We owe it to them.

[girl gone mad]

Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner


My heart sinks when I see their pictures.

I still remember the physical reaction I had the first time I heard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_civil_rights_workers_murders">their story. It felt like every drop of vitality had just drained out through holes in my fingertips.

Once upon a time, those faces looked old to me. They were the age of guys I might meet in the distant future, when I went off to college. Now, they get younger with each passing year, while I experience the ordinary milestones that they never got to live.

In one of darkest chapters in our sad history of voter suppression, they were arrested, falsely imprisoned, kidnapped, beaten and shot through the heart by agents of hate. All for the righteous act of registering minorities to vote.

Just 20 at the time of his death, Andrew Goodman had been working in Mississippi less than one day. At 21 and 24, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner had both been leaders in the local civil rights movement for months and regularly encountered intimidation and threats of violence. Yet they persevered.

Most of us gather here seeking to improve our nation through political activism. This is the torch these young civil rights workers held in the summer of 1964. Their legacy is that of bravery in the face of certain danger, dignity in the presence of the vilest hatred, hope on the loneliest road and an absolute commitment to the idea of http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobamaperfectunion.htm">a more perfect union.

We owe it to James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner to get out the vote, stop election fraud, and to never take our own suffrage for granted. We owe it to them to keep fighting for every vote so that none of them lived, worked, hurt or died in vain.

True justice was never carried out in Mississippi, but these deaths shocked our politicians into action and served as a catalyst for the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Relics of the disgusting intolerance that made its presence so widely known that 'Freedom Summer' are, shamefully, still with us. But our cause - their cause - is stronger.

44 years after their young lives were so senselessly cut short, it is in honor of the memory of James, Andrew and Michael that I will cast my vote to elect Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States of America. This will mark an extraordinary milestone, and I owe it to them.

[Happyhippychick]

1. K&R and thank you.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. Very well put - K & R

I don't want any of these civil rights workers to have died in vain. I want to see assurance of civil rights moved to the forefront of our stated goals as Democrats, and taking on the repugs and their efforts at voter suppression is a fine place to start. Let's usher in an era of renewed struggle for civil rights that hasn't been seen in this country since the era in which these young men had their lives ended tragically. If for no other reason, do it in their memory!

[WillyT]

3. Off To The Greatest Page !!! - K & R !!!

:kick:

[WillyT]

5. PS: Have You Seen This ??? A Not So Well Known Norman Rockwell

[girl gone mad]

8. Thanks for posting that.

I don't think I'd seen it before.

[girl gone mad]

9. I searched for information on that painting..

and found this blog entry which shows Rockwell's original color study, as printed in Look Magazine, and the Pulitzer prize winning photo he based his composition on:

http://ulcercity.blogspot.com/2008/01/welcome-to-neighborhood-race-rockwell.html

The post also includes a nice commentary on the Obama logo as well as a reply from Sol Sender, the graphic designer whose company developed that logo.

[grantcart]

10. no but thanks for that

[mmonk]

4. Yes we do.

Especially with the GOP resurrection of America's ghosts.

[WillyT]

6. Kick !!!

:kick:

[Left Is Write]

7. kick

[bronxiteforever]

11. Kick & R