Freedom of Choice

 

The statue on top of this building is called "Freedom." 

Buckle up. You're in for a history lesson!

In 1854, Sculptor Thomas Crawford, originally from New York, was commissioned to design and complete a full-size plaster model of the statue "Freedom" in his studio in Rome, Italy. All nineteen and one-half feet of her. 

Jefferson Davis (yes, indeed, that Jefferson Davis) was in charge of the then ongoing construction of the Capitol building and all it decorations. There was a kerfuffle between the New Yorker and slave-holding Mississippian. Crawford had originally crowned Freedom with the liberty cap, a symbol of an emancipated slave. Needless to say, Davis being the boss, won the tussle. 

Crawford died in 1857 before the full-size plaster model could be shipped to the United States. In the spring of 1858, divided into six crates, she set sail for New York. During her voyage the ship began taking on water and put in at Gibraltar for repairs. The ship left Gibraltar only to begin leaking again and ending up in Bermuda. After stopping there in storage for a while, Freedom, or at least half of her, arrived in New York City in December, 1858. Finally all parts of the plaster model arrived in Washington, D.C. in late March 1859.

Casting of Freedom in bronze at the Mills Foundry outside Washington, D.C., began in 1860. The work was interrupted in 1861 by the Civil War and again when the foreman in charge of the casting went on strike. Instead of paying him higher wages, Mills turned the project over to Philip Reid, one of his slaves working at the foundry. Reid presided over the rest of the casting and assembly of the figure. Freedom was finished by the end of 1862. On December 2, 1863, a year and a half before the end of the Civil War and eleven months after the Emancipation Proclamation, former slaves completed the installation of this bronze woman called Freedom to her pedestal atop the Capitol of the United States. 

I find it ironic that "Freedom" a.) is personified as a woman; b.) that her design had to be approved by a slave-holding man; and c.) that she was finished and raised to her pedestal by slaves and newly-freed slaves.

Just like that beautiful statue standing high above Washington, D. C., women's rights, indeed almost everyone's rights, have followed a long and torturous path from that grand Declaration of Independence and the nascent days of The Constitution. And it looks like we've still got a ways to go.

With apologies to Arlo Guthrie and his Alice's Restaurant, "Freedom" is what I come here to talk about. Not a statue, or a symbol, but the real freedom for American citizens to make life-changing (even life-or-death) decisions about their own medical care -- specifically women citizens and anyone with a uterus. The Freedom of Choice. And that is exactly what I mean Freedom of Choice. NOT pro-abortion. And having only one choice, is no choice at all.

There are as many experiences of pregnancy as there are people who have been or are pregnant. 

I have a friend whose mother was advised by her doctor to terminate her pregnancy, but she exercised her freedom of choice and carried my friend to term. And I'm glad she did. That instance, however, did not in any way involve a "law" or a court's decision.

What about governmental regulations? 

In 1970 when Air Force Capt. Susan Struck, a career officer serving as a nurse in Vietnam got pregnant, she was transferred to a base in Washington, one of the few states where abortion was then legal. Not only was pregnancy a reason to discharge her, albeit honorably, but the regulation extended beyond that "The commission of any woman officer will be terminated with the least practicable delay when it is established that she...has given birth to a living child while in commissioned officer status."

Despite Struck's plan to give the child up for adoption (which she did) and the fact that she had 60 days of accrued leave for recovery time, a disposition board gave her a choice: Have an abortion on base or leave the military. An abortion or the end of her career? There is no choice here.

Struck's case was brought to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972. Her attorney in the case was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Although the Supreme Court ultimately declined to hear Struck v. Secretary of Defense, Ginsburg's legal wrangling led to the Air Force's decision to reverse its policy.

                             

Where was Liberty for women among these symbols? And it wasn't just the Air Force. It was the Department of Defense.

And it wasn't just the Federal Government who treated pregnant women differently from men although their pregnancy would not affect their ability to do their job. Until the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, women teachers could be required to take enforced, unpaid leave. Private companies could use pregnancy as a reason to deny disability benefits otherwise available to all employees. (I know, I know. pregnancy is not in and of itself a disability. But sometimes pregnancies do not follow a normal course, and mothers-to-be are put on bedrest or have other restrictions to avoid premature birth or miscarriage.) Businesses could refuse to hire someone because they might become pregnant. (I suppose they still can, but they can't say out loud that is the reason.)

Probably the most important thing about the Pregnancy Discrimination Act is that it was passed after the Supreme Court, in 1976, upheld the General Electric Company's right to treat pregnancy-based disability differently than any other nonwork related disability for insurance purposes on the basis that pregnancy-discrimination is not sex discrimination. That 1978 amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by Congress.

"Passed by Congress" to correct what many thought was a wrong decision by the Supreme Court.

The current Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. They said they were returning decisions relating to abortion to the States. Many of us think the current Supreme Court's decision to turn our decisions regarding our own reproductive health over to the various and sundry States was a wrong decision. It's already limiting our Freedom of Choice and endangering not just our reproductive lives but our actual living-and-breathing-free lives. 

Pro Choice is NOT Pro Abortion. It is just what it says. Pro Choice. The Constitution does not give us Freedom. It prohibits government from taking our Freedom away from us.

You and I cannot decide who sits on the Supreme Court of the United States. And we cannot change the fact that it has now given our Freedom of Choice to the State governments to do with as they will.

But we can, together, decide who sits in our State Houses and in our Congress with our votes. It's up to us to protect our Freedom. Our choices this fall will have real life effects on our mothers and sisters, our daughters and granddaughters, on all the men in their lives, and anyone whose lives are directly affected.

It's time to stand up for Freedom.

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The Bridge

 

                                                       This is the bridge.

There is rising sentiment to take the Edmund Pettus name off of the bridge that crosses the Alabama River on the way out of Selma, Alabama, the county seat of Dallas County.

The bridge was built in 1940 and named for a Confederate General. In 1877, during the final year of Reconstruction, that man became the Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. In 1896, at the age of 75, he was elected to the United States Senate. [In those days the state legislatures, rather than voters, elected U. S. Senators.] His campaign relied on his organizing and promoting the Alabama Klan and his adamant opposition to recognizing and allowing implementation of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution.

The 13th Amendment (ratified in 1865) eliminated slavery in the U.S. and its territories. The 14th (ratified in 1868) granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and guaranteed all citizens “equal protection of the laws.” And the 15th Amendment (ratified in 1869) declared that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

[Women citizens were not guaranteed the right to vote until the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920. The right to citizenship and constitutional protections, including the right to vote, did not apply to Native Americans until 1924.]

Dallas County's Voter Registrar's Office was open only two days a month and the staff  habitually came to work late, took long lunch breaks, and left early. Even when African Americans were able to get into the office to register, they were often refused registration.

Any American denied the right to vote has no say at all about who governs them -- who makes the laws and what laws they make, who enforces the laws, and who delivers "equal protection of the laws."

By the beginning of 1965 only 1% of voting aged African American residents in Dallas County were registered to vote.

There were demonstrations. Nonviolent demonstrations. 

By 1965, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) led by Dr. Martin Luther King and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) led by John Lewis were working with local people in nonviolent direct action throughout the south focusing on voter registration and Black participation in elections. 

In January, 1965, more than 100 Black school teachers marched from Selma's Brown Chapel to the Dallas County Courthouse to protest the arrest of Amelia Boynton a local Civil Rights activist. She was arrested by the elected County Sheriff Jim Clark. The teachers were aggressively turned away from the courthouse. They returned to Brown Chapel and held a rally. Those teachers risked losing their jobs. Schools were segregated. African Americans went to Black schools and were taught by Black teachers. White students went to White schools and were taught by White teachers. But hiring and firing of school staff for both school systems were in the hands of a single elected School Board.

Keep in mind who got to vote all those elected officials into their offices. And who did not.

In February Jimmie Lee Jackson, unarmed and participating in a peaceful voting rights march in his hometown, Marion, about 30 miles from Selma, was beaten and shot point blank by an Alabama State Trooper. He died February 26. He was trying to protect his mother. 

Provoked by Jackson's murder, members of the African American community declared their plan for a symbolic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama's state capital, to lay a coffin on then Governor George Wallace's capital steps.

On March 7, 600 people met at Brown Chapel and marched two-by-two, staying on the sidewalks, not blocking the roadway.

          Hosea Williams from SCLC and John Lewis from SNCC led the march that day.

The Alabama State Troopers were under orders from Governor George Wallace to stop the march. Sheriff Clark's posse was on the sidelines, many on horseback.

JOANNE BLAND: "We left Brown Chapel AME Church, going to the bridge, coming to the bridge, thinking that we were doing a symbolic march. It was supposed to be a symbolic thing, that we’d go and then we’d turn around and come back. But it didn’t happen that way.

"When we got to the bridge, I was in the middle of the bridge when all of a sudden they started to kneel and pray. But the men in the group came and crowded — put all the women in the middle. That was my first inkling that something was wrong, that something bad was going to happen, because that had never happened before, and I had been on hundreds of marches. And by the time we all kneeled down, I heard what I thought were gunshots and screams. So I thought they were killing the people up front, they were just shooting them. And by the time we got up enough to see what was happening, it was like the domino effect. The people from the front were running back, and people on horses were riding and beating people. Horses were stepping on people. Even coming back, the troopers had on a gas mask. But at that time I didn’t know what a gas mask was. So there were these monsters in uniform running toward us, running toward us, beating people unmercifully.

"The last thing I remember on the bridge was a horse. This man had come over the hill, and he was just beating people, just hitting anybody, and the horse bumped this lady, and she fell down. And the horse reared up, and when it came down, its hoof came down on her arm, and it broke it. And the bone came through here, and blood just went up like a fountain. It’s the last thing I remember until I woke up on this side of the bridge in the back of a car."

Amelia Boynton was beaten unconscious.

                         John Lewis on his knees being beaten in the foreground.

All three major television networks broke into their Sunday evening programming with film from what would be forever after known as Bloody Sunday.

A call went out for people of good will to come to Alabama for a march to follow two days later. And they came. People from all over the United States including 450 white clergymen. 2,000 people met at Brown Chapel and started the second march to Montgomery.

But George Wallace had gotten a Federal Judge to issue an injunction against the march.

Left to right: John Lewis in the light colored vest, Rev. and Mrs. Ralph Abernathy, 1950 Nobel Peace Laureate Ralph Bunche, Unidentified man, Dr. and Mrs. King, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Hosea Williams holding a child.

Because of the Federal injunction, when confronted by Alabama State Troops, Dr. King turned the people around and went back across the bridge to Selma. He believed the injunction would legitimize whatever action the troopers might take.

Those who had come for the second march were asked to stay a little longer. Talks were ongoing with President Johnson to get federal protection for the marchers and legal action was being taken to get the injunction lifted for a third attempt to make the march.

That night, a group of White men beat and murdered civil rights activist James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Boston, who had come to Selma to march with the second group.

Federal Judge Frank Johnson, Jr., ruled that the activists had the Constitutional right to march from Selma to Montgomery as a means to petition the government for the right to vote. President Johnson called up the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers from Selma to Montgomery.

Thousands went to Alabama to join the march. 3,200 people crossed the bridge March 21, 1965.

Left to right: John Lewis, unidentified nun, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. King, Ralph Bunche, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, and Fred Shuttlesworth. (The leis were brought from Hawaii by a delegation of supporters who came to join the march.)

By the time they traveled the 54 miles to Montgomery on March 25, they were 25,000 strong.

Yes, do take the Pettus name off of the bridge, but please do not name it the John Lewis Bridge as some have suggested.

Yes, Congressman Lewis did devote his life to working for all Americans to have the rights and liberties the Constitution provides for. But he was not the only one who crossed that bridge.

There were so many people who marched. Who crossed that bridge. Some of them nationally and even internationally famous -- Dr. Martin Luther King,  Reverend Dr. Ralph Abernathy, Coretta Scott King, Ralph Bunche, John Lewis. James Baldwin was there. Joan Baez, and James Forman were there. Harry Belafonte and Tony Bennett were there. And some were famous in Alabama like Amelia Boynton. But most of them were like Joanne Bland, well known to their friends and families and neighbors. 

Those thousands who were finally able to cross that bridge and march from Selma to Montgomery to petition their government. They were from all over America, and their one unifying principle was that all Americans should have the unfettered right to vote. They should have a say in who represents them in making decisions for their schools and town and county and country.

I cannot think that John Lewis, the man, would want his name on that bridge. That was a bridge to Freedom. Put his name on H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019, currently awaiting passage in Congress.

                                      And name the bridge FREEDOM.

On Courage -- An Essay

Lady Liberty is a symbol of many things to many people. For me she is the symbol of the best promises of the people of the United States as codified in our Constitution. Promises we have not yet completely achieved, but promises nonetheless. Promises of welcome. Of safety. Of power. Of freedom. Each of these, to me, requires great courage.

Welcome -- It takes courage to open our door to people we don't yet know. It takes courage to trust that the door will be open to those who leave the lands and families and neighbors they do know.

Safety -- It takes courage to build a government that will protect the lives and liberties of ALL the people here now and who will be here in the years to come.

Power -- This may take the most courage of all. The courage to use our power to care for ourselves, our families, our neighbors. The courage to exercise our power against those who would limit it to any of us. Those of us who have not historically had power must have the courage to stand up and demand the power we should have. And we must all always have the courage to accept the responsibility that goes with power.

Freedom -- Maybe this doesn't require courage so much as it requires honesty. We have to be honest with ourselves about the consequences of what we think, say, and do. Are we willing to allow our own treasured freedoms to the other people in our country, in our world? Are we honest about our goals, our methods to reach those goals, and whether or not those goals will be for good purpose? Greed and ambition cannot be allowed to corrupt that good purpose.

The promises of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness for all, as stated in our Declaration of Independence and codified in our Constitution, have not yet been realized. But we must continue to work toward keeping and protecting those promises.

This is a dangerous time in the United States. We have people at the top of our government who do not believe in these promises. They measure our republic's value by how much money and power they can take for themselves. True courage cannot exist when motivated by greed and ambition.

The current witnesses in the Impeachment Hearings are courageous. They know what they risk by testifying. And I'm not talking about just their positions as long-time government employees or the inevitable avalanche of hate mail and email. Their lives are literally at risk. There are plenty of damaged people out there who will see themselves as heroes serving "their leader" by killing these witnesses.

Trump's inflammatory speech and behavior not only endanger the witnesses against him, but the people who defend him. There are damaged people out there on the other side of the political spectrum who will see themselves as heroes by killing Trump and/or his defenders.

Many of the people who would be caught in that crossfire are government employees protecting Trump and his allies, not because they necessarily agree with them but because it is their job. Or it could be someone who shares opinions in the coffee shop or has bumper stickers or cuts someone off in traffic.

In times like this when there is so much dissension, there are those who will irrationally lash out against anyone for any reason or no reason at all.

The constitutionally mandated impeachment process must go forward. Thoughts and prayers alone will not protect our nation or our people. We must all have the courage to support our Congressional members whether we agree with them or not.

So, if we hear or see something threatening, we must have the courage to say something. Even if we are many miles away from Washington, D.C., and many degrees of separation away from any political side. And even if the people being threatened have no direct say in what's happening in D.C.

The 4th Estate and the 1st Amendment

Investigative Journalism,image from UNESCO

The term The Fourth Estate is used to refer to the press and, in today's world, to television and radio news, and internet news sources. According to 19th Century Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, the term was first used by Edmund Burke in a parliamentary debate in 1787 on whether to open the House of Commons to reporters. Burke said "there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.”

Four years later, Amendment I to the United States Constitution was adopted, recognizing and protecting five rights necessary to sustaining the freedom of a people to govern themselves. It reads:

     "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
       the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
       right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a
       redress of grievances."

These civil rights were originally intended to protect individuals from laws made by the U.S. Congress -- the Senate and House of Representatives. Of course in those days that meant only white men. Not women, not slaves, not Native Americans, etc. etc. etc.

Gradually, those civil rights have become recognized as belonging to the rest of us. And now they protect us from State and Local governments as well as the Federal Government. We achieved that recognition as a result of people exercising those rights before they were officially law. Exercising them at great risk to themselves, their families, and their livelihoods.

An educated electorate is necessary to oversee our elected government. By educated I do not mean certified by some educational institution. I mean we need to know what our government leaders and employees are doing. This is where The Fourth Estate comes in.

We don't have time in our own lives to attend our respective state houses on a daily basis while they are in session. And most of us live too far from D.C. to observe Congress, or the Supreme Court while they're in session. We, as individuals, have no access to the President as he conducts the daily business of our nation.

We do have access to proposed laws and regulations if we want to take the time necessary to look them up online. We can opt to watch Congressional debates and hearings on CSPAN. We can read Supreme Court decisions, including dissenting opinions, again online. But we can't question the people arguing in those debates and participating in those hearings. We usually don't have access to experts who can discuss or explain the pros and cons of this law or that regulation. Often, because our thoughts as rightfully caught up in our own affairs, we don't take time to even imagine how actions they take and decisions they make might directly affect us.

Because I am retired, I probably have more time to do these things. I'm seldom too tired to watch anything more demanding on TV than 'Dancing with the Stars.' But many of my fellow citizens are. I don't usually need to decompress from my real-life life by playing 'Minecraft' or 'Sims.' But many of my neighbors and friends do.

Whatever our situation, we need a free press to keep us informed about the business of government -- not just the national government as it operates in D.C. But as it protects me and mine on the open seas and the battlefields and in the foreign government and corporate offices of the whole wide world. As it functions on my neighborhood streets by monitoring the safety of our automobiles. As it operates in my kitchen by monitoring the safety of our food. As it works in the medicine chest over my bathroom sink by monitoring the safety of my prescription medications.

I need a free press to keep me informed about the business of government at my State Capital. As it works with the Federal Government and on its own. I need them to help keep track of my local government, my local school board, my state and local courts.

Our Federal, State, County, and City governments are all there to take care of OUR communal business and it is ultimately our responsibility to oversee their work. There's no way we can keep up with them without the much maligned 'media.'

From the beginning of our Republic our Fourth Estate has been shot through with news people more concerned with selling ads and papers. Easy news costs less to collect and is less likely to alienate advertisers and patrons. It means more profit for the news provider. News like who got a ticket for speeding, which local society dame attended what cotillion, who died and when their funeral is scheduled, how the local sports teams are doing, what building permit has been issued, and how much black-baldies are selling for a-hundred-weight. It's all news of interest to somebody.

Then there is the sensational news guaranteed to attract news consumers and thereby sell ads. This news is also fairly easily and inexpensively come by. News about which celeb is in trouble with the law, who's sleeping with whom especially if they have some sort of celebrity status, or shocking declarations from someone with or without legitimate standing that are guaranteed to incite public passions. Again news of interest to someone.

Then there is investigative reporting. That's when news people spend time and resources exploring illegal, unethical, and/or immoral practices by people in responsible positions within our core institutions. This is the news that brings The Fourth Estate into its own. It's usually not easy and seldom inexpensive. On top of that, the results may not be popular or pleasant.

In the mid 1800s Harper's Weekly exposed New York City's corrupt Tammany Hall machine. They reported in print and Thomas Nast's political cartoons, taking aim at the political machine's head honcho.

  

Pretty good resemblence, doncha think? Boss Tweed is reported to have said "I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles, my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures." He didn't want people to 'know.'

In 1954 Edward R. Murrow, a television journalist, responded to a personal attack on him after CBS News reported on Joseph McCarthy's tyrannical behavior in the U.S. Senate. People needed to know. Something needed to be said. Murrow said it.

Click on the date to see and hear what this journalist had to say.
April 13, 1954

In 1972 Woodward and Bernstein brought Watergate to light resulting in indictments of 40 administration officials, the resignation of President Nixon, and the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

In 2003 members of The Boston Globe's Spotlight team received the Pulitzer Prize for their series exposing the cover-up by the Catholic Church of wide-spread sexual abuse of children. How much longer would this despicable behavior been allowed to continue if the world had waited for the Church to fix it? For the law to discover it?

These are but a few examples of the news that people needed to know so something could be done, but we would never have been able to dig it out ourselves.

An informed electorate. That is what is necessary for a free people to govern themselves. It is the responsibility of journalists, regardless of their medium, to provide us dependable information in a fair and unbiased form, regardless of whose ox is gored. That doesn't always happen.

Sometimes they have profits to make. They have pet projects to promote. They have people or beliefs or plans for their own futures to protect.

Sometimes we have to be skeptical and do a little research of our own. We have a vast set of governments to oversee thus insuring the freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment. Media news people are valuable tools for us to use. It is up to us as individuals to responsibly consume the news.

Zory

Today is the last day of the 2016 April A to Z Blogging Challenge. Writing has always been my most effective way to process events, curiosities, life questions. Sometimes small and easily overlooked, sometimes too big and scary to look at directly.

Today is Z and today's piece is not a story or an essay or any other organized piece of literature. It's just an exploration without making a point or even identifying the point. Maybe some day one or more of these people will become a character I can get inside of and write a story. Or maybe I can do enough research to craft an essay with a point.

Until then let's just wander through my memories and ancillary thoughts, keeping in mind that they are my memories and thoughts and, as such, are flawed.

With the plight of the refugees trying to get out of the middle east, I think of the only refugees that I've known very well.

When I was in high school, Maria, one of my best friends, was a Cuban refugee. (I'll use a fictitious surname for the family.) I don't know exactly when Maria and her family left Cuba or how they ended up in Oklahoma. Maybe she said, but I don't remember.

What I do remember is the story about Zory. Maria, who had two younger sisters, was a year ahead of me in school. Luly was my age, and Zory was the youngest.

When the family left Cuba, they were allowed to bring only the clothes they wore.

While fairly rare in Oklahoma to have girls younger than our mothers' age with pierced ears, it was not uncommon for baby girls in Cuba to. And Zory did. Mrs. Sanchez put her ruby earrings in Zory's ears. They were her engagement gift from Mr. Sanchez and she hoped to be able to keep them.

Officers at the airport took their money. They took Mrs. Sanchez's jewelry including her diamond wedding rings, but did not question the ruby earrings in the baby's ears. They let Maria's mother keep her fur coat, too. I guess the coat wouldn't have been very valuable in Cuba's tropical climate or the new communist mode.

It's the ruby earrings smuggled out in Zory's ears that I most remember about their refugee story. How scary it must have been getting the baby through the officials onto the plane that would take them to the United States and freedom. Even now, just thinking about it conjures fear in my heart.

When I heard the story, my drama-teen mind imagined communist police ripping the earrings out of baby Zory's ears. Maybe that is exactly the thought that sits in my chest today making my breath shallow as I write this.

My today's mind knows that would likely not have happened. A more frightening thought now is that smuggling ruby earrings would have been sufficient cause to stop them getting onto the plane.

Maria's family owned a school in Cuba. I don't know where exactly, but her father ran the school and taught there.

Maria told us that her father originally supported Castro against the dictator Batista. Because her father supported the rebels, the Batista people had him on a list for execution. So they were happy when Castro won. But then Castro turned communist. (That's how we American's saw the events in the early sixties.)

The Sanchezes owned two houses, one in the mountains where they spent the summers because it was cool. Then Castro closed all the private schools. He took the school property and their home in the mountains and began rounding up the country's educated and upper class people. Mr. Sanchez began working against Castro.

Maria told stories about the anti-Castro young people roaming the city at night spray painting anti-communist slogans on walls. She told us about being chased by the police.

When the Sanchezes heard that Mr. Sanchez was on a list to be arrested by the Castro regime, they decided to leave Cuba.

In Oklahoma, the Sanchezes lived in a small frame, two-bedroom, one bath house. Mr. Sanchez, who spoke English, worked in a factory until he was able to get a job teaching at a Black university. Mrs. Sanchez, who did not speak English, did alterations for a department store.

By the time I knew them, which was maybe three years after they left Cuba, the girls spoke English, their only accent -- Oklahoman. I knew they lived differently from most of us. They ate avocados with olive oil. They put beans and rice on to cook for supper every evening after school, because their mother didn't get home from work until after six. (Most of our mothers didn't work.) They weren't allowed to date. Not even after they were sixteen. They only had one car.

Back then I never thought about how different it must have been for the three girls. The Sanchezes were white upper-class Cubans. In Cuba, they had two homes, servants. Their father was a recognized intellectual. They enjoyed status. They had extended family and family friends they'd known all their lives. They celebrated holidays and birthdays with Cuban music and Cuban food and Cuban games. And attended church where they had been christened. All in Spanish.

In Oklahoma, they spoke Spanish only in their home with their family and their little dog Dukey. The Cuban exile community in Oklahoma did come together for celebrations and partied in Cuban style. But then they would all go away again, to their adopted Anglo-Oklahoma lives.

I lost track of them when Luly and I graduated high school, but I know the Sanchezes sent Maria and Luly to college. Maria even joined a sorority, which must have been sort of like the social groups she would have enjoyed in Cuba -- but still no dating.

It's not until now as an adult that I think how lonely Mrs. Sanchez must have been. To work all day, when she'd never worked before. To hear nothing but an alien language from the time she left home in the morning until she came home at night. To know what a privileged life her children could have had, had things not gone so badly wrong in the land of her birth.

I remember her dressing to go to weddings of the children of her Cuban friends and friends of her Cuban American daughters. She always wore her fur coat and the ruby earrings.

If I were writing her story, that coat and the Zory earrings would be declarations of defiance and perseverance and, in the end, victory.

Libraries, Who Needs 'em?

image from The Earth Story's Facebook Page

These are books. Very old books from a library in Timbuktu, a city in Mali on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. This photo and the accompanying article are from a page I follow on Facebook.

In 2012 Islamic extremists backed by al-Qaida took over the city of Timbuktu. They began a pogrom against people and thoughts that differed from their own, in this case specifically against the Sufi branch of Islam. They meant to eradicate not only the public exercise of Sufi traditions, but Sufi thought as well. To that end, they set out to destroy mausoleums, mosques, and the library.

Timbuktu's library contained thousands of books, ranging far beyond Sufi religious scholarship. Many were from the founding of Timbuktu's university in 989 CE. The library had survived centuries of comings and goings of controlling forces, up to and including French colonization from 1893 to 1960. Always adding to its collection.

Thanks to the courage of a group of people who understood the value of preserving these books, the books were smuggled out of the city and are being stored in safer areas until they can be restored.

For a more complete story about this click on Endangered library.

I have a cyber friend who lives in Scotland. She's a retired librarian and an active traveler and blogger. (https://anabelsblog.wordpress.com/) She recently blogged about libraries in England being closed because the economy there is on a downturn and public funding is tight. That got me to thinking.

I'm from Oklahoma so I know a little something about the vagaries of economies and public funding. Oklahoma is an oil producing state, so when oil is up, Oklahoma booms. People buy jewelry, hire interior decorators, and travel the world in style. When oil is down, as it is right now, pawn shops do well and interior decorators tighten their belts. People go to Vegas in economy class and Oklahoma holds its breath.

Oklahoma does its public libraries on a county basis, meaning that the libraries are maintained by county governments. The local public library has always been an important part of my life. Saturdays were for grocery shopping and going to the library -- gathering sustenance for the week ahead. And sometimes going to the movies.

When I worked at the Edmond Public Library, Oklahoma was in an economic state of equilibrium, not the best of times and not the worst of times. The Edmond Public Library is part of Oklahoma County's Metropolitan Library System which has satellite libraries scattered throughout the county. Not all of the satellites are open every day of the week. And not all have extensive collections in-house, but you can check out any book available in any of the public libraries in Oklahoma County and have it there within two or three days. Or you can check them out on-line and pick them up at your local library.

If the book is not available from MLS, they will help you do an inter-library loan. That means they can find the book (or documents) you want wherever it might be in the U.S., even in college collections, and have it for you in a couple of weeks.

When I worked there, the Edmond library circulated more items than any other library in the state, public or private. And we were busy from opening to closing.

People used the computers to search for jobs or to do research for the jobs they already had. They met in the library to quilt with their friends, to listen to representatives of government agencies explain programs and regulations. They attended book signings with their favorite authors and got help filing their income tax returns. There were Story Times for children and Read to a Dog sessions for young readers. (Dogs listen patiently and don't rush or correct a reader.)

Religious groups, political groups, hobby groups -- anyone could book a meeting room there whether they were politically correct or not so long as they didn't DO anything illegal or disruptive while in the library.

Personal privacy was strictly protected. All record of what you checked out of the library was deleted from any records connecting to your name when the item was checked back in. If it was checked in, no one could track your reading interests. Not the government, not your employer, not your insurance company, and not even your mother.

And we had everything from Manga to classical music CDs, magazines, newspapers, and of course books. Books about everything in the universe and by almost anyone who'd ever been published. And in other languages. And E-books complete with an e-reader if you didn't have your own. Yes, and even items about things that you might not want your mother to know you were interested in.

Research librarians didn't just sit at their desks and point you to the stacks. They were actually qualified to and enthusiastic about helping you find the information you wanted.

Libraries are our passport to the world, to the past, to the future. And public libraries make that passport available to us all whether or not we can afford to buy books or pay a monthly internet bill.

The First Amendment to the American Constitution protects freedom of religion, free speech (which includes the written word,) freedom of the press, freedom of peaceable assembly, and the freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances.

Public libraries give us access to learn about all these things we have the constitutional rights to do. And a safe place to do them all.

Sometimes the library is the only place to go for peace and quiet when your house is chaos and you just want to read the local paper or the New Orleans Times Picayune or maybe just take a little nap.

To endure, a free and democratic nation needs a well-informed electorate. Libraries provide access to information for us all.

Who needs a library? We do.

Support your local library.