A few weather things, from yesterday.
As always, it is dangerous when you amuse yourself. (Usually that means you aren’t being funny to anyone else just at that moment.)
Just two Selma things today, because while the activities are getting underway over there, we know there will be plenty more tomorrow.
So I had to narrow down about four interesting Selma stories I found today to share just this one. It is a fine read. ‘No matter what it takes’: Selma remembers:
They paid for black Americans’ right to vote with their blood and bruises. Now they remember.
As President Barack Obama said on the eve of his visit to Selma, Alabama: the battle for civil rights is not ancient history.
“The people who were there are still around, you can talk to them,” America’s first black president said Friday.
He meant people like 70-year-old retired firefighter Henry Allen, who five decades ago took part in history.
“It was was the final stage. We had been beaten. We had been pushed to the limits,” Allen told AFP.
“No matter what it took, we wanted to get the right to vote.”
I mentioned this in class today and, later, I was thinking about what I said and the reaction it got and I realized that, next time, I’m going to make a big hinge point in the conversation about that day’s historical topic. The 50th anniversary marches are this weekend. This isn’t even ancient history by collegiate standards, as the above story points out.
This is our story, I said. American society, the South, Alabama, Selma, people we know. Please, I said, take a few minutes this weekend to read or watch some of the goings on at Selma.
I got back blank stares. Maybe it was because it was Friday afternoon. Maybe they somehow don’t know what this is about. (I’m not teaching history here, but perhaps I should?) Maybe they don’t care. Perhaps they knew all about it and had heard all about it from other classes and they’d already decided they were going to spend every waking weekend moment absorbing stuff from Selma. The reasons could any of those or anywhere in between, of course. I’m just curious about. I’d understand that reaction if I somehow brought up that Magna Carta found in Sandwich recently.
Magnum Carter? When’s his new track drop?
(I don’t think it is that bad, for what it is worth.)
But Selma, for a lot of us, the people there were grandparents or people down the street or who have been in our stores or churches or or schools or lives in some way or another for all the time since. Seems like half my professors covered the Civil Rights movement. It came up a lot. I hope we didn’t stare back blankly. Anyway, this is another big moment, perhaps one of the last contemporary ones as the original participants age. Festivities will continue there, of course, but they’ll eventually become memorials, history, not living reminiscences.
A decade ago the Crimson had the opportunity to localize the story:
Professor Davis is no longer on campus, or we could do that story again. I haven’t heard of anyone else still here that was there. But I’d like to. The author of that story, by the way, now works for International Rescue Committee, a refugee relief organization operating in 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities.
Things to read … which span cities near and far.
These are all journalism/storytelling bits today and they will be bullets, because the weekend is upon us. On we go:
The next stage in the battle for our attention: Our wrists
How a 40-year-old radio DJ from Florida became a Snapchat star
Who should see what when? Three principles for personalized news
9 ways the most innovative media organizations are growing
19 free social media analytics tools
An open letter to the community
That last one needs some setup, but it is from a high school publication, so that’s OK. It is worth reading, though, because the editors, two high school seniors, goes point-by-point through the various concerns that emerged after they wrote about teen sex. The letter is thoughtful, detailed, clear and leaves little room for debate about why they did or their stories’ value to their community. (The one that comes to mind is the age range. Their school is a 9th-12th grade institution. Not all topics are the same across that spread, I’d suppose.) Anyway, it is a wonderful argument, a fine letter. The kids are alright.
