Claiming Victory
I have long contended that Americans have become too focused on the wrongs in our country, and have taken too few opportunites to claim victory for the progress that has been achieved. Not that I am opposed to identifying and tackling the next challenge, just that it is important to pat ourselves on the back for the hard won achievements of this great experiment.
So, it was with both pride and curiosity that I read the headline in today's paper:
Brown v. Board of EducationI am certain that every paper in the nation will have similar articles commemorating the landmark civil rights decision (I hope yours is heavier on identifying the next step than was mine). The work begun with the birth of the Republican Party has seen many victories, Emancipation and desgregation among them, even that your newspaper will prominently report the victory of Brown is a victory in itself.
A rocky road to equality
Ruling integrating schools didn't solve racial issues
These words from Terence Roberts, one of the "Little Rock Nine" are the epitome of hope and self-determination: "The Brown decision offers up a blueprint for real change, and it's up to us to now build a structure that the blueprint suggests," and here fatalism: "I don't think the country ever really intends to integrate," he said. "What we've witnessed in the last 50 years is just further evidence of that resolve. White flight, continued attempts to resist implementation of the Brown decision — all these things indicate that the commitment is to maintain a status quo."
I'm clinging to hope and self-determination and rejecting fatalism.
