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“Land of The Free and Home of The Brave?”

by MarshaRose
July 4, 2006

The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States.  Francis Scott Key, a 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, wrote the lyrics in 1814 after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland by British ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.  It became well known as a patriotic song to the tune of a popular English drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven."  It was recognized for official use by the United States Navy (1889) and by the White House 1916), and was made the national anthem by a Congressional resolution on March 3, 1931.

Most of us cannot sing the song and those who can, only sing one verse.

Did you ever wonder why, if the song has four verses, only the first is commonly sung?

Well I’ll tell you.

Growing up in Baltimore, the place is so rich in history.  From America's infancy, democracy's first dream to today's realities . . . Baltimore always figured in the struggle.

My family has lived in Maryland since 1773.  My Great-grandfather, John H. Murphy, Sr., founded a newspaper more than 115 years ago (The Afro-American Newspapers). Moving to Baltimore in 1941, I learned at a very early age about being a Negro (that is what we were in those days).  In the 40's as a student in "segregated" elementary schools I was taught to hate the Jews because “they were Christ killers” and in the middle of war, hate the Germans and the Japanese, while the white man hated me—how absurd!

Every morning in our “separate but equal?” school, we stood to pledge allegiance to the flag – “with liberty and justice for all.” Justice? And oh, the field trips—Historic Baltimore is an abundant resource for teachers—the many many field trips to Fort McHenry—we ran across the ramparts, climbed on the cannons, peeped into the dungeons, imagined the bombs bursting in air—and the flag is still waving.

Oh, how many times had we as children, fought that war—Baltimore being the only school District in America where the children knew about the War of 1812 let alone the Battle of Baltimore?  Each time we held our heads up high and sang,—

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Not ever giving one thought to the mockery of the words –

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

At that same time America was at war using segregated troops—some African-American soldiers were lynched in uniform.  Black newspapers were charged with sedition for “giving aid and comfort to the enemy” for telling the truth about discrimination in the U.S.

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Even as an adult I climbed on the cannon to watch the new flag with it's 50th star being raised at Fort McHenry. As we celebrated the taking of an indigenous peoples’ land—again not seeing the travesty in the words—

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?

Would you sing these verses of the song?

Finally, People stood up—enough was enough—enough discrimination—enough disparity—enough injustice—enough inequality—enough of an unjust war—the words rang true—

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

“None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.”  (Pearl S. Buck)

Here is the full song – all four verses- for your singing pleasure — [below the fold]

For Linda

By Marsha Rose Joyner

For: Linda
From: MarshaRose

“Child of pure unclouded brow
And dreaming eyes of wonder!
Though time be fleet, and I and thou
Are half a life asunder,
Thy loving smile will surely hail
The love gift of a fairy tale”.

by Lewis Carroll

Time and distance dims memories!
And we all edit our thoughts.
As the White Queen said, “What good is a memory, when it only works in one direction and that is backwards?” In this day of TV and make-believe we have become desensitized and some things are too beautiful to forget.
Thus was Linda!

“A tale begun in other days,
When summer suns were glowing--
A simple chime that served to time
The rhythm of our rowing--
When echoes live in memory yet,
Through envious years should say, “forget”

Linda lived a life of value undefined by property and prosperity.
She lived a life in pursuit of the beauty nestled in everyone and everything – a beauty that is unrecognized by most of us.

Linda led an ever-changing life exploring the unthinkable and the unknowable. Finding the magnificence that is buried deep beneath the surface.

Linda was compelled to give all that she had – a burden not generally appreciated nor understood.

I do not know the time nor the place when she came into my life – but today as I sit with the knowledge that I’ll not hear her happy voice or see her smiling face - I roam from room to room touching the material things that we shared, the precious items she willingly gave away; a set of 19th Century French classic books; a stack of Civil Rights era recordings, [“The Freedom Singers Sing of Freedom Now!” –Mercury Records –1964 – “The Freedom Movement Told by Coretta Scott King” – Caedmon –1969] and many more; her father’s sculptures and of course her love and wisdom.

Linda understood when we give away a small piece of ourselves we get an even greater reward.

And she did give –
I called her “The Modern Day Harriet Tubman”
This Jewish woman with all the gifts that upper middle class in New York can bestow – opened her household to anyone and everyone fleeing the south. Legends of the Civil Rights Movement, the people who most of us only read about and worshiped at their altar, were real to her – because they had stayed at her home.

Linda gave voice to students of other cultures where English was a second language. She opened them to the elements - a world of communications – gave them the courage to read, write and dream in English. She introduced them to poetry in French and Farsi as well as Mozart on the out of tune school piano.

“I have not seen they sunny face,
Nor heard thy silver laughter:
No thought of me shall find a place
In thy life’s hereafter-
Enough that now thou wilt not fail
To listen to my fairy-tale.”

"Love is grabbing hold of the great lion’s mane." The ancient, fiery, Persian poet Hafiz wrote. And she did!
Linda was a warrior: The struggle for equality and justice was never far from the surface. Linda was prepared to suffer for the greater goodness of the world without falling prey to the continued enticement of money and fame. Linda had to go her own way, embolden the weak, bringing light into darkness with a spirit unbroken by the heartbreak and false promises of a world that did not understand.

Playing Beethoven on her beautiful Baby Grand from her living room overlooking West Loch, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – Linda told me “the ambient noise of your daily routine is about to increase.”
“That is not possible,” I replied.
Bang! Went the piano top. She stood up. The cats scattered.
“Oh yes, they want to build an incinerator in my back yard – we must stop it!”

I walked over to the Lanai doors - It was a clear, bright Sunday. The afternoon sun, moving toward the south facing shores was just beginning to cast shadows. The gentle winds and billowing soft clouds gave an imperceptible repose to the surrounding loch. The sheer beauty of the waves gently licking the shore belied the carnage, which took place here at West Loch- the site of one of the bloodiest events of WWII.

She was right. The noise did increase. We were back on the path again. This time against the modern day Klan dressed in three-piece suits – the corporations and the City & County of Honolulu government and we did stop the incinerator.

“Come; hearken then, ere voice of dread,
With bitter tidings laden,
Shall summon to unwelcome bed
A melancholy maiden!
We are but older children, dear
Who fret to find our bedtime near.”

Last October, Linda, ScottyB, my son, Christopher and I ventured down to Lowndes County. Me, complete with all of my fears and prejudices and Linda armed only with her camera – she so loved everything about the place. The people who'd been involved in the Lowndes County Movement; the overgrown cemetery with its many secrets; the rustic homes that had provided shelter from the rage; the smell of autumn; and the chill in the air. We should all be privy to her view of Lowndes County.

“Without, the frost, the blinding snow,
The storm-wind’s moody madness—
Within, the firelight’s ruddy glow,
And childhood’s nest of gladness
The magic words shall hold thee fast:
Thou shalt not heed the waving blast.”

Linda’s father told her “even if you do not practice being Jewish – always say you are Jewish so that Hitler will not have won”.

Linda lived and loved around the world – from New York, France, Iran, London, Hawaii, California, and “The Black Belt” being devoted to justice and equality - I think when her father welcomed her into the hereafter his first words to her “thanks to you – Hitler will not have won.”

“And, through the shadow of a sigh
May tremble through the story
For “happy summer days” gone by,
It shall not touch with breath of bale,
The pleasure of our fairy-tale”

Lewis Carroll
“Through the Looking-Glass
And what Alice found there”

MarshaRose

June 28, 2006

"[I]t wouldn't surprise me if we both got up to dance."

I wish I could show you one of Linda's photographs. I wrote to one of Linda's dearest friends, Marsha Joyner (who publishes on HungryBlues from time to time) that Linda had a genius for seeing the beauty in people. This was evident in many ways, but it was really striking in her photographs.

To what I wrote before, I want to add that Linda Dehnad and Scott B. Smith were married on June 26, 2002 and then moved back to Alabama where Scott B had been active in SNCC and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in the 1960s. In the 1960s, Linda lived in NYC and was a central cog in SNCC's New York office. At that time she was married to Danny Moses, who was also active in the Civil Rights and anti-war movements. They had a home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan which was a hub for many of the activists who came north from the South. From her first marriage, Linda is survived by three children, Jay, Julia and David.

Some of what I mean by Linda's genius for seeing the beauty in people is in these excerpts from an email she sent me on April 3 of this year.

I heard Taylor Branch talking in Lowndes County yesterday at the "Mother Church" at a book-signing, the best book signing I've ever seen, because all the people there who'd been involved in the Lowndes County Movement got up to talk and told stories and it was warm and tight and it felt historical. . . .

The first woman to introduce herself was Bernice Johnson, age 91, and I was thrilled because I've come across her name in books, and the name "Bernice" always stops me because of Freedom Singer Bernice (Reagon), and finally I see Bernice Johnson in the flesh. She was two rows ahead of me . . . and I crawled up and we shook hands and I told her, not too loud as to upset the meeting cause someone was speaking, I told her how I'd waited a long time to see her and meet her, and when she shook my hand it was like a clear message. I knew for sure that it meant something like "We are sisters, no doubt about that, and I'm as thrilled as you are." Second time I talked with her, was to ask if I could come over her house and take her picture because the lighting in the church made it hard, and her face is so beautiful I want to catch that beauty in a photo. We talked briefly about how I bet she had boys and men running all around her when she was young, and was she as beautiful then as she is now, and she just laughed and grinned and her eyes shone. Her daughter had to write the last two phone number digits cause she had forgotten them, and I also found out that her hearing aid had conked out and I couldn't figure out if it was fixable or her hearing was beyond help. That didn't seem to matter to her or to me. She squeezed my hand several times and it told me that it would be so much more fun to just get up and dance together and relate in some other way than with words. What struck me first was that it was exactly how I felt, and her message was clear and strong. . . .

Now I'm going to check out the pictures I took yesterday and I hope I have one I like of Bernice Johnson. I'll go visit her whether or not I do, and it wouldn't surprise me if we both got up to dance. Or might just sit in our chairs and do our dancing without standing. Lot's of the older women I was sitting with have an easier time walking than I do, but the doctor is going to put something that's not cortisone in my knees at 7:15 a.m. tomorrow and with luck I'll be standing up without groaning which would be good, because these women had all had a hell of a more difficult life than I have, and they have the right to groan before I do. I don't know. Maybe it makes me fit in more easily as we all laugh at each other's expression of pain.

Scott B. Smith and Linda Dehnad

DSCN0184.jpg, originally uploaded by BenTG.

I took this photo of Linda and Scott B when I was with them in Montgomery, AL last summer.

"Another SNCC warrior has died."

Those were the first words from Scott B. Smith, Jr when he reached me on the phone earlier this afternoon.

He wanted to inform me and all who knew her that Linda Dehnad, his wife, died this morning of undetermined causes at age 69.

Linda went to Jackson Hospital in Montgomery, AL last night because she was suffering from severe stomach pain. It happened to be her and Scott B's wedding anniversary. Exteremely frustrated and at her wits end after waiting for more than five hours to have her pain treated and her condition addressed, Linda asked Scott B to take her home around 9:30 PM. Scott B took care of Linda through the night; he fell asleep for a couple of hours at about 4 AM. When he woke up again at about 6 AM, Linda was dead.

Scott B said, "Linda came back to Montgomery with me to work with the people of Lowndes County. Though she was treated badly, she loved Lowndes County. Linda was a warrior. She never stopped trying to work with people. Anything she could do: she was doing it. She was concerned about the children. When she was teaching and was asked to use corporal punishment, Linda said, 'I am not a slave owner. I am a teacher.'"

In her last years, Linda had ongoing pain from fibromyalgia. Linda remained a gifted writer, teacher and photographer and a committed activist. She taught and mentored many, many people, including me (Ben).

Linda has requested that she be cremated. There will be a memorial service on Sunday, July 2, at the Unity Baptist Church in White Hall, Lowndes, County, AL. Church service begins at 11:00 a.m. Memorial service begins at 12:30 p.m.

Scott B welcomes phone calls, email and postal mail with condolences or memories of Linda. He would also welcome financial assistance to pay for Linda's autopsy. You can reach Scott B by phone at 334-262-7547. His mailing address is 2010 McKinley Avenue, Montogmery, AL 36107. His email address is scottbsmith_jr at yahoo dot com.


UPDATE#1 (6/28): I made a mistake on Scott B's phone number. Area code is 334, not what I had before. The number, above, is now correct.

UPDATE#2 (6/28): There is now a time for the memorial service, added above.

~
Read an interview/conversation with Linda Dehnad and her fellow Civil Rights Movement veterans, Jimmy Rogers and Bruce Hartford.

Watch Night Services

By Marsha Joyner

December 2005

Those of us who grew up in America’s traditional Black communities know of Watch Night Services, the gathering of the faithful in church on New Year's Eve. So as I ventured into the world it came as a surprise to me that other than the Catholic Church, which celebrates the eve of the feast of the Circumcision late on the evening of December 31, primarily white protestant churches generally do not have a church service for a secular holiday.

The service is an opportunity to tell the story of one of the most important milestones in the Blacks’ American history. The Watch Night Services that we celebrate in Black communities today can be traced back to gatherings on December 31, 1862, also known as Freedom's Eve. On that night, Blacks came together in churches and private homes, anxiously awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation actually had become law. Then, at the stroke of midnight, it was January 1, 1863, and all slaves in the Confederate States were declared legally free. Blacks have gathered in churches annually on New Year's Eve ever since, praising God for bringing us through another year.


Long before President Abraham Lincoln had ever dreamed of issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, an edict of freedom, Blacks had been hoping and praying for such a measure.

Lincoln had originally conceived of the proclamation as a measure for the self-preservation, rather than for the regeneration, of America. But the proclamation, almost in spite of its creator, changed the whole tone and character of the Civil War. Blacks sensed this more quickly than did Lincoln.

Despite the proclamation’s limitation African-Americans hailed it with much joy. The war, wrote Frederick Douglass, was now “invested with sanctity.” The Emancipation Proclamation did more than lift the war to the level of a crusade for human freedom. It brought some very substantial practical results, for it gave the go-ahead signal to the recruiting of Black soldiers. By midsummer of 1863 Lincoln could report, “The emancipation policy, and the use of colored troops, constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion.”

The esteem that African-Americans had for the Emancipation Proclamation helped to make it one of the most far-reaching pronouncements ever issued in the United States. African-Americans were instrumental in creating the image of the proclamation that was to become the historic milestone. The proclamation soon assumed the role that African-Americans had given it at the outset, and became to millions a fresh expression of one of humankind’s loftiest aspirations—the quest for freedom. The Emancipation Proclamation did not have to await the verdict of posterity: within six months after it was issued on that fateful date of January 1, 1863, the mass of Americans had come to regard it as a milestone in the long struggle for human rights.

“As affairs have turned, it is the central act of my administration, and the greatest event of the nineteenth century,” lamented Lincoln, as he sat in a pensive mood for is his portrait painter Francis B. Carpenter in February 1865. Later that spring, in the waning days of his life, in what was to be a rare moment of self-revelation, Lincoln confided to lifetime friend, Joshua F. Speed that he had come to believe that his chief claim to fame would rest upon the Proclamation. It was the one thing that would make people remember that he had lived.

Those of us who come from an oral tradition must tell this story in every generation; thus we celebrate the Watch Night Services.

~

Image: Heard and Moseley. Waiting for the hour [Emancipation], December 31, 1862. Carte de visite. Washington, 1863. Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-6160 (4-21a) (click on image to enlarge).

Rokhl Is Live Blogging Klezkamp

If Rokhl (or even I) piqued your interest about secular Jewish American culture, you may want to check out her blogging from Klezkamp, which is this week from Dec. 25-30. Her freylikhe Klezkamp blog is called Mit der kapelye- I'm with the Band; usually you can find her here. If Klezkamp sounds like klezmer to you, that's because klezmer classes and performances and jam sessions are a big part of what will be going on there. Interested yet? Go check it out...

(Readers who have been around for a while may remember this post, where I mention the influence of Klezcamp on my family, via my mother.)

Identity Is Complicated

Rokhl Kafrissen recently published an awesome statement on contemporary Jewish American identity (via Mark Rubin). This is the sort of thing that I wish I'd written, because it comes so close to my own views. Here's points 3 and 4, out of 6, central to the manifesto:

3. Jewish religion cannot be divorced from Jewish culture.

To do so yields the current demographic and spiritual crisis now facing the American Jewish community.

Jewish philanthropists like Michael Steinhardt want to revive the non-Orthodox Jewish community by replacing “victimhood” with “joy.” (See his Jerusalem Post opinion piece in February of this year.) I think we all know that you can read “Europe” for victimhood and “Israel” for joy. Didn’t that attitude get us in this mess? Turn a shul into a temple, a khazn into a cantor and Jewish music into Debbie Friedman — well, you better lock the doors cuz the inmates will be breaking out. Witness our so-called youth crisis. American Jewish culture has turned Camembert into CheezWhiz: It is boring and every young Jew knows it.

Real Jewish Culture is the product of hundreds, thousands of years of joy and pain; it’s the expression of the realities of halokhe [Jewish law] lived in a hostile world. It’s the result of every Jew’s struggle between tradition and modernity. Most importantly, Real Jewish Culture is our connection to those who came before us, and without access to it, well, that bagel in your hand is not a symbol of anything, just a bunch of empty calories masquerading as breakfast.

4. I am not an Israeli.

About two thousand American Jews make aliyah [emmigrate to Israel] every year. Out of a total Jewish population of 5,200,000, this comes out to about .04% of American Jews each year who will choose to live in Israel. I am an American and, like 99.96 percent of my fellow American Jews, I will never become an Israeli. I care deeply about the State of Israel, most of all because my fate is linked to that of every other Jew. But where does the spirit of klal yisroel end and the unquestioning acceptance of Zionism begin?

Open a magazine like Moment and you’d think every Jew in America had already put down a security deposit on an apartment in Jerusalem. Moment bills itself as “Jewish culture, politics, and religion.” Three of four cover stories in a recent issue were Israel-related, with more inside — and this was the music issue! Now, I would understand if this were a newspaper for a small Jewish community somewhere in the world. I doubt that the Jewish community of Honduras has enough news to fill twelve issues of a monthly magazine. But we don’t live in Honduras. We live in the other Jewish state, a country with a Jewish population roughly equal to that of the Jewish state. And let me tell you, we’ve got enough news here to fill up every single Jewish newspaper, magazine, newsletter, leaflet and ’zine.

Mark Rubin, who alerted me to Rokhl's manifesto, doesn't think non-Jews need read it, that it's more for us Jews to talk about amongst ourselves. While the subject matter is an internal conversation, I encourage everyone to read the whole thing. My own experience is that most non-Jews don't know much about American Jewish cultural issues and experiences, beyond the stereotypes and the canned, Jewish institutional PR.

I would just add to Rokhl's assertions about secular and religious Jewish culture(s), that a secular Jewish world-view can also include not just knowledge but practice of Judaism. While Jewish law excludes those who profess belief in Christian or polytheistic religions from Jewish religious participation, there is no requirement that one demonstrate a positive belief in God. It's been my experience that many practicing Jews have changeable ideas and beliefs about theology while remaining consistent participants in the religious community. I don't know how many would go as far as I do to say their world view is closest to secular and agnostic while maintaining a somewhat traditional Jewish religious practice—though I know my mother would as would my great-uncle, my maternal grandfather's brother, who, at age 95, is the minyan facilitator for the daily services at his synagogue in Florida. You have not heard leyning (chanting) from the Torah until you've heard him.

The summer of 2002, my first cousin, who is an Orthodox Jew, invited me to lead the davenning (praying) for his auf ruf, an east European Jewish celebration at morning prayer services in the week before one's wedding. This was a particularly special occasion because my cousin decided to have the auf ruf in my maternal grandfather's synagogue, Young Israel on East Broadway, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.* The Young Israel on East Broadway is a very traditional, Orthodox synagogue, which my grandparents were members of from around time it was founded, until they died six weeks apart, in November and December 2002, respectively, both at age ninety-nine.

I was a little nervous to accept the honor, since I don't regularly attend services in such Orthodox congregations, where the ritual life is very tightly choreographed and fast paced, without a lot of time spent explaining and instructing. Still, there was no way to say no, especially knowing my grandfather would be there (my grandmother was not well enough to attend).

At one point, during the breakfast that followed services (bagels, lox, herring, fruit, etc.), my uncle, whose son was getting married, pulled me aside to report that during services my grandfather turned to him and said, "who would have thought that Paul Greenberg's son could daven like this."

My father, a founder of New Jewish Agenda, who identified not as a Zionist but as a Jewish nationalist supporter of Jewish and Palestinian self-determination in the middle east, was a secular radical in the Jewish socialist tradition, for the first half of his life. As he reached his 40s, he started to become increasingly religious in his outlook, though he never learned to read Hebrew or the ritual skills he and my mother decided I should learn in my eight years of Jewish parochial school.

Notes
*If you click on the Young Israel link, above, you can also see an arial shot of the apartment buildings where my grandparents lived through all the years that I was alive to know them. They lived at 383 Grand Street, in what are known as the Seward Park Cooperatives. In the area marked "Seward Park," between Essex and Clinton, there are two buildings. 383 Grand Street is the one closer to Essex and to Grand.

From Sea To Shining Sea

From Baltimore to San Francisco, with Chicago and most other places in between . . .

I received this letter from Mary Ratcliff via the SF Bay View email list. In her email to the list, Ms. Ratcliff added that "Phone calls to the mayor's office, (415) 554-6141, and/or the mayor's press office, (415) 554-6131, would be helpful."

Francisco Castillo
Deputy Director of Communications
Office of Mayor Gavin Newsom
City Hall
San Francisco, California

Dear Francisco,

Please bring this matter to the attention of the mayor right away.

Bayview precinct officers visited the home of Bay View managing editor and staff writer Ebony Colbert again this morning – at 7 a.m. We cannot imagine any other reason for the visit than a resumption of the intimidation campaign that began after we published an editorial by Ebony on Oct. 19 (http://www.sfbayview.com/101905/wakeup101905.shtml). Ebony’s latest story about the SFPD, this time prompted by the video scandal, was posted to our website yesterday (http://www.sfbayview.com/120705/truecolors.shtml).

The officers’ visits began a few days after the Oct. 19 editorial came out, the same day Mayor Newsom called Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff asking him to retract Ebony’s editorial. They continued several times daily for several weeks (http://www.sfbayview.com/110205/sfpdstung110205.shtml) with gradually decreasing frequency until about a week ago. This morning they resumed.

The excuse for every visit is “a 911 hang-up call.” But Ebony’s home phone stopped working the day the visits started. It’s unplugged and stored in a closet. She uses her cell phone instead. No one in her household – consisting of mom and dad and two little ones, a 2-year-old daughter and 11-month-old son – is calling 911.

Last night, Ebony was up until 3:30 a.m. with a teething baby. Getting awakened by the police at 7 a.m. didn’t set well. She was born and raised in Bayview Hunters Point and lives here now. She is very familiar with the behavior of officers from the Bayview station; one of them is her relative. A brilliant and caring young woman, she wants and works hard to uplift her community.

She simply wants the SFPD to do their job, to protect and serve, not occupy and terrorize her neighborhood. If those words sound strong, consider the terrorism of Sept. 9, when several officers chasing 18-year-old Tyrelle Taylor on foot shot him repeatedly in the back, then, when he had fallen on a neighbor’s floor face down, threw themselves on him and viciously beat him in what could be nothing less than an attempted murder.

She also wants an end to the economic lockout of the people of Bayview Hunters Point, especially from City-funded construction jobs, like those on the Third Street Light Rail project. Please remind the mayor that the $125 million maintenance barn for that project is yet to be built, and ensuring that BVHP builds it – that most of the contracts and jobs, including on-the-job training, go to our people – would greatly uplift this community and win the mayor some good will.

Ebony and her peers know that once, when 10,000 of the jobs at the Hunters Point Shipyard were held by people living in Hunters Point, peace and prosperity characterized this community. They also remember that in September of 1966, when those jobs were being phased out and people’s frustration and fury at joblessness (nearly all other jobs then, as now, were off limits to Black people) and police brutality (shooting 16-year-old Matthew Johnson in the back and killing him, see page 15-16 in http://www.bvhp-pac.org/ConceptPlan.doc and many other sources) exploded into an uprising, the young people did not destroy their community.

They let SFPD know that they were not needed in Hunters Point by blocking police from entering any of the streets leading east from Third Street. Instead of commending the youngsters for a largely peaceful protest, tanks rumbled up and down Third Street and SFPD sharpshooters lined up three rows deep on Third Street and shot into the Bayview Opera House, where youngsters had fled for sanctuary, hitting several of them.

Francisco, please tell the mayor that, for the same reasons as in 1966, Bayview Hunters Point is once again close to the boiling point. The video scandal and the looming specter of an execution at San Quentin on Tuesday – which we pray the governor will reject – could lead to another uprising.

Frustration and fury over joblessness and police brutality and disrespect is now a challenge squarely facing Mayor Gavin Newsom. Current feeble attempts at job training and policing won’t cut it. Blatant attempts to intimidate a young writer with the courage to speak truth to power merely intensify community outrage.

I am available by phone 24/7 and look forward to discussing these issues with you.

Mary Ratcliff, executive editor
San Francisco Bay View
www.sfbayview.com