A Post-Thanksgiving Expression of Gratitude
Dear Mac,Your book of memoirs and memories arrived in my Saturday's mail. It is everything I had hoped for and more.
It brings back to me names which I have long neglected whenever I recall my lifetime. I'm not talking just of the legendary Rev Martin Luther King Jr, Jackie Robinson, and Rosa Parks. They are too big to mention. I'm talking about those who also served like Bayard Rustin, who was a giant to me at the time of my college graduation. But there are also radical heroes like James Forman whom I remember as a gifted, perceptive, poignant spokesman and leader. Thank you, also for reminding your readers that Angela Davis and Harry Belafonte still walk among us. And thanks for reminding us that so many others are still with us in spirit.
Your Madison, Wisconsin memories were especially evocative of my localities of Colorado Springs and Claremont in the 60's. But your poetry, taken in all, gives you street cred for having been a consistent Progressive for a lifetime, wall-to-wall. Unlike myself, you never took a three-decade long sabbatical.
But more than this: I am thankful, grateful, proud, that I now own Rebellious Sixties. Through it, I now feel you, and feel your strength. Only through it, have I realized the "Strong", in daddyBstrong. I get it.
Daddy, I thank you for your witness and your life among us; your writing on line and in print is a gift to all of us. Forever.
~~Vigilante
I am too young to have been involved in 1960s politics, but I am a student of activism of the times. My personal favourite '60s activist is Abbie Hoffman. There's a great movie about him, Steal This Movie, by the way.
ReplyDeleteThe activists I respected most at the time were Richard Oakes and John Trudell.Them/their families made the ultimate sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteVigil I am glad you are enjoying Mac's book and I hope it sells well.I may get it myself.
I don't have much to offer here; I'm a child of the 70s and 80s; that is, I was goo-goo gaa-gaaing in the 70s and hot-diggity dogging the 80s. There wasn't much "rebelling" going on.
ReplyDeleteThere was, though, a lot of begging through school projects to Reagan and Gorbachev to "bring peace" and all that. I remember doing a project to the song 'I hope the Russians love their children too" by Sting. Blah, blah.
Love the header on your site.
Oso, ditto. TY to the Vigilante for 'turning me on' to MacDaddy's book on Sunday... It's on my wish list for 2010.
ReplyDeleteWe need a new crew... of charismatic and dedicated old fashioned activists with the stamina to 'see it through'! The kind that get through the door of the White House and make a difference. I'm not disclaiming the many still out there making differences.. I'm hoping for a 'rise up' of committed activism that calls US in stronger numbers and more clear voices than the friggin teabaggers... someone or group that gets us up off our asses, making the time, taking the initiative ... you probably know what I mean. I did for Obama. You know? I do it alone, probably like you. Numbers, count. Collectivism gets it happening. Like Olbermann's clinics' project. Organizational skilled are highly valued, aren't they?