The young black men sit on stools while people pour ketchup, milk, and sugar on their heads deriding them for their color. It is1961 and they are being trained by fellow African Americans to be“strong enough to be non-violent” when they will forcibly integrate a Woolworth’s soda fountain counter. Hundreds died in the effort to register voters in the South. The right to have our vote count has never been more important.
Then John was shot. We were losing our cultural definition of apartheid. The real and pretend worlds we lived in were collapsing.Kitty Genovese changed our lives forever. Maybe you remember her. In 1964 she was killed at three in the morning, screaming for help,in her apartment entrance while thirty eight people looked out of their windows and did nothing. We began to have to face ourselves. Meanwhile, people of courage were beginning to be the mainstage event instead of living in the shadows of worlds we refused to acknowledge.
It’s 1966. The Cultural Revolution in China has started. Nien Chang, the wife of a former Shell Oil executive, has been taken prisoner by association. It will be 61/2 torturous years before she is released. She will be told her daughter committed suicide, only to find out she was beaten to death when she would not say her mother
was a spy. At her lowest moments, she would find the creativity to craft a needle out of a splinter and
embroider with threads taken from her hem. They could not imprison her spirit.
It’s the seventies and Karen Silkwood dies in a car crash. She has been gathering information to take
to the Union about plant safety regarding plutonium exposure. Because of her activity, death and the resulting autopsy, new standards were set for plant safety. We begin to face the reality of chemistry and the world.
Mainstream concern starts to form. Can recycling trucks and water purifiers be far behind?
The eighties arrive and with them a host of childhood victims of sexual abuse. The definitive book was called The Courage to Heal. It’s still the unmentionable. It’s still a plague. But the therapists don’t call women hysterical anymore. Apparently Mr. Freud, they weren’t just making it up. Next stop, domestic violence.
The nineties bring a new awareness of clergy and political leaders initiating horrendous offenses of sexual misconduct. Wasn’t that just a right that came with the territory? Didn’t she make ya do it? The survivors learn that, as one woman who blew the whistle on a particular senator said, ‘First they’ll say you’re crazy and then you’ll think you are.’
Most of the world gets up in the morning needing a double dose ofcourage. Atticus says to Scout and Jem, in To Kill a Mockingbird , “ I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” Some people are fighting to live beyond the limitations of their bodies. Others are defying the odds set against them by oppressive regimes. Corporate executives struggle to live with integrity. People with mental illness claw their way to reality. Moms and Dads live in the eddies of intimacy and responsibilities that no one ever told them they would have. Educators cover the gap for others who have dropped the ball. Blue collar workers do the jobs no one wants to do for a pay that doesn’t equal their efforts.
I’m involved you say, and we are. Go a step further. Tell the story of your own courage to someone who needs to hear it. Go ahead. Break the facade. We’re all wounded ducks learning to swim with one wing. It’s the best part of you that can be offered. Share when you were strong in spite of yourself and the odds. We do a lot of good for others and well we should. But that story of yours.......wow.........that’s Gold. The dream is kept alive when people connect about their moments of courage. Story by story the human spirit is kept alive.
You don’t have a story, you say? Go stand beside someone who’s oppressed, or speak a truth no one wants to hear, or face something you’ve never faced before. Somebody gave their life for you to have the dimension to your life that makes the world a better place. We’re told a lie when we’re told to keep our tragedies to ourselves. It’s a lie because the world needs to hear as many stories of courage as can be offered. If we don’t, we conscript courage to those who would go on Jerry Springer or Dr. Phil.
Courage is not a commercial venture.
Dignify courage and honor the gift those who died have given you by sharing your courageous moment with
someone. Soon.
Love,
Deborah
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