Post the Martin Luther King America: A memory refresh to "I Have A Dream"

Let's write about racism: "Let us not wallow in the valley of despair", Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963 in Washington DC.

March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

While Americans are sadly faced with the reality of racism in our midst, it's time ot refresh our brains and read, over and over again, "I Have A Dream", by Martin Luther King

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Singer Mahalia Jackson was standing behing Martin Luther King: "At one point during his speech, she called out to him, 'Tell ‘em about the dream, Martin, tell ‘em about the dream!', referring to a familiar theme he had referenced in earlier speeches."

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. **We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only."** We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."*

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:


My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.


Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

*Isaiah 40:4-5 (King James Version of the Holy Bible). 

Challenges to religious and spiritual awareness during times of uncertainty

Beautifully written homily: Challenges to worship during the coronavirus pandemic.  

Let's write! A tribute to the  Sacraments, our faith and spirtuality. Thank you to Father Brian Ching, CSC, Director, Old College Undergraduate Seminary; Rector, of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame University, in Indiana, for sending me his homily's transcript.  I am honored to share this thoughtful homily, delivered on the Feast of Corpus Christi.

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Basilica of the Sacred Heart- University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Rev. Brian Ching, CSC (Congregation of Holy Cross)
June 14, 2020

How Holy is this feast,

in which Christ is our food,

his passion is recalled,

grace fills our hearts,

and we receive the pledge of the glory to come.

This beautiful text found as the antiphon for the Canticle of Mary for the celebration of vespers on this feast, beautifully captures, in few words, the grace and love present every time we gather around the altar for Mass. Yet, at the same time, this year, there is a tinge of sadness in our celebration of this feast, since so many are separated from the Eucharist during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Although a few of us are able to gather here in the Notre Dame Basilica, I know that so many more are participating at home through CatholicTV and while many of you have written to express your gratitude for being able to join us for Mass, I know it is not the same and it should not be the same. The Mass is not designed for virtual worship, it is designed to gather a community of believers together in one place, to make present the body of Christ and I pray each day that the work of doctors and scientists may advance so that we might
soon return to our usual reality.

But my friends, even though is sad and difficult for us, who are used to being able to have such regular access to the sacraments, to be separated from them, we would be doing ourselves a disservice to believe that our inability to go to Mass as we would like, somehow limits God’s ability to be present to us and for us, and among us. 

Though we may not be able to receive Christ as our food, we are still able to recall His passion and he is still able to fill our hearts
with grace and grant us the pledge of the glory that is to come. 

Yes, though our hearts are filled with grace and joy in receiving the Eucharist, God’s grace and mercy is not bound by our ability to receive. For those of us who are used to going to Mass with relative ease, this pain at not being able to reminds us of the many Christians throughout the world for whom making Sunday Mass is not as easy. For many of our brothers and sisters in predominantly Muslim countries, Sunday is a workday and getting to Sunday Mass means getting there before or after a full days work.

Challenged to attend Mass....

Our parish in Monterey, Mexico, goes on a mission trip every Holy Week into remote villages in the Mexican jungle, and when they arrive it is the first time in months that those villagers have seen a priest and are able to have their confessions heard and receive the Euchrarist. The recent synod on the Amazon highlighted the plight of countless Amazonian Catholics who long for the Euchrarist, but are unable to do so due to the lack of priests. 

Challenged to celebrate Mass....

On July 5, 2013, jubilant Vietnamese Catholics celebrated the closing of the diocesan phase of Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan’s beatification process. Although he is not yet canonized, the Vietnamese faithful already consider him a saint and view him as an icon of the Vietnamese Church.

Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan was Coadjutor Archbishop of Saigon for just 4 months before he was arrested by the North Vietnamese government and sent to a re-education camp for 13 years, 9 of which were spent in solitary confinement. He was reliant on people sending him small medicine bottles filled with wine and scraps of bread in the mail and sympathetic guards to smuggle them to him for even a chance at saying Mass on a cardboard box.

Yes, our relationship with the Eucharistic may look different these days, and our celebration of the Mass might have lost some of the luster we are used to, but God’s promise of eternal glory is still made to us and still motivates us into discipleship, into action, into being faithful witnesses of the Gospel. This is good news friends, it is good news because in these weeks God is calling us to renew our commitment to Him, to renew our witness to the Gospel, to
renew our pledge of discipleship. Perhaps even more tragic than our distance from the Sacraments, in these past few weeks we have come face to face again with the reality that the Body of Christ is broken. That the unity that this very sacrament draws us into is not being lived to its full potential.

Our political and ecclesial climate these days have been rife with
division, discord, and disunity. 

Our headway towards peace and justice, towards equity and dignity seems to have stalled in the mire of political grandstanding and self-interest. 

Simply put, it seems like our preference is to beat the other guy rather than work to achieve a common purpose and
common goal. 

The goal is simple, the goal is unity, the goal is to live together
as brothers and sisters in Christ, the goal is to live in a world where each person can live with the dignity of one made in the image and likeness of God.

Unfortunately the steps toward this goal are slightly more complex.
Systems of inequality, injustice, and prejudice built over centuries are not easily dismantled and it can be easy for us to stand before this behemoth of a task and pass the buck, to convince ourselves that we are so small and the task so large that it must be someone else’s problem, that it’s someone else’s fix.

But friends, here again, the Eucharist offers us a lesson, here where the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords come to us in food that is not refined or elegant, in food that is not complex or sophisticated, but in food that is plain and simple, in ordinary bread and ordinary wine. God chooses to come to us in these ordinary elements so that He might convey his extraordinary grace.

Similarly friends, God uses ordinary you and ordinary me to do the same. God uses us, his ordinary people, to convey his extraordinary grace. And so it starts with us, it starts with us taking a hard look at ourselves and examining our own assumptions, presumptions, and judgements.

It starts with us being willing to honestly ask ourselves if there are
times when we jump to conclusions or make assumptions because of the way someone talks, or someone speaks, because of the way someone dresses or acts, and yes to ask ourselves if we jump to conclusions or make assumptions because of the color of someone’s skin, or their sex, or their religious belief, or even the badge they wear. To ask ourselves why we might be more cautious
when one sort of person walks into a store and not another, why we might be more on edge when we see one type of person on an airplane and not another.

And once we have asked ourselves those questions, we come to the harder ones, are there times when we have been witness to injustice, inequality, and prejudice and turned the other way. When we have thought “that’s just the way it is” or “that’s someone else’s problem.” When our silence has allowed those evils to perpetuate themselves, over and over again. Yes it’s true that systemic problems require systemic solutions, but we won’t make any progress until we recognize that we are all, each on our own way, part of the
system, because we are all connected together by the dignity of the children of God.

That examination is not an easy one, it will make us uncomfortable, in fact maybe these past few moments have made us uncomfortable, but it is a necessarily recalling of Christ’s passion so that His grace might fill our hearts.

Friends, as we continue our celebration around this altar, both in person and virtually, may the grace that God gives to us here, sustain us in our lives of discipleship and may it give us the courage to speak the difficult truths of human dignity and equality so that we might become what we receive, 

One Body, united in Christ.
How Holy is this feast,
in which Christ is our food,
his passion is recalled,
grace fills our hearts,
and we receive the pledge of the glory to come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-3BO_PQbqY

Hymn: We are one body, One Body In Christ

We are one body, one body in Christ
And we do not stand alone
We are one body, one body in Christ
And he came that we might have life

I am the way, the truth, the life
I am the final sacrifice
I am the way, the truth, the life
Believe in me, have eternal Life

We are one body, one body in Christ
And we do not stand alone
We are one body, one body in Christ
And he came that we might have life

At the name of Jesus
Every knee shall bow
Jesus is the Lord
And he will come again
At the name of Jesus
Every knee shall bow
When you eat my body
You drink my blood
I will live in you
And you will live in my love

We are one body, one body in Christ
And we do not stand alone
We are one body, one body in Christ
And he came that we might have life

On the rock of Peter
On the church I built
Receive my spirit
Let my spirit with my gifts be filled
You are my body, and my hands and feet
My word of light to everyone you meet
I am the way, the truth, the life
I am the final sacrifice
I am the way, the truth, the life
Believe in me, have eternal Life

We are one body, one body in Christ
And we do not stand alone
We are one body, one body in Christ
And he came that we might have life

I am the way
The truth, the life
Believe in me
Eternal Life

Cookbook commemorates military history - SerVe

This article is an opinion by Kevin Duggan, published in the Coloradoan newspaper, in Fort Collins, Colorado (the home of a very large army community).  Let's Write about cookbooks!

Opinion: Cookbook celebrates food, community and military history


For many people, food means love.

In fact, they show affection for friends, family and even strangers by whipping up something in the kitchen and gladly sharing it.

Take that basic notion, toss in several dozen recipes, sprinkle in some history, add a dollop of love of country and you have “SerVe: Revisiting a Century of American Legion Auxiliary Cookbooks.”

SerVe is a work of love created by The American Legion Auxiliary Unit 1879, at Colorado State University. It marks the 100th anniversary of The American Legion Auxiliary, which began in 1919 shortly after the American Legion was established to support World War I veterans.

The hardcover, 240-page, coffee-table style book contains recipes collected from cookbooks produced by American Legion auxiliaries across the country during the last 100 years. Every state is represented.

It has directions for how to make tea cakes as they were done in 1919, homemade basil marinara sauce as described in 2010 and many scrumptious things in between.

There are recipes for soups, salads, main courses, desserts and beverages, all kitchen-tested and translated into useful directions for contemporary cooks.

“We had to take liberties because some of these ingredients are no longer available,” said Karen Boehler, president of TALA Unit 1879 and manager of the SerVe project.

“We didn’t know what it meant when (a recipe) said ‘a lump of lard’ or ‘15 cents worth of ground lamb.’ We had to figure those out.”
But SerVe is more than a compilation of recipes. It is organized by wartime era, from World War I to the war on terrorism.

A primary goal of the publication is to educate the public about what the military has done over the last 100 years, Boehler said.

Narratives include information about the causes of the conflicts.

Another goal is to honor the work done by the American Legion Auxiliary over the years to support military veterans and their families.

Unit 1879 supports the CSU American Legion post, which was established in 2016. It is the first and only campus-affiliated unit of the auxiliary.

Another goal, which is in keeping with historic auxiliary cookbook projects, is to raise money. The edition is limited to 2,500 copies. Books may be ordered at www.alaservecookbook.com.

At $42, SerVe might seem a bit pricey. But it’s a quality product whose proceeds will benefit creative arts and mental wellness programs for veterans.

“I think there will be a lot of education coming out this,” Boehler said.

The project took about two years to complete. Six months were spent collecting cookbooks and recipes from across the country.

About 80 old cookbooks — collectively known as “the archives” — were received, collectively containing more than 600 recipes. Recipes were whittled
down to a workable number based on their connections to a particular era and how appetizing they sounded.

Recipes were tested and retested by 75 volunteer cooks scattered across the country. Testers and unit members learned how to take high-quality photographs of food, which is not as simple as one might think.

The book was designed and laid out by unit member Ann Diaz, a Colorado State University graduate and instructor at Aims Community College.

With its historical narratives, first-person accounts and behind-the-scenes photos, SerVe is meant to be more than a cookbook, she said.

It’s intended to be an “on-ramp” to conversations between military and non-military people and better understanding of what service means and entails. People who serve in the armed forces are extremely diverse, she said.

“When we talk about supporting veterans and supporting the military, it’s really important to know that means understanding service members as individuals,” Diaz said.

Unit 1879 has 17 members. Nearly all participated in the SerVe project is some way.

An experienced food writer helped standardize the recipes and their presentation. Others contributed digital expertise that helped organize the project. Others organized promotional events.

It was a community effort that turned into a national effort, Diaz said.

“It was an honor to work on this and learn about all the women who have served in the auxiliary and used this timeless tool — cookbooks and shared recipes — to raise funds to support veterans,” she said. “We celebrated that tradition. It’s an experience I’ll never forget.”

Kevin Duggan is a senior columnist and reporter for the Coloradoan.

When an obituary is historic commentary: "“We all have our own way of going to God", Jean Kennedy Smith

Although every obituary is as unique as the person being eulogized, it is rare to read historic commentary while learning about the deceased.  Jean Kennedy Smith was the last sibling of the late President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), who was assassinated in a motorcade on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, while he was serving in office, with his wife Jacquline at his side.

In my opinion, the obituary tribute to Jean Kennedy Smith, written by her daughter, is a "Let's Write" feature, because we can see, as though with a probing mirror, the depth of her family's place in American history. As a Kennedy, her obituary reflects the agony, and ecstasy saga about a famous family that lived, and died while experiencing the American dream accompanied by triumphs and tragedies.

Thursday, June 18, 2020 Published in NewsMax:

Jean Kennedy Smith, the last surviving sibling of President John F. Kennedy and a former ambassador to Ireland, died Wednesday, her daughter confirmed to The New York Times. She was 92.

Smith died at her home in Manhattan, her daughter Kym told the Times.  As an advocate for people with disabilities via her organization, Special Olympics, Jean also worked to help people with disabilities in 1974, when she created Very Special Arts (VSA). 

An affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, VSA has a mission “to provide people of all ages living with disabilities the opportunity to learn through, participate in and enjoy the arts.” In conjunction with VSA, in 1993, Smith co-wrote the book “Chronicles of Courage: Very Special Artists” with George Plimpton. In 2011, President Barack Obama presented Smith with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her advocacy work.

Jean Kennedy Smith (1928-2020) "She lived an amazing life," said her daughter Kym  

Smith was the eighth of nine children born to Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, and she tragically outlived several of them by decades. Her siblings included older brother Joseph Kennedy Jr., killed in action during World War II; Kathleen “Kick’ Kennedy, who died in a 1948 plane crash; the president, assassinated in 1963 and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, slain in 1968. Sen. Edward Kennedy, the youngest of the Kennedy siblings, died of brain cancer in August 2009, the same month their sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver died.

Smith, who married Kennedy family financial adviser and future White House chief of staff Stephen Edward Smith in 1956, was viewed for much of her life as a quiet sister who shunned the spotlight. In her memoir “The Nine of Us,” published in 2016, she wrote that for much of the time her childhood seemed “unexceptional.”

“It is hard for me to fully comprehend that I was growing up with brothers who eventually occupy the highest offices of our nation, including president of the United States,” she explained. “At the time, they were simply my playmates. They were the source of my amusement and the objects of my admiration.”

Though she never ran for office, she campaigned for her brothers, traveling the country for then-Sen. John F. Kennedy as he sought the presidency in 1960. In 1963, she stepped in for a traveling Jacqueline Kennedy and co-hosted a state dinner for Ireland’s president. The same year, she accompanied her brother — the first Irish Catholic president — on his famous visit to Ireland. Their great-grandfather, Patrick Kennedy, was from Dunganstown in County Wexford in southeastern Ireland.

Three decades later, she was appointed ambassador to Ireland by President Bill Clinton, who called her “as Irish as an American can be.”

During her confirmation hearing, she recalled the trip with her brother, describing it as “one of the most moving experiences of my own life.” As ambassador, she played a role in the Northern Ireland peace process. She helped persuade Clinton to grant a controversial visa in 1994 to Gerry Adams, chief of the Irish Republican Army-linked Sinn Fein party. The move defied the British government, which branded Adams as a terrorist.

She later called criticism of her actions toward the IRA “unfortunate” and said she thought history would credit the Clinton administration with helping the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said in 1998 that “it is not an understatement to say that if (the visa for Adams) didn’t happen at the time, perhaps other events may not have fallen into place.”

In 1996, though, Smith had been reprimanded by Secretary of State Warren Christopher for punishing two of her officers who objected to the visa for Adams.

In December 1998, Smith again risked controversy by taking communion in a Protestant cathedral in Dublin, going against the bishops of her Roman Catholic church.

Her decision was a strong personal gesture of support for Irish President Mary McAleese, a fellow Catholic who had been criticized by Irish bishops for joining in the Protestant communion service.

“Religion, after all, is about bringing people together,” Smith told The Irish Times. “We all have our own way of going to God.”

When she stepped down as ambassador in 1998, she received Irish citizenship for “distinguished service to the nation.”

Diplomacy, along with politics, also ran in the Kennedy family. Her father was ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1940. Niece Caroline Kennedy served as ambassador to Japan during the Obama administration.

“We’re the first father-daughter ambassadors,” Smith told The Irish Times in 1997. “So I can’t remember a time when we were not an actively political family.”

In 1974, Smith founded Very Special Arts, an education program that supports artists with physical or mental disabilities. Her 1993 book with George Plimpton, “Chronicles of Courage: Very Special Artists,” features interviews with disabled artists. The program followed in the footsteps of her sister Eunice’s creation of the Special Olympics for disabled athletes.

Smith and her husband had four children, Stephen Jr., William, Amanda and Kym. Her husband died in 1990.

Her son, Dr. William Kennedy Smith, made headlines in 1991, when he was charged with rape at the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach, Florida. He was acquitted after a highly publicized trial that included testimony from his uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy, who had roused his nephew and son to go to some nightclubs that Easter weekend.

Among Patricia Kennedy Smith’s other siblings, Rosemary died in 2005; and Patricia in 2006.

“Certainly a distinct characteristic of our family was its size,” Smith wrote in her memoir. “A child in a big family constantly feels surrounded and supported. For me, there was always someone to play with or someone to talk to just around the corner, out on the porch, or in the next bedroom. I never felt alone.”

Taking action against racism in literature and in practice

This letter was sent to the community that is involved and supports St. Joseph's College in Standish, Maine. I am proud to republish this in the Let's Write blog because the messager blends literature with action. A letter from the President of St. Joseph's College of Maine.

Dear Members of the Saint Joseph’s College Community,

In 1938, the African-American poet Langston Hughes wrote:

James Dlugos, Ph.D. president of St. Joseph's College of Maine

“Let America Be America Again.”

The poem begins

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Hughes’ poem, using the language of his time not ours, nevertheless captures the emotion of marginalized people of all races who struggled to find a place in early 20th century America. 80 years after Hughes wrote “Let America Be America Again” we continue to see—daily—the images of pain and suffering his poem captured.

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

The killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor and the pain inflicted on peaceful protesters by those in positions of power who should know and be better and by those ready to profit from the suffering of others, are painful reminders of how far we are from the dream of this place.

The poem’s central plea is one we instantly recognize.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.


But the events of the past week in Minnesota, in America and indeed the world, have made one thing abundantly clear.

We can no longer simply ask to “let America be America again.”

Each of us, and all of us, need to make America a place where every person is truly free.

By the end of the poem, Hughes’ speaker has come to this realization.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

Inspired by the activism of the Sisters of Mercy and their commitment to the critical concern of anti-racism, informed by Pope Francis’ idea of “integral ecology,” and energized by the courage of peaceful protesters, Saint Joseph’s College is committed to this work—the work of building sustainable communities grounded in radical hospitality.

We cannot simply stand and watch in the hope that something else, someone else will let the dream of America be realized.

Through our actions—large and small, direct and indirect—we either advance the dream or we turn our back on it.

Wherever you are today, please join with Monks in our St. Joseph's College of Maine and everywhere to make our communities safer places for all who continue to believe in the goodness and promise of people committed to integrity, motivated by respect, fueled by compassion, strengthened by faith, and striving for excellence and justice.

Sincerely,




James S. Dlugos, Ph.D.,
President
Saint Joseph's College