Learning About the 60s

Reading is something I try "to-do" everyday, with my success largely affected by how joyous I find the material. For example, I devour Montana history and murder mysteries, while I slog through the classics and this one, which I'm reading right now (and have been for months), a collection of New Yorker articles from the 1960s - my parents' generation.

It's a chore almost, however I know it's important to learn about this stuff in hopes to better understand today's political landscape, maybe uncover some guiding principles used in decision-making, and, generally, maximize my ability to communicate with and have empathy for my parents and what they went through.

What has me writing a blog this morning are two things from "It Doesn't Seem Quick To Me" an article by Katharine T. Kinkead about the desegregation of Durham. The first is a quote from a picket line that reads, "Why Feed Red Propaganda by Making Democracy a Lie." Deep stuff that speaks, I think, to the nation's fear of Russian meddling and how segregation is illegal and considering it not is to be a communist.

A second quote, from the author herself, brilliantly describes how white people act when faced with such a movement as a picket line, "seemed to disturb quite a few white adolescent couples. They would halt their conversation for a moment when they spied the pickets, and then, looking straight ahead, would proceed into the theatre with elaborate nonchalance."

Sounds like stories of today. 

I better get to reading this one. There are lessons that need to be learned and wisdom that needs to be applied to the affairs of today, so we don't have to repeat this stuff. So we can be better.