My mom likes to watch The View when she is home from work. Last week Colin Powell was a special guest to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr's life. I do not follow the show, but am familiar with sound bites that periodically seep out into the general media chronicling their more heated discussions.
Elizabeth Hasselbeck in trouble. This time for making the statement, "Well black men were given the right to vote before women." She was quickly and respectfully corrected by Whoopi Goldberg, then the producers cut to commercial. Admittedly confused about the issue I looked into it, what was the deal? Constitutional amendments in order, Blacks then women. Civil Rights fight in the 1960's long after suffrage for women. So I am a white girl who learned American history in a Northern blue state... and I am still confused.
Government gives blacks right to vote following Civil War. Following Lincoln's assassination Andrew Johnson allowed the former Confederate States to create local laws to limit voting rights for Blacks. Congress confirmed the 14th amendment, but then had to dispatch the Union Army to the south to enforce it. Military districts saw to it that black men were registered, and nearly all black men were a part of political organizations. In 1867 more blacks than whites were registered to vote in the south, and former slaves are participating in local government.
The undoing of this progress? President Hayes in 1876 removed the troops, the Ku Klux Klan took over. A generation of hatred and violence. Suffrage for women happens in 1920, but not until the 1960's does the Civil Rights Era begin.
(My source: http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/myth_9.htm)
The weekend before my surgery my husband and I drove down to Memphis for the weekend. It was a perfectly timed get-a-way. We stayed at the Peabody, followed the ducks into the lobby, rested at the spa, rode the trolley downtown and danced late in the clubs on Beale Street.
Saturday afternoon we set out for the Civil Rights Museum. As we turned from the main road we were confused, because the address we expected to find it stood an old Motel. Aluminum siding in teal and white, an old neon sign that was no longer lit. As we approached we noticed antique cars from the 1960's parked outside, only at that point did we realize our surprise. The Civil Rights Museum was built inside the Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered.
The main entrance was a few feet away, and over the next two hours we wandered through the museum. The history of slave trade, civil war, WWI, industrialization/North migration, School De-segregation, Rosa Parks, Walk on Washington, Memphis Sanitary Worker's Strike.... eventually leading us back to MLK. The final exhibit could only be approached in a single file line. I followed a few young people ahead of me, and again paused in reverence as I stood inside the hotel room MLK slept the night before his death. Outside the window was the balcony. On the rusted railing was a wreath of flowers.
Thoughts?
