The thought of the Little Rock incident touched on another memory, one closer to home, in Charlotte, NC.  It’s one that my dad, Kays Gary, wrote about in 1957, the first time a black child attended a previously all-white school in Charlotte.  Here’s what Dad wrote about Dorothy Counts, offered here as food for thought on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:

Dorothy Counts

A head needs no face for expression.

The way it is carried upon the neck tells all.

If it is too high it shows defiance.

If it is too low and twists from side to side with a forward thrust of the neck it is full of shame.

Between these extremes is the posture of dignity and confidence, and a certain blend of humility and pride.

And that is the way she held her head.

They spat and she was covered with it.

Spittle dripped from the hem of her dress.

It clung to her neck and her arms and she wore it.

They spat and they jeered and screamed.

A boy tumbled out of the crowd and hit her in the back with his fist.

Debris fell on her shoulders and around her feet.

And the posture of the head was unchanged.

That was the remarkable thing.

And if her skin was brown you had to admit that her courage was royal purple.

For how many of us could have taken that walk to and from a school?

Originally published September 5, 1957, in The Charlotte Observer, and copied here with permission.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

Take out mention of the Harvard controversy, take out the graphic, and take out or re-write most of the last four paragraphs, and what’s left would be an excellent piece of reporting.

You can read it here.

Sampson’s experience, along with the racialized aspects of the presidential campaign, presents an opportunity for the kind of difficult and honest dialogue that people undertook, oh so cautiously, during the Civil Rights Movement, but which has largely fallen by the wayside in more recent years. May we do so again. And again, I’ll hope we keep in mind what Bobby Kennedy said the night that Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated:

To make gentle the life of this world, let us dedicate ourselves to that.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

At issue is the Prison Abuse Remedies Act of 2007 (PARA), which would correct problems imposed by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) that was passed in 1996. That earlier law made it tougher for prison inmates to file “frivolous” law suits. It also made it harder for children being abused in detention centers to get any relief or protection from their abusers.

Edelman presents some of the unjust burdens places on children by the PLRA:

One of the PLRA’s provisions prohibits prisoners from filing lawsuits for mental or emotional injury without demonstrating a “physical injury.” And prisoners must exhaust all administrative remedies before they can file a suit in federal court. The law also put restrictions on attorneys’ fees in prisoner cases. The effect of these provisions has been to reduce the number of prisoner abuse complaints that reach federal courts. The “success” of the PLRA, however, comes with problems as civil liberties and youth advocates charge that the act’s requirements pose insurmountable barriers to adults and youths filing legitimate claims in federal court.

There are good reasons why children and teens should be excluded from the requirements of the PLRA. First and foremost, children do not file frivolous lawsuits. Many incarcerated children and teens lack adequate legal representation to assist them if they allege abuse or violation of other rights. Children and teens are far less capable than adults of following the difficult and often convoluted administrative processes they must adhere to in order to comply with the PLRA. Most importantly, it is unacceptable for children and youths to be forced to report abuse to either their abusers or subordinates of their abusers.

The law’s requirement that they exhaust all administrative remedies could mean a youth detainee would have to take her complaint to the prison guard who rapes her in hopes that the head of the detention center, who winks at the guard’s behavior, does something about it. Many youths fear or actually risk retaliation if they file an administrative complaint. The fact that most children and teens cannot overcome these hurdles effectively insulates correctional facilities from accountability for deplorable detention and correctional facility conditions.

In other words, the PLRA had the effect of reducing transparency and accountability in corrections systems all over the country. That’s a cogent argument for why we need the PARA to correct the PLRA, but Edelman knew better than to just present the legislative argument. Indeed, she starts her piece with specific complaints of abuse against incarcerated children.

• Children forced to eat their own vomit.
• Children left hog-tied face down on the floor and left there for 12-13 hours.
• Children left naked for weeks in small isolation cells.

That’s starting to get at the stories that will make people move.

“To make gentle the life of this world—let us dedicate ourselves to that,” is what Bobby Kennedy said the night Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. We can’t make gentle the life of this world unless we’re willing to confront and correct its brutality. Marian Wright Edelman is doing her part. May we each do the same.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

Lanny Davis: Don’t Miss “American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver” – Politics on The Huffington Post
…he proved – and I mean proved beyond the shadow of a doubt – that a socially conscientious and caring federal government can be a friend of the average American, not the enemy that many conservatives believe and would have Americans believe.

Davis goes on to give some of the highlights of Shriver’s career and influence, as well as his own history with Shriver.

Davis’ era is my own–his latter years as a Yale undergraduate coincided with my early undergraduate career at Chapel Hill. His writing about the idealism and activism of that time sets up strong, solid reverberations that help fuel my present-day activism; activism that takes place in an era of rising idealism, for sure, but which is still reeling from unbridled greed, arrogance, and disregard for the suffering of others.

My personal bellwether from those years is the one with whom I had a closer, yet still tangential, connection–Shriver’s brother-in-law, Robert F. Kennedy. No, there was no personal acquaintance as Davis had with Shriver, or even a passing interaction. But there was–and is–a heartfelt letter of thanks that RFK wrote to my dad, the late Charlotte Observer columnist Kays Gary.

Someone had sent RFK some of the columns that Dad wrote during the period when he (Dad) headed up the fund raising drive in our part of NC for the JFK Memorial Library. Papa played heartstrings like angels play harps; his writing could, and often did, move the city to tears of a morning as it sat at the breakfast table, coffee going cold while reaching for the tissues. So Dad wrote about the people who were giving, and giving, and giving to the JFK Memorial Library fund drive. And the people who gave the most were, not surprisingly, the people who had the least.

As I said, someone sent some of those columns to RFK, and RFK then sent a very nice letter to Dad thanking him for writing about the people who were giving so much, the people who had meant so much to his late brother. And when it came time for him to sign the letter, he apparently didn’t think he had given enough thanks, as he penned an additional “thank you,” and signed it again.

For me, that letter is proof that those in government can be not only responsive, but personal in their caring. It’s not so much that RFK wrote the letter to Dad, but that he was so moved by the people Dad wrote about that he just had to thank someone. Indeed, he asked Dad to make sure those he wrote about knew of his gratitude.

So I will watch the PBS feature on Sargent Shriver tonight, on this 2008 observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, glancing from time to time at the spot on the wall that is occupied by the RFK letter, and remembering too what RFK said on the night of King’s assassination: “To make gentle the life of this world, let us dedicate ourselves to that.”

I will watch tonight to remember, to be reminded about how government can be made to be good, to be a responsive and beneficent partner in people’s lives, to increase and safeguard liberty rather than limiting the options of those who are below the top 5% income tier or who disagree with governmental powers-that-be.

Then tomorrow I’ll keep plugging away at whatever I can do to bring about greater transparency and accountability in all levels of government, not least because of how many people still feel powerless and don’t really believe that we can achieve substantive change. We can, and we must, and we will. And we can learn something about how to do it tonight from Sargent Shriver, and also get a little transfusion of energy for the work, to boot.

Peace

Deborah Alicen

(Cross-posted on Daily Kos.)