True Heroism

When I attended college in New York City, I avoided confessing my home state -- Alabama, a place infamous for bigots like police chief Eugene "Bull" Connor and the violence of the KKK. Bombingham, it was called, for good reason.

Last night, I watched Freedom Riders, a remarkable and painful film by Stanley Nelson featured on the PBS series The American Experience. Voices of my childhood echoed in my dreams, among them one young man I saw following a Joan Baez concert about which I have previously blogged.

He stood on a street corner, shirtless, glistening with sweat, and laughed. "They got so many niggers in the Birmingham jail, they gonna have to put us in the Alabama Theatre!" (I hear his pronunciation "thee - ay - ter" as I write the word.)

photo from The Historic Alabama Theatre in Birmingham website

I don't know what happened to him that afternoon, whether he marched with hundreds of others toward downtown or whether he went home for supper. But I do know that his joyful defiance was part of the remarkable energy that ran through determined and dedicated young people then, that ran through the college students who joined the Freedom Rides and withstood American hatred without protest.

They -- those brave enough to stand in the face of hate and to withstand beating and worse -- made me proud to be American then and still do today, living in a changed and changing south.

photo from The Kwanzaa Guide website

Freedom Riders should be required watching for every American.