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I awoke this morning, just fine physically and otherwise. In a strange weather twist, our last summer was unseasonably cool and our current winter, despite a challenging period in and around Thanksgiving Day, has been unseasonably warm -- 30s, even deep 40s -- and a lot of snow has melted amidst often gentle rains. The brief lupus flare that hit me a few days ago has gone under [a "flare" is a sudden attack with internal connotations, often marked by chest rash] but it's obvious that my "system" is now much stronger than it's been for almost eight years. Later this month, I'll be giving a couple of related civil rights talks in this region to large gatherings. This post contains one of our website recollections of Martin King from our large webpage on Medgar Evers. They -- and a vast number of others -- back in the Old Time of the Southern Movement -- displayed consistent courage and vision under the most difficult circumstances. They fit very well into the dichotomy that I sometimes draw: the people who serve their communities and the people who serve themselves. I also have a word sketch of Josephine Gates Kelly, drawn from the crystal clear recollections of her daughter, one of our very oldest family friends. Josephine Kelly was the first woman to head an Indian nation, the Standing Rock Sioux, after passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. She was a fighter for her tribe and the Indian people generally all through her long life. With her tribal council, she hitch-hiked all the way from North Dakota to Washington DC to raise pure hell with the Government. [That entity was glad to pay their way back to Standing Rock via train.] She did not "hold her tongue" on any issue affecting her people and Natives in general. Martin King didn't hold his tongue either, nor did Medgar Evers. If they had been privileged to know Josephine Kelly, they would have liked and admired her immensely. And it would have been very mutual. H. [From our website page on Medgar Evers: I knew Martin King -- not deeply and well -- but consistently. I called him on the night of June 13 1963 from Jackson -- two days after Medgar Evers was shot and killed. Our rapidly growing protest demonstrations were being bloodily suppressed. I asked Dr King to come to Jackson for Medgar's funeral on June 15. He readily agreed to do so. We picked him up and several key staff of his -- Ralph Abernathy, Wyatt Walker and others -- at the police-drenched Jackson airport. It was already very hot and the temperature was to go, that day, to 102 super-humid degrees. Martin King and Dr Abernathy rode in my car -- along with Bill Kunstler -- and the others were brought by Ed King. We had a very grudging police escort from the city's all-White police department. The Jackson setting could not have been more lethally dangerous for all of us -- but Dr King visited easily and casually with me, and I with him, as we traveled the very dangerous several miles to the Negro Masonic Temple on Lynch Street. The funeral was huge -- several thousand people, inside and out -- and, following the funeral, six thousand of us marched the two miles or so from the Temple to the Collins Funeral Home on Farish Street. [It was the first "legal" civil rights demonstration in Mississippi's hate-filled, sanguinary history.] Then, there was a second massive demonstration -- which is discussed in my following post on Medgar Evers. I knew Medgar Wiley Evers deeply and well. http://hunterbear.org/medgar_w.htm Note by Hunter Bear -- a couple of years ago: Last night, I visited by phone for a long time with one of our oldest family friends, the always community-serving and most capable Susan Kelly Power of the Standing Rock Sioux [the reservation is south of Bismarck, N.D.] and very much of Chicago. Susan is about ten years older than I and we've been involved in a number of Native doings -- especially Native rights and Native well-being causes. Our visit began, as always, with a one-by-one recounting of how family members are doing -- occasionally touching on national politics, and especially "Indian politics." She has many stories to tell -- and sometimes they involve her extraordinary mother, Josephine Gates Kelly, a trail-blazing activist and, for a long spell, the first woman tribal chair after the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. She told me one last night which I had never heard. Carl Rowan, the Black journalist, having heard of the female leader of an Indian tribe, journeyed when young to Standing Rock to interview Josephine Kelly. He found her in her home -- a very small and very plain house, worn badly by the ferocity of Dakota climes. There was no electricity nor running water. She poured coffee for him and they visited. "Why," he asked her, "do you live in this house? On my way to you, I saw others that are in much better shape." Josephine Kelly looked at the earnest Black journalist for a long moment, then said very pleasantly: "Mr Rowan, I certainly mean no offense to you or your people. I respect you. But all of you have the culture of the whites. Many of our people are living in houses just like mine. Maybe, maybe some day, when all of us here have the larger homes and running water and some of the other things, maybe -- maybe then I'll move into something a little bigger." Carl Rowan was greatly impressed and wrote of this. HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ and Ohkwari' Our Hunterbear website is now eleven years old. It contains a vast amount of social justice material -- including much on techniques of grassroots activist organizing. Check out http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm See - Outlaw Trail: The Native As Organizer: http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm [Included in Visions & Voices: Native American Activism [2009] See - Just What Makes A Damn Good Community Organizer: http://www.hunterbear.org/just_what_makes_a_damn_good_comm.htm And See - Gray Lands And Gray Ghosts: The Time Of Flint: http://hunterbear.org/GRAY%20LANDS%20AND%20GRAY%20GHOSTS.htm ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
