Saturday, November 28, 2020

 

Dealer's Choice


Then I could

     have said

          yes ma'am

Attitude was all

     I had to

          change

Today's sign

     hope wanted

          apply within

Heroically

     embrace

          hopelessness

Search

     backward from

          the dark

Wear a

     mask to show

          our strength

Dream and fall in

     love as long

          as it takes

Reset the

     holy in

          turbulent times




Saturday, November 7, 2020

 

Move


They said it

     would be hard to

          leave

Warm strength

     of principled

          notions

Stuff and

     the chance to

          assemble hope

With those

      who think

          and feel alike

Well tried

     useful

          pragmatics

Well ordered

     efforts to

          succeed

Still

     hemmed in

          soul stifled

Pretending no hurt

     beyond

          frescoed walls

Spirit worn down

     by cultivated

          uncaring

Fatigue complicit

     eroding essence

          of compassion

Lest imperative

     dissolve to

          suffocation

Better rootless than

     wingless vision

          hoarded

Go now

     shift the

          paradigm

A

     risk dial

          to hope

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The Day Auburn Was Integrated

Auburn was just never going to be kind or even fair to Harold Franklin, Jr. in 1964. The faculty had been warned by Governor George Wallace and by the President of the University to make it as difficult as possible for Auburn's first ever African American student to succeed. His professors were complicit. When Harold and I reminisced thirty years later about his historic entrance into the University, he talked little of his pain and anger or of the blatant discrimination that finally forced him out without a degree. But I knew. And I knew it was all the more painful because the injustice of it all had yet to be addressed.

Then in 2001 the University gave him an honorary doctorate. Fourteen years later a historical marker commemorated the integration of 1964. But still there was no attempt to address the racism Franklin endured. He had to wonder if anyone really wanted to hear his story.

This year, over a half century later, Harold Franklin, Jr, now 86 years old, was invited back to defend his Masters thesis, which he still had. He claimed the time to tell his story. The usual committee of four faculty members was joined by the entire faculty, including the dean of the graduate school who listened, thanked him, and awarded him his Masters Degree in History.

 I didn't see any mention of an official apology in the news release.