Friday, October 4, 2013
Day Three of the Government Shutdown!
What can I say? Americans are held hostage by fellow Americans. Rather than move forward towards progress, a few elected ultracons, backed by extremely rich folks, would rather keep everyone in the past. It is amazing that if one lies enough, others will believe it as the truth. Faux News is not telling the truth so they always resort to blame the liberal media. I thought liberal meant being free, understanding and humanistic. I guess aliens of some sort invaded that network. It is a shame that they believe their own deceitful and divisive language. It goes to show that everyone has a price. Americans are still losing their jobs. The shutdown takes away even more from the economy. No more visits to the Whitehouse and parks can not be worse than people being fed, losing their income and receiving healthcare.
RIP, Ms. Elease Price!
Mrs. Elease Harrison Price, 84, of
Monday, September 16, 2013
Dr. King's Eulogy for the Young Bombing Victims 9/18/1963!
Eulogy For The Young
Victims
Of The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing
by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
September 18, 1963, Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama
[Delivered at funeral service for three of the children -
Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Diane Wesley - killed in the bombing.
A separate service was held for the fourth victim, Carole Robertson.]
Of The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing
by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
September 18, 1963, Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama
[Delivered at funeral service for three of the children -
Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Diane Wesley - killed in the bombing.
A separate service was held for the fourth victim, Carole Robertson.]
This afternoon we gather in the quiet of this sanctuary to
pay our last tribute of respect to these beautiful children of God. They
entered the stage of history just a few years ago, and in the brief years that
they were privileged to act on this mortal stage, they played their parts
exceedingly well. Now the curtain falls; they move through the exit; the drama
of their earthly life comes to a close. They are now committed back to that
eternity from which they came.
These children-unoffending, innocent, and beautiful-were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.
And yet they died nobly. They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity. And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician [Audience:] (Yeah) who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats (Yeah) and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. (Speak) They have something to say to every Negro (Yeah) who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.
And so my friends, they did not die in vain. (Yeah) God still has a way of wringing good out of evil. (Oh yes) And history has proven over and over again that unmerited suffering is redemptive. The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as a redemptive force (Yeah) that will bring new light to this dark city. (Yeah) The holy Scripture says, "A little child shall lead them." (Oh yeah) The death of these little children may lead our whole Southland (Yeah) from the low road of man's inhumanity to man to the high road of peace and brotherhood. (Yeah, Yes) These tragic deaths may lead our nation to substitute an aristocracy of character for an aristocracy of color. The spilled blood of these innocent girls may cause the whole citizenry ofBirmingham
And so I stand here to say this afternoon to all assembled here, that in spite of the darkness of this hour (Yeah Well), we must not despair. (Yeah, Well) We must not become bitter (Yeah, That's right), nor must we harbor the desire to retaliate with violence. No, we must not lose faith in our white brothers. (Yeah, Yes) Somehow we must believe that the most misguided among them can learn to respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality.
May I now say a word to you, the members of the bereaved families? It is almost impossible to say anything that can console you at this difficult hour and remove the deep clouds of disappointment which are floating in your mental skies. But I hope you can find a little consolation from the universality of this experience. Death comes to every individual. There is an amazing democracy about death. It is not aristocracy for some of the people, but a democracy for all of the people. Kings die and beggars die; rich men and poor men die; old people die and young people die. Death comes to the innocent and it comes to the guilty. Death is the irreducible common denominator of all men.
I hope you can find some consolation from Christianity's affirmation that death is not the end. Death is not a period that ends the great sentence of life, but a comma that punctuates it to more lofty significance. Death is not a blind alley that leads the human race into a state of nothingness, but an open door which leads man into life eternal. Let this daring faith, this great invincible surmise, be your sustaining power during these trying days.
Now I say to you in conclusion, life is hard, at times as hard as crucible steel. It has its bleak and difficult moments. Like the ever-flowing waters of the river, life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood. (Yeah, Yes) Like the ever-changing cycle of the seasons, life has the soothing warmth of its summers and the piercing chill of its winters. (Yeah) And if one will hold on, he will discover that God walks with him (Yeah, Well), and that God is able (Yeah, Yes) to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, and transform dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace.
And so today, you do not walk alone. You gave to this world wonderful children. [moans] They didn't live long lives, but they lived meaningful lives. (Well) Their lives were distressingly small in quantity, but glowingly large in quality. (Yeah) And no greater tribute can be paid to you as parents, and no greater epitaph can come to them as children, than where they died and what they were doing when they died. (Yeah) They did not die
in the dives and dens ofBirmingham church of God
These children-unoffending, innocent, and beautiful-were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.
And yet they died nobly. They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity. And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician [Audience:] (Yeah) who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats (Yeah) and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. (Speak) They have something to say to every Negro (Yeah) who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.
And so my friends, they did not die in vain. (Yeah) God still has a way of wringing good out of evil. (Oh yes) And history has proven over and over again that unmerited suffering is redemptive. The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as a redemptive force (Yeah) that will bring new light to this dark city. (Yeah) The holy Scripture says, "A little child shall lead them." (Oh yeah) The death of these little children may lead our whole Southland (Yeah) from the low road of man's inhumanity to man to the high road of peace and brotherhood. (Yeah, Yes) These tragic deaths may lead our nation to substitute an aristocracy of character for an aristocracy of color. The spilled blood of these innocent girls may cause the whole citizenry of
And so I stand here to say this afternoon to all assembled here, that in spite of the darkness of this hour (Yeah Well), we must not despair. (Yeah, Well) We must not become bitter (Yeah, That's right), nor must we harbor the desire to retaliate with violence. No, we must not lose faith in our white brothers. (Yeah, Yes) Somehow we must believe that the most misguided among them can learn to respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality.
May I now say a word to you, the members of the bereaved families? It is almost impossible to say anything that can console you at this difficult hour and remove the deep clouds of disappointment which are floating in your mental skies. But I hope you can find a little consolation from the universality of this experience. Death comes to every individual. There is an amazing democracy about death. It is not aristocracy for some of the people, but a democracy for all of the people. Kings die and beggars die; rich men and poor men die; old people die and young people die. Death comes to the innocent and it comes to the guilty. Death is the irreducible common denominator of all men.
I hope you can find some consolation from Christianity's affirmation that death is not the end. Death is not a period that ends the great sentence of life, but a comma that punctuates it to more lofty significance. Death is not a blind alley that leads the human race into a state of nothingness, but an open door which leads man into life eternal. Let this daring faith, this great invincible surmise, be your sustaining power during these trying days.
Now I say to you in conclusion, life is hard, at times as hard as crucible steel. It has its bleak and difficult moments. Like the ever-flowing waters of the river, life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood. (Yeah, Yes) Like the ever-changing cycle of the seasons, life has the soothing warmth of its summers and the piercing chill of its winters. (Yeah) And if one will hold on, he will discover that God walks with him (Yeah, Well), and that God is able (Yeah, Yes) to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, and transform dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace.
And so today, you do not walk alone. You gave to this world wonderful children. [moans] They didn't live long lives, but they lived meaningful lives. (Well) Their lives were distressingly small in quantity, but glowingly large in quality. (Yeah) And no greater tribute can be paid to you as parents, and no greater epitaph can come to them as children, than where they died and what they were doing when they died. (Yeah) They did not die
in the dives and dens of
50 Year Anniversary of the Church Bombing!
 |
| Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images |
 |
| Robert Chambliss - Burton Mcneely/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images |
 |
| The Four Innocents- AP Photo/The Birmingham News |
On Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963, in Birmingham Ala. 16th
Street Baptist
Church. Of the nearly 200 congregants inside, attending Sunday school classes
and preparing for the 11 a.m. service, about 22 were injured. But perhaps most
notably, four
little innocent girls --
three 14-year-olds and one 11-year-old -- were killed, putting the bombing
among the most well-known and most heartbreaking tragedies in the fight for
civil rights in America 's Deep
South . At what cost is hatred and bigotry?
Even now the question remains are black lives less valuable than others?
And from whose perspective? 50 years have passed and we still don't know
the answers.
In 1963, Addie Mae Collins,
Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley died in a war they didn't
fully understand, and died unnecessarily due to hatred. Three of the four
suspects responsible for the bombing were convicted. Two died in
prison, Robert
Chambliss, BobbyFrank
Cherry and ThomasE. Blanton, Jr. is still in prison. In 1977, Robert “Dynamite Bob”
Chambliss was convicted of murder or the bombing and sentenced to life terms of
imprisonment. He died in 1985.
Not more than seven hours after the bombing, two
more people died, a sixteen year old and a thirteen year old. They were
shot by the police. Young lives who have just begun to live. William Faulkner had it right: in the south, he once
wrote, "the past is never dead. It isn't even past."
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
RIP, Mr. William Davis!
William Davis, Jr., 88, 1401 S. McDuffie St.
The funeral service will be held 11 a.m. Saturday, August 17, 2013, at St. Mary's Catholic Church.
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