own lives and working conditions through tenacious organizing; they also laid groundwork for the civil rights movement..”
   Back to 60 yrs ago: I called my family in to watch this historic event. My parents listened intently, we all did. At the end, when Dr King exited with the words, “free at last, free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last “, I looked at my Mom and she had tears streaming down her face. I didn’t realize it but so did I. My Dad hugged all of us and simply said, “That is America.”
   In another of Dee’s posts, I left this comment:
   “Dr King spoke of not judging an individual by the color of their skin but by the content of their character: All people, who embrace their humanity, have, in wanting to know history, a willingness to not only acknowledge but to accept wholeheartedly, the simple fact that. hatred has no place in living a life of meaning. To be able to stand and face the wrong doings of the past in the hopes of not birthing them in the future, is to extend the hand of connection and equality.

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2. 

   Liz A

   January 18, 2024

   the being you uncovered recalled our time living by the flood plain, when a good rain would bring out of profusion of small dark beings much the same … I always wondered, but did not pursue finding out just what they were

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