Life is like a beautiful Melody

American Girl

I honestly don't know how I'm going to survive until this summer when Melody Ellison is released.

American Girl has been doing an excellent job this week promoting Melody because of Black History Month.

Because February is Black History Month, your daughter may be learning about Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights movement in school. But even in our own changing times, civil rights issues and the social climate of the 1960s may be difficult for her to fully understand. That is why we are so proud to introduce our compelling new BeForever™ character, Melody, whose story reflects the changing face and history of the nation during that important era.

Nine-year-old Melody is growing up in Detroit in the mid-1960s, a time of great energy, optimism, and change for the African American community. She is a singer and loves to perform in church, with her family, and in her community. Her stories are set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, which was gathering momentum, and the music scene, including the success and popularity of Motown Records and its artists.

As Melody gains more awareness of racial inequality and her sense of community grows from her extended family to include her neighborhood and, ultimately, all African Americans, she is inspired by Dr. King to have a dream of her own: to lift her voice for fairness and equality.

Because many girls are interested in music and performing, as well as starting to find their own "voice" and express their opinions, they'll find Melody's stories engaging and entertaining. You'll love that they're educational, too, helping your girl connect with the past on a more personal level. Come meet Melody Ellison and introduce her to your girl today!

But what is Momma most excited about? Vernors. Melody constantly drinks ginger ale in her first book, especially Vernors - a Detroit invention and midwestern favorite. And what did Momma spot on the table during yesterday's CBS This Morning broadcast? A teeny-tiny bottle of Vernors!

So what's the deal about Vernors? That will be a lesson for another day.

Justice, equality, and democracy

Happy 50th Anniversary to the Civil Rights Act of 1964!

(Momma is quite proud that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is only nine days older than she is.)

Civil Rights Acts have been enacted in 1866, 1871, 1875, 1957, 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1991, but the most famous of which is the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The 1964 Act is the most important because it outlawed more types of discrimination than any of the others. (Another important civil rights law that is not called a Civil Rights Act was the Voting Rights Act of 1965.)

 

President Barack Obama said about the 1964 Act's 50th anniversary that "few pieces of legislation have defined our national identity as distinctly, or as powerfully."

"It transformed the concepts of justice, equality, and democracy for generations to come."

The Civil Rights Act of 1866, (14 Stat. 27-30) enacted April 9, 1866, was the first United States federal law to define United States citizenship and affirmed that all citizens were equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended to protect the civil rights of African-Americans, in the wake of the American Civil War.

The Civil Rights Act of 1871 (17 Stat. 13), empowered the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to combat the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other white supremacy organizations during the Reconstruction Era. The act was passed by the 42nd United States Congress during the Reconstruction Era and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on April 20, 1871. The act was the last of three Enforcement Acts passed by the United States Congress from 1870 to 1871 during the Reconstruction Era to combat attacks upon the suffrage rights of African Americans.

The Civil Rights Act of 1875, (18 Stat. 335-337), was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction Era that guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and prohibited exclusion from jury service. The Supreme Court decided the act was unconstitutional (!) in 1883.

The Civil Rights Act of 1957, (71 Stat. 634) enacted Sept. 9, 1957, primarily a voting rights bill, was also Congress's show of support for the Supreme Court's Brown decisions. The Brown v. Board of Education (1954), eventually led to the integration of public schools. Following the Supreme Court ruling, Southern whites in Virginia began a "Massive Resistance." Violence against blacks rose there and in other states, as in Little Rock, Arkansas, where that year President Dwight D. Eisenhower had ordered in federal troops to protect nine children integrating a public school, the first time the federal government had sent troops to the South since Reconstruction. There had been continued physical assaults against suspected activists and bombings of schools and churches in the South. The administration of Eisenhower proposed legislation to protect the right to vote by African Americans.

The Civil Rights Act of 1960 (74 Stat. 89) enacted May 6, 1960, was a United States federal law that established federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone's attempt to register to vote. It was designed to deal with discriminatory laws and practices in the segregated South, by which blacks had been effectively disfranchised since the late 19th and start of the 20th century. It extended the life of the Civil Rights Commission, previously limited to two years, to oversee registration and voting practices. The act was signed into law by President Eisenhower and served to eliminate certain loopholes left by the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (78 Stat. 241) was called for by President John F. Kennedy in his civil rights speech of June 11, 1963, in which he asked for legislation "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments," as well as "greater protection for the right to vote." Kennedy delivered this speech following a series of protests from the African-American community, the most notable being the Birmingham campaign (sometimes referred to as the "Children's Crusade") in which students and children endured attacks by police dogs and high pressure fire hoses during their protests against segregation.

The Civil Rights Act of 1968, (82 Stat. 73) enacted April 11, 1968, is a landmark part of legislation in the United States that provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or national origin and made it a federal crime to “by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone … by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin.” The Act was signed into law during the King assassination riots by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had previously signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act into law.

Finally (at least for now) The Civil Rights Act of 1991 was passed in response to a series of United States Supreme Court decisions which limited the rights of employees who had sued their employers for discrimination. The Act represented the first effort since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to modify some of the basic procedural and substantive rights provided by federal law in employment discrimination cases. It provided the right to trial by jury on discrimination claims and introduced the possibility of emotional distress damages, while limiting the amount that a jury could award.

The Great March on Washington

Warren K. Leffler, courtesy of Library of Congress

Two score and 10 years ago, The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Aug. 28, 1963. It was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans.

You probably know that Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech while standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

However, what you probably did not know is that women barely had a role. Not only did they march on Independence Avenue while the men marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, but according to CNN:

It was only after pressure from Anna Arnold Hedgeman, the only woman on the national planning committee, that a "Tribute to Negro Women Fighters for Freedom" was added to the official program.

It took further convincing to have a woman lead it.

Daisy Bates spoke in the place of Myrlie Evers, the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Bates, president of the Arkansas NAACP who played a key role in integrating schools in Little Rock, told the crowd: "We will walk until we are free, until we can walk to any school and take our children to any school in the United States. And we will sit-on and we will kneel-in and we will lie-in if necessary until every Negro in America can vote. This we pledge to the women of America."

Women had been central to the civil rights movement -- Diane Nash, Ella Baker, Dorothy Height and many others -- but were only included in the program that day after one woman spoke up.

What's that saying?

Oh yes, "Well-behaved women seldom make history."

 

They could not take your pride

April 4: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights Leader and Martyr, 1968

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta. As the son and grandson of Baptist preachers, he was steeped in the Black Church tradition. To this heritage he added a thorough academic preparation, earning the degrees of B.A., B.D., and Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston University.

In 1954, King became pastor of a church in Montgomery, Alabama. There, Black indignation at inhumane treatment on segregated buses culminated in December, 1955, in the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. King was catapulted into national prominence as the leader of the Montgomery bus boycott. He became increasingly the articulate prophet, who could not only rally the Black masses, but could also move the consciences of Whites.

King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to spearhead non-violent mass demonstrations against racism. Many confrontations followed, most notably in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama, and in Chicago. King’s campaigns were instrumental to the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, 1965 and 1968. King then turned his attention to economic empowerment of the poor and opposition to the Vietnam War, contending that racism, poverty and militarism were interrelated.

King lived in constant danger: his home was dynamited, he was almost fatally stabbed, and he was harassed by death threats. He was even jailed 30 times; but through it all he was sustained by his deep faith. In 1957, he received, late at night, a vicious telephone threat. Alone in his kitchen he wept and prayed. He relates that he heard the Lord speaking to him and saying, “Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness, stand up for justice,” and promising never to leave him alone—“No, never alone.” King refers to his vision as his “Mountain-top Experience.”

After preaching at Washington Cathedral on March 31, 1968, King went to Memphis in support of sanitation workers in their struggle for better wages. There, he proclaimed that he had been “to the mountain-top” and had seen “the Promised Land,” and that he knew that one day he and his people would be “free at last.” On the following day, April 4, he was cut down by an assassin’s bullet.

Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Or previous condition of servitude

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on Feb. 3, 1870, guaranteeing voting rights to citizens regardless of race. 

The 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

(Women, of course, didn't get the right to vote until the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on Aug. 18, 1920.)

Although ratified on Feb. 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century. Southern states were able to prevent African Americans from voting through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests and other means.

It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which outlawed discriminatory voting practices before the majority of African Americans in the South were registered to vote.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Act into law on Aug. 6, 1965 with Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and other civil rights leaders in attendance.

King for a day

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Ga., where he was raised. (I was surprised to discover that King sang with his church choir at the 1939 Atlanta premiere of the movie Gone with the Wind.)

King is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using the nonviolent methods of Mahatma Gandhi. King has become a national icon in the history of modern American liberalism.

King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986 which is observed on the third Monday of January each year, which is around the time of King's birthday, Jan. 15.

The campaign for a federal holiday in King's honor began soon after his assassination in 1968. Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983, and it was first observed on Jan. 20, 1986. At first, some states (including Arizona) resisted observing the holiday as such, giving it alternative names or combining it with other holidays.

It was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time in 2000.

Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

I have a dream

Nobody can say it better today than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

His 17-minute "I Have a Dream" speech was delivered on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. It was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

"Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride."

Pride (In the Name of Love)
U2

Darth Vader safe and sound at National Cathedral

Skip the jokes.

The highest elevated point of Washington, D.C., the "Gloria in Excelsis" central tower of Washington National Cathedral, sustained significant damage in the 5.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Tuesday, Aug. 23.

However, Darth Vader is safe and sound, as far as I know.

According to the Cathedral's Twitter account, "We've checked, and Darth Vader appears to be okay." 

Yes, Darth Vader.

In the 1980s, while the west towers were under construction, Washington National Cathedral held a decorative sculpture competition for children. Word of the competition was spread nationwide through National Geographic World Magazine. The third-place winner was Christopher Rader, with his drawing of that fearful villain, Darth Vader. The fierce head was sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter, carved by Patrick J. Plunkett, and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral.

The Force is strong with this one. 

Mason Foreman Joe Alonso is currently assessing the damage to the Cathedral building with the help of other Cathedral stonemasons and structural engineers.

Three of four pinnacles (corner spires) on the central tower have been damaged. Specifically, three "finials" (capstones shaped like fleurs-de-lys) have fallen from them, with more significant damage to two of the pinnacles. Similar decorative elements on the Cathedral's exterior also appear to be damaged. Cracks have appeared in the flying buttresses around the apse at the Cathedral's east end, the first portion of the building to be constructed, but the buttresses supporting the central tower seem to be sound.

No individuals were injured either within the Cathedral or on its grounds. Despite some cracks on upper floors in the interior, no damage to the stained-glass windows has been reported. The building has been closed to visitors until further notice.

The Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation erected the cathedral (officially named the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul) under a charter passed by the U.S. Congress on Jan. 6, 1893.

Construction began on Sept. 29, 1907, when the foundation stone was laid in the presence of President Theodore Roosevelt and ended 83 years later when the last finial was placed in the presence of President George H. W. Bush in 1990. The foundation operates and funds the cathedral, which is not funded by the U.S. government.

It is the sixth largest cathedral in the world, the second largest in the United States, and the fourth tallest structure in Washington, D.C. 

Coincidentally, the National Park Service says the memorials and monuments, including the new Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial, were evacuated immediately after the quake.

I hope it wasn't something I said or did....

A stone of hope

I'm off to Washington, D.C., again today.

Why? Today is the "soft opening" of the Martin Luther King, Jr., national memorial.

Of course there's controversy about it, but I think it's brilliant.

The photo at left shows an early artist concept but the finished image seems to be similar, except for the quote on this side which now reads:

OUT OF THE MOUNTAIN OF DESPAIR,
A STONE OF HOPE

The quote is a line from his famous "I have a dream" speech which he delivered 48 years ago on Aug. 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C.

The other side is inscribed with these words:

I WAS A DRUM MAJOR FOR JUSTICE,
PEACE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS 

a statement by Dr. King himself when asked how he would like to be remembered.

The memorial is scheduled to officially open later this week on Aug. 28, 2011 with President Barack Obama.