This is another poem that was easier to write than it is to share—and how. While watching the 50th anniversary observance for the march on Washington back in 2013, I thought of a television program I watched in high school where part of the conflict including two African-American students’ not-too-positive take on Abraham Lincoln and cautious (to say the least) approach to the question of fighting the Civil War to preserve the Union or ending slavery. I viewed this as a fictionized case of applying a very modern standard (the 1970s) to issues in pre-Civil War America, then wondered how future generations might view Martin Luther King and his “I Have A Dream” speech.
It was only make-believe,
This scene flickering through my mind.
A tale of the young and angry, determined
To change the world.
Sure, it came with a disclaimer,
Characters, events and firms, et cetera,
A classroom that never was in a troubled time.
If it’s close to real, it’s just coincidental.
But mot as coincidental as one might think.
The young, the angry, taking a great man’s words,
And brought him down, making the great man
A bigoted hack, just another politician.
Well, why not?
The great man was an establishment hero,
And the young, the angry, the rebels
We’re supposed to take down the establishment!
It was 1970! And we can judge harshly a so-called
Great man from over a century before.
It was only TV, but I pondered that
Scene as I watched the reflections on
A real -life march and another great man
Who shared a dream so long before.
What will they say if the Lord tarries
Another half-century?
Will there be those who view the Dreamer
With eyes too advanced too understand?
I'm not sure exactly what you're driving at, but we must not make the same historical mistake over and over. And the only way to do that is to learn from history the lessons that it teaches us. It is easy for history to be revised, especially in schoolbooks to meet the needs of certain political factions, making it less realistic, but sometimes, supposedly, patriotic like the honesty of George Washington and the apple tree and other stories that basically, are untrue but taught to school children.
If young people were ignorant of Abraham Lincoln, it is our fault for not sharing the truth with them. As for dreamers and those that speak and write of dreams, they are the ones that shape the future, righting wrongs and pointing the way to the right way of doing things. When comparing 1968 violence to the violence of 2020, 2020 has been much less violent and more understanding, then 1968 ever was. Much of that violence came from the legislation of 1965 not being fulfilled quickly.
We've come a long way, and have a long way yet to go. But we'll get there. Like Martin Luther King said, to the promised land, right here on terra firma earth.
The authors of Savannah: Brokers, Bankers and Bay Lane: Inside the Slave Trade (Civil War Savannah), received the 2012 Award for Excellence in Research from the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board. The Award was issued by then Georgia Secretary
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If young people were ignorant of Abraham Lincoln, it is our fault for not sharing the truth with them. As for dreamers and those that speak and write of dreams, they are the ones that shape the future, righting wrongs and pointing the way to the right way of doing things. When comparing 1968 violence to the violence of 2020, 2020 has been much less violent and more understanding, then 1968 ever was. Much of that violence came from the legislation of 1965 not being fulfilled quickly.
We've come a long way, and have a long way yet to go. But we'll get there. Like Martin Luther King said, to the promised land, right here on terra firma earth.
Ron