This is James Meredith, circa 1966. James now owns a used car lot in Mississippi. Back when this photograph was taken, though, he was on a one-man March Against Fear from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi when a sniper gunned him down. He had been the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi. He graduated with a degree in political science and became a stockbroker. He is now seventy-five years old.
I think of the huevos it took to be a one-man March Against Fear through the deep South during the mid-Sixties. I'm in awe of those huevos. Likewise, I think of the gutlessness it takes to shoot an unarmed, outnumbered man who hasn't broken any laws or done anybody wrong. I wish this photograph was from a few hundred thousand years ago, before humans discovered empathy. But it wasn't. It was only forty-two years ago.
Sometimes I think this thought, "Jesus. This world is totally fucked." Usually I'm thinking of poverty, greed, various destructions, and the worst of popular culture. I think of people like Aubrey Norvell, the guy who shot James Meredith, and go, "Yes, it definitely is." But then, afterwards, I get around to thinking of the James Merediths, the real folk heroes who toe the line and aren't afraid or willing to back down in the midst of the worst kind of violence, and I go, "But, then again, maybe it's not." You never know what's going to happen next. The possibilities always outnumber the actualities.
1 comment:
hear hear Dr. Desiree...you've done it, you've said it, you've mapped it out with your eloquent pen, again. optimism, good heartedness and hope...now that's a recipe i can get behind. and all with a sauce of folk heroes, huevos and line toeing. brilliant. and i thank you.
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