Truth Be Told – Montgomery

On her MoreThanTours, Michelle Browder tells the truth. She starts on the banks of the Alabama River where the lands of the Alabama Tribes were stolen, by hostility or trickery: Apache, Caddo, Alabama-Quassarte, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Arapaho, Cherokee, Cheyenne. Where black American slaves were marched from ships to storehouses to market. People descended from the Africans stolen into involuntary servitude. After 1808, when stealing people from outside our country was banned, domestic trade sustained… Read More

The Snipers Within

  I haven’t seen American Sniper, but I know it’s in a theater-near-me. It won’t be surprising that I’m not really a fan of war movies.  I’m also not a fan of war.  But, at bottom, I imagine there are very few who prefer annihilation over peace. From the media buzz related to the Academy Award nominee, I understand that the film stands on the premise that, with armed conflict underway, there is… Read More

Truth & Reconciliation – No Better Time than Right Now

Last night, I saw a video of renown science fiction author, Ursula Leguin, speaking at the National Book Awards in acknowledgement of receiving that august group’s recognition of her life of literary achievement.  In her comments, she said, “I think hard times are coming. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries, the realists of a larger reality.” Right after hearing LeGuin’s words, we heard the news from Ferguson, Missouri that… Read More

I AM MORE THAN – Leadership out of Montgomery

  I want you to know about this! Thanks to the vision of my friend Michelle Browder, and her collaborators – the youth of Montgomery, Alabama – there will be a powerful commemoration of Bloody Sunday – The civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery March 6, 1965.  Michelle and her colleagues are pulling out the stops.  They’ve created an organization – I AM MORE THAN – and they are working steadily toward a… Read More

Listening as Leadership

In our polarized society, we need a starting place for rediscovering each other. I believe that we all share the essential things: love of family, courage in adversity, sustaining faith, hope for the future. Living stories [are] told from the inside out.  Windows into the hearts and minds of people.  David Hughes Duke I just got off the phone with a man in Georgia.  He contacted me because we both have this… Read More