For Those of Us Old Enough to Still Remember

Jane Vandenburgh — Tue, 26 May 2009 21:24:28 +0000

when schools, buses, hospitals, neighborhoods, swimming pools, drinking fountains were segregated, when the sight of a black man and a white woman walking down the street together holding hands was so shocking it turned heads, when workplaces were carefully sorted out as to who went where, when my grandfather had to ask one of his tellers while they were traveling to wait in the car because the restaurant where my grandfather and the other two tellers, who were white, didn’t serve black people and THIS WAS IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA! today’s another shock to the system. That PAST IS PROLOGUE, that if we do not remember the past we WILL be forced to re-live it.

But the real shock came the morning after the election when what seemed impossible — that the majority of the voters of the enlightened state of California– would go to the polls and vote to take a legal right away from their friends, neighbors, colleagues.

We were horrified because we were completely unprepared for this outcome. NO ON 8 was very poorly run, everyone putting so much time and energy and money into getting Barack Obama elected that we IGNORED the Mormons of Idaho who were sitting in Ward houses dialing and donating their time and money, figuring they, well hell, while being RUN OVER at the polls as Republicans dropped like flies could at least win this one little battle.

Mormons Go Home. Ken Starr too.

We must be better organized this time. This time, we SHALL overcome.

Jane Vandenburgh » civil rights movement

For Those of Us Old Enough to Still Remember