Easter Sunday for Parkland

On his Sunday morning show this week George Stephanopoulos had Andrew Young as a guest. Both men reminded me that it was 50 years ago  that Dr. King was assassinated.  I was sitting in a car on the edge of Harlem at the time - with an older worker from the Northern Student Movement, which helped tenants run rent strikes against negligent landlords.

Seems like I have been marching or standing in silence holding up a sign or signing a petition or crossing into a bombing range or getting arrested for 50 years.

Well - That is just about the truth of it.

It was an easy segue from the Civil Rights marches to the Anti War marches - just a change of buttons, really. Same folk singers, same vigils, same marchers. Got so that the weekend buses from NYC to DC clogged the Jersey turnpike the way Shore traffic does in summer. Everyone knew all the songs down to the 6th verse.

I remember how very, very tired we were. My husband in grad school, me in night school and working - both getting on the bus about every other week-end - thinking it would somehow help End the War which was being broadcast in horrible black and white into our living room every night over supper. We did not know if would. But we had friends over there and we thought the war was wrong.

We had to Do Something.

Til the day when my eldest brother - 15 years older, settled in a brownstone, 4 kids, told me that he and his wife were taking the bus to DC that weekend.

I called out to my husband- "Honey, We don't have to go to DC anymore,  the flame has taken hold. David is going."


And now -

I get to really retire

Because the Flame has Taken Hold

And those kids from #Parkland

Are going to Do Something

Many Thanks to All of You
Who have Kept the Flame Going