Racism In Memphis

Andrew Young: A Long Way to Go for the 'Dream'

&Ldquo;He is doing Martin Luther King proud, but just as I was mayor and I thought I was doing Martin Luther King proud, I was picketed by the very same people that I’d marched with because the demands are so great on our nation that no leader in this time can be adequate,” said Young, who served eight years as mayor of Atlanta. Young said King would be proud to memorialized on the National Mall alongside other national heroes such as Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. But he said the thing that made him stand apart from the presidents is that he reached his goals without ever resorting to violence, whereas the three commanders-in-chief had all been involved in wars. “While we are doing something toward racism – and legal racism has been cured – war and poverty still linger with us, poverty even getting worse. So he would want us to see his statue as not a memorial to his death and life but a vision of the future and a perpetual charge to help America live out the true meaning of her creeds.” “His dream really started out with the fact that America had presented the negro with a bad check and he said it came back marked ‘insufficient funds.’” Young pointed out. “Then he said, ‘I refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt’ and then he launched into ‘I still have a dream.’ “What we forget is that African Americans made the largest contribution to America, economically, before the Civil War of any sector of society. I read that the railroads were worth about $2 billion but slavery was a $3½ billion asset. So that asset has been essential to the founding of America and we have not been included in the economic growth and development of America in an equal way. “We know you are enslaved when you are in a democracy without the right to vote but when you are in a free enterprise system, in capitalism, without equal access to capital, we still have problems.

Faith in Memphis | Blog | Exhibit examines choice to confront racism ...

The instructor told the aspiring tour guides the story of Jesús Colón, a black Puerto Rican writer who found himself facing a moral dilemma one night on a New York City subway in the 1950s.

A young white woman with a large suitcase, a baby and two other children got off at the same stop. The station was empty, except for the five of them. It was after midnight.

What did Jesús do? Did he offer to help the woman carry her suitcase up the steep concrete stairs to the street?

The 20 guides-in-training were asked to respond by lining up: Those who were certain he did help on the right, those who were sure he didn’t on the left, and those who weren’t sure in the middle.

Barbara Williams and Elaine Lurie were the only two standing on the left.

“No way,” said Lurie, who grew up in New York City in the 1950s. “If you were a black man in the 1950s, you did not offer to help any white woman under any circumstances.”

Hooks Central Library.

The free exhibit, created by Facing History and Ourselves, uses stories like Colón’s to examine the real and often historic choices people have made in the face of racism and injustice.

Williams, a Facing History board member, and Lurie, a retired city school teacher, are two of about 70 local residents who have volunteered to be tour guides for the exhibit.

“I’m just a ham,” said Williams, who spent Thursday morning touring the exhibit for the first time with her fellow volunteers. “But I also wanted to learn more about these stories. History isn’t just something you read about; it’s something you participate in.”

The guides will be leading most of their tours for local students in grades 6-12. The idea is to encourage students to consider the choices others have made, and to think about the consequences of their own choices.

The exhibit also includes the stories of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine students who desegregated Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957; Arn Chorn-Pond, forced to become a child soldier in the killing fields of Cambodia in the 1970s; and the people of Billings, Mont., who stood up against an attempt to turn the state into a “white homeland” in the 1990s.

Racism Strengthened Birch's Resolve to Excel in Law - Memphis Daily News

RT @: Oh yeah... racism is STILL heavy in the south. You'll see a nice collection of rebel flags driving thru Memphis.

Oh yeah... racism is STILL heavy in the south. You'll see a nice collection of rebel flags driving thru Memphis.

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