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 VRA and Racism “the country’s original sin”

What a week. With a 68-32  margin, the U.S. Senate passed immigration reform – a heartening step even in the face of the subsequent response by the usual suspects in the House of Representatives rolling their eyes and offering sound bites that essentially communicate (again…), “in your dreams.”  In what likely stands as a more inspiring demonstration (and interpretation) of democratic action, Texas Senator, Wendy Davis together with thousands of citizens of… Read More

Violence May Thwart Public Voice, but the Ideas Won’t Go Away

My sister in Gainesville, Florida is recently back from Turkey — Istanbul and a rural city where she and her daughter worked a while on an organic olive farm.  The olive work was only perfect for getting to know the culture of rural Turkey a bit, but it was also the only way for these two women to travel together.  The younger is a college student, the older (celebrating her 50th with… Read More