It was also the weekend of the memorial service for the great Maya Angelou, (who once, believe it or not, gave me an award), and the weekend that our ever so funny hip black comedian, Tracey Morgan, (whose career started in my Bronx high school) was nearly killed in a brutal highway accident caused by a Walmart truck. He is fighting for life.
Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich noted this weekend that the past we fought over then has an insidious way of not dying:
"Mississippi used its new voter-identification law for the first time Tuesday -- requiring voters to show a driver's license or other government-issued photo ID at the polls. The official reason given for the new law is alleged voter fraud, although the state hasn't been able to provide any evidence that voter fraud is a problem.
The real reason for the law is to suppress the votes of the poor, especially African-Americans, some of whom won't be able to afford the cost of a photo ID.
It's a tragic irony that this law became effective almost exactly fifty years after three young civil rights workers -- Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman -- were tortured and murdered in Mississippi for trying to register African-Americans to vote."
Reich was a friend of Mickey Schwerner. Schwerner and I worked with CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, and after he died, I took over his job as a dishwasher at the AE Pi fraternity house.
Schwerner and his compatriots were remembered in President David Skorton's, "State of the University speech. (Skorton is leaving to take over the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.)
After he was done, I was outside the hall, handing out leaflets the way I used to but a rarity in our digital age, communicating the proposal of today's students, organizations, faculty members and alums to build a prominent memorial on campus to honor the civil rights movement.
Our statement read:
"Fifty years ago, on June 21, 1964, these three civil rights activists were brutally murdered in Mississippi. James Chaney was a native son of that state. Michael Schwerner graduated from Cornell in 1961. Andrew Goodman had extensive family connections to Cornell.
Over the past year, distinguished faculty, hundreds of students, over 40 students organizations, and an alumni committee have asked Cornell to authorize the construction of a prominent outdoor memorial to the memory of these three martyrs. Members of the S-C-G Memorial Project believe that a memorial to the heroism of these young men would serve as a campus touchstone for the values that inspired them and for which they gave their lives: social justice, democracy, and equal rights. Their example and commitment must not be forgotten by future generations of Cornellians.
Cornell has stated that it deeply desires that this memorial be built. However, challenges remain. If you would like to become a project supporter or would just like more information, please contact Bill Schechter, '68, at schech|AT|rcn.com Email address">schech|AT|rcn.comEmail address."
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