Our Son Paul's Last Speech

Today is the birthday of our Paul who passed away in his sleep 9 years ago. It's hard to believe it's been nine years since we have heard his laughter, his jokes and puns, his counsel, and just him, being Paul.

When we drove out to where he had lived in Northern Kentucky, that icy January, to arrange for his funeral, someone gave us a CD with a talk he had given just a month or two before. After losing his sight at the age of 22, completing college, and not finding a job, Paul began giving talks on living our Catholic faith, our faith in the good God. He used to tell me, "God is love."

One of the things Paul talks about in this speech is having no fear anymore. I believe he meant it. I believe he was ready for whatever happened to call him home to God. But I also think God gave us fear for a reason, and that it's not to be dismissed completely; but then, I never had the strength of faith which Paul had at the end, so that's just me and my disclaimer. Here's a link to the talk if you're interested in hearing it. It's 37:54 minutes, so grab a drink or plan to fit it into a free slot in your day or evening. God bless! Paul Myers' Speech 12/15/11

Three Books for Black History Month

Here are three books I would like to share for Black History Month. These three books go back to the early and mid-1900's. History helps us to know how we got where we are and also to see patterns.

The Warmth of Other Suns, The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson

Family Properties, Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America, by Beryl Satter

The Gentle Giant of Dynamite Hill, The Untold Story of Arthur Shores and His Family's Fight for Civil Rights, by Helen Shores Lee and Barbara S Shores, with Denis George

The first book, The Warmth of Other Suns, follows three different families who migrated from the Jim Crow South, with its segregation and lynchings, to the North and to the West, where they thought they would be safer. And it shows us what they encountered there, and how it would affect their lives and the lives of all who had done the same: only allowed to live in certain blocks of the city, and the crowded conditions that caused, and if someone dared to move one house over from the invisible lines, they would be subject to the violence of mobs of white people coming to destroy their property and chase them out of where they "didn't belong". Even though it's tough emotionally, and a long book, it's an easy read, in that, it's such a strong human interest story of real people by a masterful writer. I first read it on Kindle, and I remember where I was when I read some of the different parts of it. I more recently bought the print book so I can read parts of it again at leisure in my living room.

Family Properties is by a woman whose Jewish attorney father fought for the rights of black people in Chicago to own land, and to be able to improve their crowded conditions and about the legal but unethical theft of their properties, and the awful struggles he faced, which of course, is even more about the awful struggles of the people who were forced to live in such conditions. I read a third of the book and it became more technical about real estate, and I let it slide, but I'm glad I read some of it. I feel like, even in high school and college, students are sometimes assigned an article or part of a book; and I learned a lot. I originally read it on Kindle, but then bought the book, and I hope to read more of it.

I am currently 8 chapters into the book, The Gentle Giant of Dynamite Hill, The Untold Story of Arthur Shores and His Family's Fight for Civil Rights. The book was written by the two daughters of Attorney Arthur Shores, the first black man in Alabama to fight civil cases in an otherwise white court of law. The body of the book begins with Helen Shores' recollection, "I can still recall the pinging sound bullets made when someone in a passing car shot the window in our recreation room. The thick glass would usually prevent the window from shattering, but the bullets would pierce through and lodge in our interior walls..."

I know some people say, why? "Why do we have to go over all that? Things are different today." But we need to know what is possible...both in man's selfish and greedy nature and in man's courageous nature. We need to know why...why and how did the poverty of some parts of our urban centers develop? And we need to be ready to recognize those aspects of systems which still need change.

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