Youtube link and intro comes from Rick Khamsi
Almost fifty years after surviving one of the most appalling acts of violence of the Civil Rights Era, Carolyn McKinstry has begun speaking out against the hate speech that is becoming more and more common now in America.
Carolyn McKinstry spoke on March 1 with Humboldt County high school students and community members. Carolyn was 14 years old when she became a survivor of the infamous Birmingham Church Bombing of 1963. She appeared at Eureka High School last week at the invitation of Jack Bareilles, grant director for the “Teaching America” program.
This is the first of three parts to the video.
Parts two and three can be viewed through this link.
I first learned of the Birmingham incident in high school, not in history class, but in my junior year poetry class when I was assigned this poem by Dudley Randall.
Ballad of Birmingham
(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963)
“Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?”
“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren’t good for a little child.”
“But, mother, I won’t be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free.”
“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children’s choir.”
She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.
The mother smiled to know that her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.
For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.
She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
“O, here’s the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?”
Heraldo also has a post up on the event.
12 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 9, 2011 at 1:06 am
Neville A. Ross
Thanks for posting the video and the poem.
March 9, 2011 at 8:19 am
Anonymous
That Martin Luther King was a great guy wasn’t he?
March 9, 2011 at 8:46 am
Eric Kirk
That Martin Luther King was a great guy wasn’t he?
Very funny!
March 9, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Ernie's Place
There was a time in our history when a some white people hated the blacks, and we wondered, why? Now it seems that we are all in the same shoes. Some people in the world hate Americans and we wonder, why? Maybe the black people of America can teach us how to cope with the hatred toward Americans. Even though we know that most of the hatred is undeserved, there is still hatred. Can we still “overcome”?
March 9, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Erasmus
The anti-Americanism one finds in much of the world resembles anti-Semitism more than anti-black prejudice. Anti-Americanism is a mixture of envy, suspicion, and resentment. Like the traditional image of Jews, we are seen as rich, self-centered, manipulative, and the source of instability and conflict. No wonder we feel protective towards Israel! —- Jewish comedians are the best medicine against irrational prejudices — and they know (all too well) that no amount of “good behavior” will extirpate the ill-will directed at us.
March 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Eric Kirk
Good points Ernie. And this panel discusses Obama’s failure to change the image of Americans.
http://www.theonion.com/video/has-obama-failed-to-reduce-hostility-toward-obnoxi,18264/
March 9, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Eric Kirk
Erasmus – it’s also based on our attitudes sometimes when we visit the countries. An acquaintance of mine had a conversation in Italy about it. The resident confirmed that American tourists are considered obnoxious and self-centered and concluded with “they are almost as bad as the Germans.”
March 9, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Erasmus
I didn’t mean to give the impression that “we” are blameless.
March 9, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Ernie's Place
Pretty funny “Onion” Eric.
When I was in Europe, I was very cognizant of the European opinion about Americans. One of the hotels in southern England that we stayed in had an excellent restaurant, we were extremely polite and cordial, and didn’t engage in any behavior that might be remotely objectionable, and we tipped our waiter American tips. I was advised that I wasn’t supposed to tip, but complain to the management if we didn’t get good service. Needless to say we were treated like the King and Queen of America our whole stay there.
Our waiter kept a polite eye on us the whole time, and all I had to do was glance up and he would have eye contact with me. He made good recommendations for food and he enjoyed our delight at his choices. After he found out that my family was from his town in 1730, he gave us many good tips on what to see and visit and he shared some of his great stories with us. He introduced us to a person that ate often at the hotel and he turned out to be a retired guard at the Buckingham Palace. He told us about spending a week in the brig for dropping his Bayonet while on guard duty. He said that his bayonet dropped of with a clatter, a few moments later his replacement guard formally went through the changing of the guard routine and he marched back inside… straight into the brig where he stayed for a week. He told us that that is the standard punishment for embarrassing the Queen. It’s no wonder they don’t get distracted.
I guess what I’m trying to say is Americans could have a lot more fun in Europe if they would just leave their arrogance behind. We came home so happy that we almost had tears in our eyes.
March 9, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Ernie's Place
P.S, the waiter told me when we were about to leave that he saved all of his tips to visit his son in America. So, I guess what goes around really does come around.
March 13, 2011 at 9:47 am
jendocino
Love this post. Those students are very, very lucky to have had such a wonderful speaker talking about such a significant tragedy in our history. NOTHING beats a first-hand account when it comes to building bridges.
March 13, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Eric Kirk
Hard to believe that we’re reaching a point where veterans of the Civil Rights Movement are starting to die off in significant numbers. She would of course be one of the younger.