The title of this blog is a quote from the opera singer, Marian Anderson. Ms. Anderson was scheduled to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington DC in 1939. The women who comprised the “Daughters of the American Revolution” refused to allow Marian Anderson to perform there. Because she was Black.
Eleanor Roosevelt, one of my heroes, stepped over all the ugliness and asked Ms. Anderson if she would consent to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. She agreed; Mrs. Roosevelt resigned from the D.A.R. that same day. Eleanor wrote a newspaper column called “My Day” which was syndicated in over 29 newspapers. Because I was teaching a course called “Writing for Peace and Sanity” last year, I told my students about this and we read Mrs. Roosevelt’s entry for that particular day. She barely commented, just wrote something about having to do a difficult thing.
I’m frustrated.
Race relations in our country are such super-sensitive issues; piles and piles of stories of horror, death, defeated dreams, heroism, miracles, and more horror piled on top of that fill books and our libraries are full of the books that tell these stories. A good-hearted person who cares deeply about relationships between Blacks and whites is defeated before he/she begins. How does this person make contact, do a “mitzvah”–“good deed” in Hebrew–do anything to lessen racial tension? I’ve presented programs on Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the Bloomsburg Library where two people attended. I presented the program anyway. But after three times I gave up. Schools and libraries are a good start but you have to reason things out before you begin and face facts about the community of which you’re a member.
It gets easier and easier to write a check out to the NAACP, drop it in a mail box, and pray.
I carry a lot of the weight of sadness about our country’s situation within me; my husband and son do also. Blogs are useful for many things, one of which is “writing therapy.” So I will present these stories with the hope that what I’m not really saying “Some of my best friends are Black.” If only that were true!!!
lgmwriting 