Coach Lee

I met Charles Lee when I was fourteen years old. He was the head football coach at Benjamin Russell High School in Alexander City, Alabama.

The year was 1967, and I was caught in the middle. I was caught between white people and Black people, integration and segregation, childhood and manhood, the religious and the secular, education and ignorance. I had decided to become one of a few Black kids to integrate Benjamin Russell, and Coach Lee would very soon become one of the most important people in my life.

I am not an easy person to know. Not then, not now. It takes a little effort. It takes courage, maybe even determination. I will not willingly share my innermost thoughts. I will not easily or quickly trust anyone.  Gullibility does not exist within me. I can walk away from anything and anyone. I have no fear of acting or being alone.

Coach Lee is a legendary figure in Alabama high school sports. His wrestling teams dominated the state for more than a decade. His football teams were consistent winners as well. Before retiring, he was also an athletic director, high school Principal, and selected to the Alabama High School Athletic Hall of Fame. As an incoming freshman athlete from the Black school across town, Coach Lee had a special interest in me. As the gate-keeper for the dream I had of playing varsity football at Benjamin Russell High, I had a special interest in him. Coach did not spend a lot of time with freshmen, we had our own coach and played our own games, but I noticed him watching us carefully, especially when we scrimmaged against the varsity.

My relationship with my father was non-existent, because I did not know who he was. I grew up under the impression that my step-father was my dad, which illustrates the kind of relationship I had with my mother. Obviously, today, I’m done with anyone that lies to me. However, when I was fourteen none of this was known to me. Like most children of that age, if my father couldn’t stand the sight of me, and my mother was ambivalent, it had to be my fault, right? My mother did not admit to me the truth about my parentage until I was 27 years old. Of course, by that time my real father was dead, and the psychological portrait was complete.

Coach Lee was a very organized man. Everything we did during practice had a purpose. We had a routine that became ingrained in all of us, so that by the time we were seniors, we could practice without the coaches. We always had short term and long term goals, Coach Lee inspired us, motivated us, and made us laugh. We learned to work together, he emphasized how all eleven players had a role to play on every play, and success depended on everybody doing their individual job. Coach Lee despised a quitter. To him that was the worst thing anybody could be. Every year during Spring practice he would push us to our physical and mental limits, to find out who the quitters were, so we could get rid of them before the season started in the fall. It was Coach Lee who instilled in me the importance of not dropping the ball. He made it clear that everybody on the team were working to gain possession of that ball and to move it across the goal line, and to simply drop it, and give it back to the other team was simply unacceptable.

I will always remember the way he talked to us before, during, and after games. He helped me understand the symbolic importance of wearing our uniform, representing our school, city, parents, alumni, and friends. I learned to accept that responsibility. I learned it wasn’t just about me. In later years, I realized how important it was that coach would chew us out, embarrass us even, in the locker room, but never, ever in public.

Prior to the 1969-1970 school year, I was tempted to leave Benjamin Russell High and go back to the Black school I had come from. After the tumultuous year of 1968, most of the Black people I knew were encouraging me to do that. Martin Luther King had been killed. The Black Power protests had occurred at the Olympic Games in Mexico City. The Black Panthers were prominent, Robert Kennedy had been killed, the inner cities were burning from rioting, and the Viet Nam war was raging. Some of the people that I called friends were telling me if I stayed at Russell I was an Uncle Tom. I was 16 years old, and I didn’t know what to do, so I asked Coach Lee. When I told him what was going on, he told me I should stay. He then told me something no one on my side of town knew at the time. A decision had been made to close the Black school for the 1970-1971 school year. If I left, I would have to come back after one year anyway. He then reminded me that I had shown the courage to start something in 1967, and I needed to find the courage to finish it now. He told me he knew I was not a quitter, that I had never disappointed him before, and not to start now. I stayed.

I had another memorable conversation with Coach Lee after my senior year. I had been offered a scholarship to play football at Alabama State University, an HBCU (Historically Black College/University) in Montgomery, Alabama. When I talked to Coach Lee about it he said, “Charlie, why don’t you go to Auburn”? The thought of going to Auburn had not occurred to me before that moment. That question changed my life. That question also encapsulates what Coach Lee thought of me. He made it clear to me that he thought I was as capable of success as anybody else. He made it clear that he believed in me.

Today I realize that so many of the things that Coach Lee instilled in me I have tried to instill in others. I have repeated many of the same words he said to us in Alabama to my teachers and students in Maryland. He has had a profound effect on me professionally and personally. I realize now that so many of the things he taught me and showed me were the things that every son needs to get from his father.

For some reason, I have been thinking of my football coach often lately. Coach Lee died on a Friday, May 28, 2010. I will always love him.

He was the father…… I never had.   

The Fierce Urgency of ... 1967

She was a beautiful little girl, fourteen months old. She had an exuberant smile, with plump cheeks that begged to be kissed. Her name was Maleah Williams. On Christmas Day, in an apartment complex in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Maleah and her mother were outside celebrating Christmas with almost a dozen other children and their parents.

Maleah’s mother, Tylena Williams described what happened next. “….. I saw a car drive through the parking lot, then back up a hill before stopping near a set of dumpsters… then a man inside the car started spraying bullets into the yard below… he just started shooting and I started running… I felt my body being so warm and my baby was just bleeding so much and gasping for air, and I kept telling her I love her, please don’t leave me.” 

Maleah had been shot in the head. She would die three days later.

Maleah was not alone. According to the Washington Post, twenty six other people were shot and killed on Christmas Day, 2015. They would include a barbershop owner in Alabama, a grandfather in Texas, and a young couple in Ohio. In addition to that, 63 other people were injured by gunfire. Not to mention suicides. Incredibly, more people died on Christmas Day in the United States last year than the number of people killed in gun homicides for the entire year in Austria, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Estonia, Bermuda, Hong Kong and Iceland combined.

Today, 45 of the 50 states have “open carry laws”, which allow citizens to openly carry firearms on the streets. Imagine what would happen if a group of determined Black men were to listen to police calls on police scanners, rush to the scene of black people being arrested with law books in hand and inform the person being arrested of their constitutional rights? What if those men also happened to carry loaded weapons (in accordance with the law) which were publicly displayed but were careful to stand no closer than ten feet from the arrest so as not to interfere with the arrest?

This is exactly what happened in Oakland, California in 1967. The California legislature responded to these “Patrols” with the “Mulford Act”, which banned open carrying of loaded firearms in California. The law was supported by the governor of California, Ronald Reagan. The bill’s conservative sponsor, Don Mulford, also a republican, argued as late as 1989 that “openly carrying a gun is an act of violence or near violence”. The bill also had the support of the NRA.

On May 2, 1967, a group of thirty young Black men and women arrived at the California State Capitol in Sacramento. They were armed with shotguns, but were careful to keep them pointed towards the sky. As they neared the entrance to the building, they were noticed by the Governor, Ronald Reagan, who was speaking with a group of children. Reagan turned and ran. The group continued into the building and eventually arrived on the Assembly floor, which was debating the Mulford Act. Bedlam ensued. Many of the legislators dived under their desks screaming “don’t shoot”. Security guards responded immediately, surrounding the group and pushing them out into a hallway. Reporters were everywhere, clamoring for information. They all seemed to be asking “who are you!!!” As the group was ushered into an elevator, one of them, a 16 year-old named Bobby Hutton replied, “We’re the Black Panthers. We’re Black People with guns. What about it?”

Less than a year later, On April 6, 1968, two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Hutton would be killed in a gun battle with Oakland police. He would be shot more than 12 times after he had surrendered and been stripped down to his underwear to ensure that he was unarmed. More than 1500 people would attend his funeral. More than 2,000 would attend a rally held after the funeral. Those in attendance included Marlon Brando and James Baldwin. Bobby Hutton was 17 years old.

The Mulford Act is still the law in California. California is one of only five states that still prohibits the open carrying of guns. The law was not conceived in ideology. The law was motivated by the fear of Black people with guns threatening the police and the lawmakers themselves not with actual violence, but the mere possibility of violence. Fear demands an immediate response. The fierce urgency of now.

Today, the National Rifle Association is a fierce opponent of any and all laws that might restrict in any way the purchase or ownership of guns. The NRA owns the United States Congress. They bought it fair and square with campaign contributions. They control it with fear. They use the same methods many parents in the South used on their children, I would often hear my parents say, “I brought you into this world (congress), and I’ll take you out”. Republican politicians wear their “A+” grades from the NRA like a badge of honor. They will not be moved by that bullet in Maleah Williams head on Christmas day.

But, as quiet as it’s kept, the NRA, for most of its existence, supported gun control. In the 1920’s the NRA proposed legislation requiring permits for concealed weapons, adding five years to prison sentences for crimes committed with guns, banning non-citizens from buying hand guns, requiring gun dealers to turn over sales records to police, and creating a one day waiting period to purchase a gun. The NRA helped Franklin Roosevelt draft the first federal gun controls; 1934’s National Firearms Act and 1938’s Gun Control Act. These laws imposed high taxes and registration requirements on machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencers, making it all but impossible for average people to own them. Gun makers and sellers had to register with the federal government and convicted felons were barred from gun ownership. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld these laws in 1939. The Gun Control Act of 1968 came in the aftermath of the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, the Black Panther’s visit to the California Legislature in 1967, and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassinations in 1968. The law added a minimum age for gun buyers, required guns have serial numbers, and excluded the mentally ill and drug addicts from owning guns. Only federally licensed dealers and collectors could ship guns over state lines. People buying certain kinds of ammunition had to show ID. The NRA supported all of these measures.

Today, on this national holiday on which we dedicate our thoughts to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it seems as if we live in what seems to be an alternative universe. During the great March on Washington in 1963, in his iconic speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Dr. King spoke of the “Fierce Urgency of Now”. That “Urgency” of 1967, to make the nation’s people safe by addressing the violence of guns cannot be found. As I celebrate, commiserate, contemplate, where we go from here on this very special day, I think of the victims, not just the high profile mass killings that make the national news and set the twitter world afire, but the Maleah’s and their parents, the daily carnage that makes our nation the most violent in the history of the world. None of us are safe. We must find the courage to fix this.

As Dr. King said on that historic day in Washington, “Now is the time…..”

Now is the Time.  

Apocalypse Now - Part II (The Trump Card)

On April 1, 2015, I wrote the words italicized below. The post was about George Corley Wallace and the people that voted for, supported, followed, and idolized him. The post was about why they identified with what he espoused, and why that group of people now comprise the base of the Republican Party. 

 For Wallace, the "problem" was the Blacks, integration, civil rights, and the "pointy-headed bureaucrats" in Washington that were determined to impose their will on the good people of the south.

Today, the "problem" is the Muslims, Mexicans, Syrians, Blacks, gays, and Islamic terrorists that are determined to kill us all and destroy western civilization.

Wallace would use his unique form of demagoguery and scare tactics to become Governor of Alabama. He would run for President and carry five southern states, winning 46 electoral votes, using the same racist messages on the nation at large.

The Republican Party has continued to use racial politics since 1968 to flip the former confederate states from a Democratic stronghold to their own impregnable base of operations. However, what was once accomplished with coded words, a wink, a nod, and the power of the local purse, has been laid bare by the brash, egomaniacal, billionaire bigot from New York.

The old white people, the white people that did not finish high school, and the white people that did not go to college, are the base of the Republican Party. They are the Tea Party Patriots. The Republicans cannot win the presidency without them, and the base is pissed. They are supporting Donald Trump because he fearlessly, clearly expresses their fears and frustrations, their prejudices and bigotry. 

That’s what George Wallace did. Wallace was too extreme for the Democratic Party, so he ran for President as an independent. His believers voted for him anyway.

Recent polling suggests that more than 65% of the Republican base will do the same for Trump.

There is no way out for the Republicans. They created this monster. The apocalypse is upon them.

April 1, 2015

The date was January 14, 1963. Fifty two years ago. The streets of Montgomery were packed with visitors from all over the state. Many others were there from other states. The local, state, and national media were there as well. The occasion was the inaugural address of the newly elected governor. The speech had been written by Asa Carter, founder of the local Ku Klux Klan. The editors of the local daily newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, had urged the fiery young governor-elect to remove the fateful passage from the speech, but their request was denied. He stood on the portico of the Capitol building, looking down on the mass of people stretching down the boulevard known as Dexter Avenue. Surely, he was aware of the symbolism. This was the same place that Jefferson Davis had stood as he was sworn in as the first (and only) President of the Confederacy. 

And then, he said it.

“Today I have stood, where once Jefferson Davis stood, and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very heart of the great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us have done, time and again through history. Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny….and I say….Segregation today….Segregation tomorrow….Segregation forever!”

Five years later, the man that said these words would run for President as an Independent. He would carry 5 states, including Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama. He would garner 46 Electoral votes, 13.5% of the total vote, and 9.9 Million votes. In other words, he was not alone in his sentiments or his vision for the future of America.

It would be foolish to think that this point of view on diversity, that was so demonstrably prevalent 50 years ago no longer exists. 

Xenophobia, homophobia, and racism are all fueled by fear. So what are so many people in America afraid of? Why the intolerance? Why so many voter suppression efforts? Why so many reactionary laws targeting the LGBT community? Why so much animosity toward immigration reform efforts?

According to the US Census Bureau, the percentage of the American population classified as white was 75.1% in 2000. In 2010 it had decreased to 63.7%. At the current rate, it is estimated that in less than thirty years America will no longer be a country where white people are in the majority. In 2005, only 28% of the American public supported same-sex marriage. Today, more than 50% of the public supports it, thirty seven states have legalized it, and a conservative Supreme Court seems primed to make it the law of the land.

America is changing. Rapidly. And “Change”, is scary.

The number of Americans that are 65 years or older is larger than it has been at any time in the country’s history. According to the 2010 census, more than 40 million Americans are 65 or older. They make up 13% of the total population. They also make up the base of the Republican Party. They grew up in the sixties. Many of them did not go to integrated schools, do not socialize with minorities, and did not compete against them in the workforce. They are very resistant to the change that is occurring in America today.

The firestorm generated by Indiana’s religious freedom law is the latest example of the conflict between competing views of America’s future, the old and the new, “segregation forever” or “I have a dream”.

The differences are real, deeply ingrained in the fabric of our nation’s culture. They will not go away easily, if ever. It is a cultural divide that was settled, but not forgotten, by civil war. Economic forces have forced the Indiana legislature to reconsider its effort to clothe its bigotry in subtle legislation. The same forces have prompted the governor of Arkansas to reconsider his legislature’s similar effort. Nevertheless, every Republican presidential candidate did not hesitate to weigh in on the side that the Republican base demands. They know that they cannot win a Republican primary without pleasing the base.

I am reminded of the first shots fired at Fort Sumter.

Once, George Wallace was asked why he started using racist messages. He is quoted as having said, “I tried to talk about good roads and good schools, and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about n*****s, and they stomped the floor.”

They stomped the floor. They stomped the steps. They stomped the street and they stomped the grass in Montgomery….On January 14, 1963.

The minorities are coming. Will the older, white Americans allow it to happen? Or will they take America with them, to their graves?

The Myth of Reagan

When I heard the first news reports that National Airport in Washington, D.C. would be renamed "Ronald Reagan National Airport" I immediately embarked on the five stages of grief. Denial and anger kicked in almost simultaneously. I think I skipped right over bargaining and eventually settled into depression. Although this happened in 1998, I'm still fighting with acceptance.

So what’s my problem?

My issues with Reagan began when he announced his second campaign for the Presidency. In 1980 he made a speech at the Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi. This is the place where three civil rights workers were killed in 1964. Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman were buried in an earthen dam by the ku klux klan. Their murders would help to galvanize the nation in support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Reagan went there and made a speech in support of "States Rights". He might as well have pissed on their graves. Any one from the South knows what "states’ rights" means. This was the Confederacy's politically correct excuse for starting the civil war. This was their rationale for slavery itself.

Reagan would also go on to tell an audience in Atlanta that "Jefferson Davis is a hero of mine", and describe the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as "humiliating to the South". If there remained any doubt about how Reagan felt about equality and human rights, he made his feelings clear in 1986.

The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act was passed by Congress in 1986. It imposed sanctions on the racist, minority South African government that was violently enforcing strict racial segregation. The law outlined five preconditions for lifting the sanctions that would essentially end the system of Apartheid. The law enjoyed the support of the entire civilized world.

Ronald Reagan vetoed it.

The US Congress overrode the veto and the Bill became law. The Senate voted 78 to 21, and the House voted 313 to 83. Apartheid came to an end in South Africa in 1991.

As quiet as it's kept, the Reagan administration was one of the most corrupt in American history. More than 100 members of the Reagan Administration were convicted, indicted, or resigned while under investigation during Reagan's eight years in office, including some of his most prominent aides. The list includes Edwin Meese III (Attorney General), Lyn Nofziger (Senior Aide), Michael Deaver (Senior Aide), Caspar Weinberger (Secretary of Defense), James Watt (Secretary of the Interior), Ray Donovan (Secretary of Labor), Elliot Abrams (State Department), Robert McFarlane (National Security Advisor), Oliver North (White House Staff), John Poindexter (National Security Advisor), Alan Fiers (CIA), Clair George (CIA), and Duane Clarridge (CIA).

On December 21, 1982 President Reagan signed an appropriations bill that included the Boland Amendment. The amendment made it illegal for the United States to provide assistance to the Contras, a group in Nicaragua that was trying to overthrow the Marxist Nicaraguan government.

In 1985 the Reagan administration agreed to secretly supply anti-tank and other weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran in exchange for Iran's help in obtaining the release of six Americans being held hostage in Lebanon. The administration then took the money generated from the sale of these arms and gave it to the Contras in Nicaragua, a clear violation of the law that Reagan himself signed just three years earlier. Subsequent investigations resulted in several indictments, convictions, resignations, and pardons of high ranking administration officials. Reagan himself was forced to testify under oath, and incredibly answered "I don't remember" 130 times.

Many Americans are familiar with the phrase "once a Marine, always a Marine". I was once a marine, and on a Sunday morning in October of 1983 I experienced a spasm of anger that I will never forget. On that day, 241 American servicemen, 220 of them marines, died when an Iranian suicide bomber crashed a truck filled with explosives into their barracks while most of them slept. They were in Beirut, Lebanon on a "peacekeeping" mission.

Reagan responded two days later by ordering an invasion of Grenada, a small island in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela. The US sent more than 7,000 troops to "rescue and protect" 61 American medical students on the island. The United Nations condemned the military action as "a flagrant violation of international law" by a vote of 108 to 9. A similar resolution failed in the Security Council as a result of a veto by the United States. Seven Democratic Congressmen introduced an unsuccessful resolution to impeach the President.

The entire Granada operation lasted less than three months. Reagan declared victory against the spread of communism. The United States suffered 19 killed and 116 wounded. More than 5000 medals and commendations were awarded to the participants. Meanwhile, the 241 servicemen that died in their bunks in Lebanon were out of the headlines.

The most baffling part of the revisionist history enveloping Reagan has to be his stewardship of the American economy. Has everybody forgotten what REALLY happened to the economy during those eight years??? How could they forget "Black Monday", October 19, 1987 when the stock market crashed by 508 points (22.61%)? Have we forgotten prime interest rates of 20%? Have we forgotten home loan interest rates of 16%?  That’s what was happening in the "Reagan Years". The Reagan years also saw unemployment rise to 10.8%, the highest rate since the Great Depression!

Reagan, today's patron saint of the conservative movement, increased federal spending by 80% during his eight years in the White House, doubled the federal deficit, MORE than doubled the national debt, and raised taxes seven of the eight years he was in office. Had he not, the deficits would have been much worse.

 Imagine what would have happened if this was the record that the Obama administration was leaving with us.

  Somehow, for some reason, the American people, the American press, and the American intelligentsia have allowed the Reagan loyalists to create and perpetuate a myth of historical proportions and sell it to America and the world.

Simon Hoggart, writing in "The Observer" said this about Reagan, "His errors glide by unchallenged. At one point....he alleged that almost half the population gets a free meal from the government each day. No one told him he was crazy. The general message of the American press is that yes, while it is perfectly true that the emperor has no clothes, nudity is very acceptable this year."

 If we really need another hero, is this the best we can do?

Gunsmoke

The first and only time I got in trouble in school I was in seventh grade, my first year in junior high school. Many of the older boys in the school would regularly gather in the boy's bathroom to smoke. Like most high school students then and now, I wanted to be cool. I had never smoked a cigarette before, but thats what everybody seemed to be doing, so I decided to do it too. There were probably between ten and fifteen of us in that bathroom, and very quickly the place was filled with smoke. It wasn't long before our Principal stormed through the door, waving his arms to see who we were through the choking smoke. He ordered all of us to his office, and once there, called each of us in individually to meet our consequences.

The moment I heard him call my name to go in that office was one of the scariest moments of my life. He got right to the point. There was a large razor strap hanging on the side of his desk. He told me I could take three licks with that strap or he could tell my father I had been smoking cigarettes in his school. I quickly nodded at the strap, because I knew if he told my father (who was a holiness preacher) I might literally die. He told me to stand up and put my hands on the desk. The pain was sharp, but tolerable. He then told me if he ever caught me smoking again he would give me TEN  and tell my father too. I never smoked another cigarette. I was twelve years old. The year was 1965.

This was a time when there was a culture of smoking in the United States. The society accepted those who smoked. The glamorous, rich, and famous smoked regularly. The military supplied soldiers, sailors, and marines with cigarettes as part of their daily rations. Cigarettes were ubiquitous in movies and television programs. People smoked in bars, restaurants, stores, schools, churches, trains, buses, airplanes, and at work. Cigarette ads were everywhere, and the tobacco companies were flush with power and profits.

Then, something happened.

In September 1950, the British Medical Journal published an article linking smoking to lung cancer and heart disease. In 1954 the British Doctors Study confirmed those findings. In 1964 the United States Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health agreed that cigarettes were killing people. In the United States, people began to sue the tobacco companies for damages related to their use of tobacco. During the next forty (40) years more that 800 lawsuits would be filed against the major tobacco companies. "Big Tobacco" would win them all...every single suit.

Things would change in the mid 1990's when states begin to sue. The states were seeking to recover the costs for medicaid and other public health expenses incurred from treating patients for illnesses caused by smoking. Eventually, every state's attorney general would sue on the simple premise that "you (the tobacco companies) caused this problem, you should have to fix it". Big Tobacco agreed to settle. They agreed to pay the states $365.5 BILLION dollars, be subject to FDA regulation, add stronger warning labels to cigarette packaging, and restrictions on advertising.

During the last twenty years the culture of smoking in America slowly but surely ceased to exist. Federal laws, State laws, and local ordinances have eliminated smoking in literally all public places. Cigarettes are rarely seen in movies and television programs. The rich, famous, and glamorous are rarely seen smoking. Smoking is simply no longer cool.

Today, we have a culture of guns. Guns are ubiquitous in our movies and television programs. States are passing laws to allow guns in our schools, bars, restaurants, workplaces, and airports. Americans are being shot and killed everyday at rates that challenge the imagination. 

Since 1968, more Americans have been killed by guns than were killed in ALL of America's wars COMBINED. America's combined war dead is 1,171,177. Americans killed by guns since 1968 is 1,384,171.

According to the Washington Post, if a "mass shooting" is defined as 4 or more shot, there were 204 mass shootings in the first 204 days of 2015 in the United States.

That's right. I did not stutter. There have been 204 mass shootings in this country in the first 204 days of this year. http://shootingtracker.com/wiki/Mass_Shootings_in_2015

You might be saying, "but I didn't hear about all those shootings on the news", or "but the President didn't make a speech". You did not read about them because thats just what we do. Thats how we roll. Just go to a movie or turn on your television and you will see what I'm talking about. We have made shooting people cool. Ask any Hollywood "action star". Today's star without his gun is like Humphrey Bogart without his cigarette.

That is how you define "culture".

It took 50 years to change the American attitude and appetite for cigarettes. It will take at least as long to do the same for guns. The war against tobacco was won in the courts, not the US Congress. The same will be required for guns. It is much easier to lobby (buy) a congressman and a senator than a judge and a jury. 

In my lifetime alone, 1,384,171 people were killed by guns on American streets and in American homes. For many of them, your tax money and mine paid for their care, as well as for millions of others that were shot and survived. 

America decided that the death toll from cigarettes was unacceptable. True, the motives of those attorney generals were not entirely noble ($365 billion dollars is an attention-getter).

Nevertheless, when will America tell the gun makers "you created this problem, now you will have to fix it"?

Tobacco smoke kills people.

Gunsmoke does too. 

Don't wait until you're a victim to do something about it.

Appreciating Jimmy Carter

The first bumper sticker I ever put on my car was a “Jimmy Carter for President” sticker. I was a senior in college, he was running against Gerald Ford, who had become President when Richard Nixon resigned. Those were the days before I decided I was a Democrat.

In fact, I had voted for Nixon in the previous election in 1972. It took me a little time to decide to support the peanut-farming governor from Georgia. Instinctively, I had doubts about a governor whose lieutenant governor was the avowed segregationist Lester Maddox. But there was something different about this guy with the “Pepsodent” smile. The more I listened to him, the more I came to appreciate a fundamental honesty, sincerity, and pragmatism that was severely lacking in other politicians. Even then, I felt that this was someone whom I could trust.

There are many people in America that consider themselves Christians (70% according to the Huffington Post). A relative few however, live the kind of life that justifies the title. Jimmy Carter has. I don’t know a lot of people that “do unto others, as they would have others do unto them”, EVERYDAY. I can’t imagine Jesus Christ insisting that every person in America should have unlimited access to any kind of gun they might desire, (like so many of his critics do). Somehow, I can picture a modern day Jesus negotiating peace among warring nations (like he does), building homes for those without housing all over the world (like he does), and advocating healthcare for everybody (like he does). I can literally see Jesus Christ teaching Sunday School in a little-bitty church in Georgia every Sunday morning (like he does). And, I can imagine people travelling from all over the world and sleeping in front of the church to attend one of those Sunday School sessions, just like they do in Plains, Georgia today.

On Thursday, August 20, 2015, President Jimmy Carter held a press conference in Atlanta, Georgia. He had recently undergone surgery to remove a tumor from his liver. It was determined to be cancerous, and the doctors informed him it had spread to his brain. During his press conference, he said that at first he thought he had only a few weeks left to live, but surprisingly, he felt at ease. Who among us could face such a diagnosis with such grace and good humor? The 90 year-old former President said “I have had a wonderful life…. I’m ready for anything and I’m looking forward to new adventure”. With his trademark smile, he would simply say, “It is in the hands of God, whom I worship”. I was inspired by his faith, and reminded of my own.

Some of today’s politicians like to make fun of President Carter and his presidency. Many of them spend a lot of time espousing their own Christianity. They don’t mention Carter was the first evangelical Christian elected President. They don’t mention his extensive knowledge of nuclear physics or his service as a senior officer on America’s second nuclear submarine (most of his critics never served at all). They never talk about the 28 books he has written, the peace treaty he brokered between Egypt and Israel, or his Nobel Peace Prize. Nobody ever mentions the promise he made (and kept) to the American people. He told us he would never lie to us, and after Richard Nixon, that was a hell of a promise. Those that like to denigrate President Carter, would prefer to deify Ronald Reagan.

In our modern world, it is difficult to imagine an honest, God-fearing, truth-telling, kind, compassionate, incorruptible, humble person running for and winning the Presidency. But that’s what Jimmy Carter was, and that’s what he did.

The consensus among historians when it comes to the Carter presidency is that it was average at best when compared to other administrations. However his post-presidential years have been universally praised. He established the Carter Center in 1982 with the goal of advancing human rights. Since that time he has travelled all over the world brokering peace agreements between nations, serving as an observer to ensure free and fair elections, and working to eradicate infectious diseases in developing nations. He has also become synonymous with “Habitat for Humanity”, physically building homes for the less fortunate in the United States as well as other nations.

When he told the world that he had brain cancer, and mentioned that he had “a wonderful life”, it was an understatement. I was so impressed by his total lack of self-pity. I was so encouraged by his light-heartedness. What remarkable faith must be required to face one’s impending demise in such a way. What a testament to one’s own faith in the way a life has been lived. As I sat and watched him laugh and joke with the reporters, yet expressing in intimate detail the seriousness of the situation, I was inspired to be able to live my own life that way, to be able to face my own death in the same way.

When I put that bumper sticker on my car in 1976, the green and white sticker promoting “Jimmy Carter for President”, I did not know what kind of man he really was. There was just something about him, something that made me believe that he would do the right thing. I have never put another bumper sticker on a car.

I probably never will.

Auburn vs Alabama

I think I was five years old, and the year was 1958. I was living with my family on Finley Avenue in Birmingham Alabama. The duplex apartment was not far from Legion Field, which had been the scene of the annual “Iron Bowl” football game between Auburn’s Tigers and Alabama’s Crimson Tide since the two schools had resumed diplomatic relations and agreed to play each other again after a 41 year dispute. It was only at the behest of the state legislature in 1948 did the games resume. It was sometime during that year that I decided that I preferred the orange and blue of Auburn over the red and white of Alabama.

Yes, it is true, they start us young in Alabama.

As the years went by and my awareness of the world around me increased, other things solidified my allegiance to the War Eagles of Auburn. Alabama’s head coach at the time was the iconic and legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant. Auburn’s coach was the soft-spoken and gentlemanly Ralph “Shug” Jordan. They were a study in contrast. Coach Bryant was a big, tall, hulk of a man. Mean, gruff, intimidating, he was a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, winner whose voice sounded like a growling bear. On the other hand, Coach Jordan was a southern gentleman right out of central casting. He looked more like a preacher than a football coach. Instinctively, I preferred Coach Jordan.

Auburn won the National Championship in 1957 under Coach Jordan. In 1958, Alabama responded and hired Bear Bryant. From 1959 until 1968, Alabama would defeat Auburn nine times out of ten. Bryant would go on to win Six National Championships and Thirteen Southeastern Conference (SEC) championships. By the time he retired in 1982, he had won more football games (323) than any college coach in history. But to me, Bear was a bully, and I would rather beat a bully than follow one. So, score another one for Auburn. All of my life Auburn has been considered the underdog in the state, and I identify with underdogs. I have no doubt that I experience ten times the joy when Auburn beats Bama, than a Bama fan gets from beating us.

Most people assume that the game was played in Birmingham for so many years because it was a “neutral site”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Birmingham is less than an hour’s drive from the Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa. The critical mass of Alabama fans and alumni live in Birmingham. Up until the turn of the century, Alabama played the majority of its “home” games in Birmingham. Alabama simply felt it was beneath their dignity to travel to Auburn, and because of the power of their alumni in state commerce and government, they were able to continue this indignity until 1989, when the simple fairness and equality of a home and home rotation was agreed to.

Alabama has had a long and illustrious history in college football. They are one of, if not THE most honored and respected programs in the country. BUT, Alabama has had only three (3) Black starting quarterbacks in its entire history. They are Walter Lewis, Andrew Zow, and last year’s starter, Blake Sims. Auburn has had eleven (11), including Charles Thomas, Pat Washington, Reggie Slack, Dameyune Craig, Jason Campbell, Kodi Burns, Cam Newton, Kiehl Frazier, Jonathan Wallace, Nick Marshall, and Jeremy Johnson. What’s up with that?

Of course, the time that I spent at Auburn as a student cemented my allegiance to the school. When I attended Auburn in the early 70’s I was one of approximately 350 Black students at the school. The total enrollment at the time exceeded 17,500. Nevertheless we did not become lost in that sea of humanity. We were allowed to be ourselves, express ourselves. We were granted an opportunity to learn and grow. We were not subjected to endless confederate imagery. We were free to study what was interesting and relevant to us, and to enjoy a social life that was not foreign to us. We were given access to opportunities for professional and cultural advancement as well as access to positions of leadership and authority. And every once in a while, we would beat Alabama.

December 2, 1989 is a day I will never forget. For most of my life it had been hard to imagine that Auburn would play Alabama on our campus, in our own Jordan-Hare stadium. All of us knew that if that day ever came, there was no way in hell that we would lose that game. That game was played in front of the largest crowd ever to watch the game live. Alabama came to town undefeated, but it didn’t matter. We beat them 30-20, and shared the SEC Championship that year with the Tide and Tennessee. Most people don’t realize it, but since that day, Auburn actually has the better record in the series. When the games were played only in Birmingham (Alabama’s pseudo home field) Alabama lead the series 34-18. Since then, Auburn leads the series in Tuscaloosa 7-3, and in Auburn, we lead the series 8-4.

Equality and fairness is a wonderful thing.

Former Auburn coach Pat Dye once said that the difference between Alabama people and Auburn people is simple, “Alabama people love Alabama football, but Auburn people love Auburn”.

I love Auburn. Even if my brother did go to Alabama.