The struggle continues: Civil War, Brown v Board, and YOU!

Originally in a post from a few years ago:

…while in Cincinnati, I visited the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (www.freedomcenter.org); this fascinating museum chronicles the history of the Underground Railroad and teaches once again how the effort to abolish slavery in this country was among the greatest accomplishments ever undertaken by our forebears, and yet its challenges still saddle our society today. This visit was so powerful as I went with my children – who have reached the point of being able to understand and appreciate the profound meaning of our past, as well as to personalize its questions. As the Haggadah demands: “in each generation a person must consider himself as if personally freed from Egypt.”

Driving home from the Queen City, we listened to an NPR interview with author and historian Winston Groom. During the conversation, I understood something clearly for the first time (a surprise to this rabid student of American history). It has long been evident that the Civil War remains the most vital episode in our nation’s development – as this period brought an end to slavery, further coalesced the country as a United States, and also brought to light key issues (racism, sexism, economic disparity, etc.) that plague us to this day. As Groom spoke, I finally “got” why this topic resonates so dearly with so many of us: the Civil War and its origins and outcome is certainly a most imperfect time in our history. Its lessons are best told through narratives, which just like those in the book of Genesis, allows us to relate to people in a different time and situation because of our common humanity. These accounts – mythical or historical – become real and important as they echo in our hearts and minds.

Bernard Malamud said that the purpose of freedom is to create it for others. In this season of renewal, may the stories of freedom’s struggle inspire us to bring emancipation to all, no matter what their chains.

Upon the Gettysburg sesquicentennial, I suggested that,

I still believe that this is the most pivotal episode in U.S. history - preserving the nation, and confirming that the framework for a progressive democracy outlined by the founding fathers has lasting merit. It remains our obligation to live up to the aspirations that they, amplified by Lincoln’s address, left as a sacred legacy.

And just a few weeks ago on the anniversary of Fort Sumter, reflecting on the current political climate, I wrote “I think we are undergoing somewhat of a new Civil War, and I'm not sure how we wage the battle for peace.” And today that becomes even more clearly evident. This week – read again, THIS week – 62 (!) years after the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education decision, a federal judge ordered the schools in Cleveland, MS to desegregate. What?!?!

We ARE continuing the Civil War and the struggle to unify the states. And of course, this is not solely on racial grounds. The fight has come to encompass standing for the cause of all who are downtrodden, disenfranchised, and alienated and exploited: via race & gender, religion & ethnicity, orientation & ability. Rather than embrace our differences for the common good, it is far too convenient to magnify our discrepancies for self-promotion and –protection at others’ expense.

Lincoln’s long-ago words need to be repeated each day, that we recall our intent, our possibility to yet become “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” (emphasis mine). It remains our duty to ensure the preservation of this nation, this great experiment (which Robert Middlekauff deemed our Glorious Cause): that we would yet reach even greater heights, that we shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.