Memorial Day
Clem watching the parade
Memorial Day in the US is called the unofficial start of summer. Today was perfect for that title – over 80 degrees, sunny, not too humid.
Clem was eager to watch the Memorial Day parade in Westport. He nearly leapt out of bed when I woke him at 9:10 to say it was time to get ready. I wasn’t as keen because I was worried about parking. Could we get near enough so the walk would be easy for him?
But we found a parking place close to the action quickly. By 9:40 or so we were in position on the Post Road, and the parade was already well underway. We missed at least 1/3, if not 1/2, so we didn’t see the police and firefighters. But we saw the huge Bedford Middle School band and two drum and fife corps from other towns.
We remembered that we took Kenechi and Nkiru when they were little. I wonder if they remember.
A few years ago we went with Ikem and his parents. I was marching with TEAM Westport which had hooked up with the Unitarian Church Anti-Racism group. Beth and Kelvin joined us with Ikem in his stroller.
Did you watch a parade? March in one?
DMGS Old Boys
DMGS Old Boys in Lagos
I’m sure I’ve told you that Clem is a proud alum, or “Old Boy,” of Dennis Memorial Grammar School in Onitsha. Yesterday he received an email with a photo of the Lagos Branch gathering.
He doesn’t often write to the group. But he decided his fellow alums should know that he was Chairman of Lagos Branch DMGS Old Boys when the organization needed to be resuscitated in 1970-71 after the Nigerian Civil War.
He’s justly proud of bringing the group back to life!
Reparations Conversation Deepens
Several Democratic candidates and others are writing and speaking more openly about reparations. Are reparations justified? Can they in any way make up for the injustices suffered by former slaves whose free labor – for 200 years – enriched the white population? What is reasonable, what is fair, and who would pay?
In 1989 there was an attempt at a bill to consider reparations. There have been other tries, but it’s been too politically hot to pass.
Maybe the time is coming. The House Judicial Committee has been introduced a bill calling for a study on the issue.
The New York Times story explains the role of Andrew Johnson who became president after Lincoln’s assassination. Within months he rescinded Lincoln’s measure to provide every freed slave with land and the means to farm, known as “Forty acres and a mule.” Land the former slaves had been given was returned to the former owners.
Not only were they denied the ability to earn a livelihood. They and their children were treated as second class citizens or worse for decades. “Legalized discrimination and state-sanctioned brutality, murder, dispossession and disenfranchisement continued long after the war ended. That history profoundly handicapped black Americans’ ability to create and accumulate wealth as well as to gain access to jobs, housing, education and health care,” says Patricia Cohen who wrote the article.
Racial Wealth Gap in US from Center for American Progress
She writes, “For every dollar a typical white household holds, a black one has 10 cents. It is this cumulative effect that justifies the payment of reparations to descendants of slaves long dead, supporters say.”
The questions and hurdles are many. But there are also a variety of proposals for how this could be done. How to find the money is perhaps the major issue. Would the country assume more debt to make the payouts?
Cohen’s final paragraph says, “Those less worried about a growing deficit could argue that reparations would be a boon over the long run — lifting people out of poverty, and improving their earning potential and buying power.”
The call for some form of reparations to make up for the years of injustice seems morally right to me.
Would I be willing to pay higher taxes to provide the funds? Yes, if wealthier people and corporations share the tax burden fairly. Would you?
Last Ship to Carry Slaves to US
In 1808 bringing slaves into the US was banned. Yet the last ship arrived in 1860!
After the US Civil War the freed slaves from that ship created a small community in Alabama.
The fascinating story of that ship and the community, called Africatown, was in yesterday’s New York Times. The ship, called the Clotilda, “had carried the 110 kidnapped Africans to Alabama from what is now the nation of Benin.” Residents refer to the Clotilda as a “ship of horrors.”
The ship’s owner made the journey on a bet! After depositing its cargo, the captain burned and sank the vessel to hide the evidence. The ship has just recently been found. The community is hoping it will be raised and brought to their town.
While the community was thriving a few decades ago, the loss of industry and mills in the area has devstated it. Local businesses have closed and many people have moved away. Residents now wonder if restoring the ship and housing it in the town’s community center would attract tourists.
“These days, the neighborhood is a jumble of pride and hardship and hope, of celebrating the past and wrestling with it,” the writer Richard Fausset says.
I wish them success in getting the ship raised and restored. Let me know if you hear more about this story.
