
January 15, 2023
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
JAN 16
You hear sometimes that, now that we know the sordid details of the lives of some of our leading figures, America has no heroes left.
When I was writing a book about the Wounded Knee Massacre, where heroism was pretty thin on the ground, I gave that a lot of thought. And I came to believe that heroism is neither being perfect, nor doing something spectacular. In fact, it’s just the opposite: it’s regular, flawed human beings, choosing to put others before themselves, even at great cost, even if no one will ever know, even as they realize the walls might be closing in around them.
It means sitting down the night before D-Day and writing a letter praising the troops and taking all the blame for the next day’s failure upon yourself, in case things went wrong, as General Dwight D. Eisenhower did.
It means writing in your diary that you “still believe that people are really good at heart,” even while you are hiding in an attic from the men who are soon going to kill you, as Anne Frank did.
It means signing your name to the bottom of the Declaration of Independence in bold print, even though you know you are signing your own death warrant should the British capture you, as John Hancock did.
It means defending your people’s right to practice a religion you don’t share, even though you know you are becoming a dangerously visible target, as Sitting Bull did.
Sometimes it just means sitting down, even when you are told to stand up, as Rosa Parks did.
None of those people woke up one morning and said to themselves that they were about to do something heroic. It’s just that, when they had to, they did what was right.
On April 3, 1968, the night before the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a white supremacist, he gave a speech in support of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Since 1966, King had tried to broaden the Civil Rights Movement for racial equality into a larger movement for economic justice. He joined the sanitation workers in Memphis, who were on strike after years of bad pay and such dangerous conditions that two men had been crushed to death in garbage compactors.
After his friend Ralph Abernathy introduced him to the crowd, King had something to say about heroes: “As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about.”
Dr. King told the audience that, if God had let him choose any era in which to live, he would have chosen the one in which he had landed. “Now, that’s a strange statement to make,” King went on, “because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around…. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.” Dr. King said that he felt blessed to live in an era when people had finally woken up and were working together for freedom and economic justice.
He knew he was in danger as he worked for a racially and economically just America. “I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter…because I’ve been to the mountaintop…. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life…. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”
People are wrong to say that we have no heroes left.
Just as they have always been, they are all around us, choosing to do the right thing, no matter what.
Wishing you all a day of peace for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2023.
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Eco warriors and politics
- U.S. Senate confirms a military nominee, the first since Tuberville blockade began (TN Lookout)
- State revenue falls amid tax holidays, business break (TN Lookout)
- Tennessee leads nation in arresting and punishing pregnant women (TN Lookout)
- John Cole’s Tennessee: Autopsy report (TN Lookout)
- Keep arbitration an option for older Americans (TN Lookout)
- Tennessee State University’s Glover urges state to pony up $2.1 billion (TN Lookout)
- States urged by Biden administration to rectify underfunding of land-grant HBCUs (TN Lookout)
- Election map: 2023 Nashville mayor race looks like 2020 Presidential election (TN Lookout)
- Lee launches $20M family grant program (TN Journal)
- Feds indict five former Memphis police officers in Tyre Nichols killing (TN Journal)
- Tarwater sworn into Tennessee Supreme Court (TN Journal)
- New TNJ edition alert: A special session post-mortem, another RNC snub, and Gloria hopes to take on Marsha (TN Journal)
- Gloria Johnson announces U.S. Senate campaign (TN Journal)
- New TNJ edition alert: Another House fracas, Kelsey wants bail, and a Sundquist obit (TN Journal)
- House turmoil focus of special session coverage (TN Journal)
- Special session in the headlines (TN Journal)
Science and stuff
- How brain implants are treating depression (Science News Daily)
- Today’s depression treatments don’t help everyone (Science News Daily)
- The science behind deep brain stimulation for depression (Science News Daily)
- What’s it like to live with deep brain stimulation for depression? (Science News Daily)
- There’s a stigma around brain implants and other depression treatments (Science News Daily)
- What’s the future of deep brain stimulation for depression? (Science News Daily)
- How drones are helping scientists find meteorites (Science News Daily)
- Interlocking logs may be evidence of the oldest known wooden structure (Science News Daily)
- Why sewage may hold the key to tracking diseases far beyond COVID-19 (Science News Daily)
- 50 years ago, the quest for superheavy elements was just getting started (Science News Daily)
Discussing
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- Feel Good Friday,,,From our "If Only" Dept. (1 reply)
- Tennessee Education Worsens Under Bill Lee and GOP (1 reply)
- The Most Important Thing You Will Read Today! (1 reply)
- Friday Toons (1 reply)
- TN GOP Congressman Stands with George Santos in Refusing to File Legally Required Fedral Financial Disclosure DocumentsFederal (1 reply)
- About Danged Time! (1 reply)
- Former GOP Speaker of the House Arrested Facing 20 years (1 reply)
- Why the Allman Brothers Band is the greatest Southern Jam Band of All Time or...Why Cher Married Gregg (1 reply)
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