Long before the Greensboro Four -- the young African-American college students who ignited a movement of sit-ins when they sat down at a Woolworth lunch counter -- there was Ron Walters. Walters along with his cousin Carol Parks walked into a Dockum Drugstore in their hometown of Wichita, Kansas and sat down at its dining counter and asked to be served. In 1958 for two colored students to perform what would be a normal act was a feat of defiance.
They endured a month of taunts and threats -- essentially shutting down the business. Their polite form of resistence to the laws of segregation finally forced the owner to relent. They had won a small battle in the war of segregation.
Even at the start of their independent lives at the ages of 19 and 20 they knew the system was wrong and unjust. They set out to prove to their peers, to the owners of the diner and to all of Wichita that this was their country, too.
The idea, that this country -- long defined by the myths of Colonial idealism manifested in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights -- also was the place where African-Americans too could ponder and participate in the American Dream was a continuous motivation behind the Civil Rights Movement.
And, it was one constantly echoed by black intellectuals like James Baldwin. In a famous 1961 conversation Baldwin eloquently talked about the desire to acknowledge this ownership of America -- and others failure to agree. "The tragedy of this country now is that most of the people who say they care about it do not care. Baldwin suggested. "Now I am here too. I am American, too... no one has yet to point out with any force that if I am not a man here, you [Whites] are not a man here."
Baldwin consistently expresses a simple desire: to be seen as equal a man; as equal a contributor to American society as anyone else. To put it plainly Baldwin plea is recognition that ownership of the American Dream does not just belong to those who proudly track backwards to the Mayflower or the early years of Ellis Island. It was that quest that motivated Walters to sit where he was told he shouldn't.
That is why it is remarkable in today's heated political atmosphere -- filled to capacity with angst and fear -- to hear in high pitched anxiety crowds on the Mall of Washington, in town squares and on the steps of the Capitol scream the mantra: Let's Take Our Country Back!
Remarkable, because if the country must be taken back, the question is who has taken it? If the answer lies in the offensive posters of America's first African-Amerian United States President scattered throughout rallies and often shouted the loudest by those holding them, that suggests the argument Baldwin made 50 years ago fell on death ears.
It is too simple and probably quite inaccurate to point to many of these frustrated citizens and overbroadly claim racism or prejudice. It is less about how they see others and more how they see themselves. The majority of citizens who are bused and carpooled to Tea Party events are not racists -- they are afraid and politicians are using that fear to their advantage. That is a a tried-and-true activity.
In an era of a dramatic structural shift in the economy and demographics; it is understandable to see the frustrations boil over into overt racial and ethnic resentment. It is not surprising that racial tensions have increased; that immigration has become a hate tainted issue; the rise in distrust of others and islamophobia have seeped into the mainstream from the fringe. It is the fear of the "other."
We are in the midst of a tremendous cultural shift in this country and the identity that Whites had become comfortable with is eroding. During the Post-Reconstruction Era we witnessed these frustrations lead to the creation of Jim Crow Laws. During the Civil Rights Movement we witnessed these fears lead to the bombing of a Birmingham Church and the death of four girls attending sunday school. During the 1970s and the push for school integration through busing we witnessed the rapid pace of White Flight to the suburbs and an abandoning of American cities. This was not motivated solely on racial terms -- but fear that the country they had known was changing.
For the first time there is an African-American in the White House. For the first time the hardships of economic turmoil have not only impacted the poor of all colors; but, the White Middle Class who thought the protection of their suburban lives would shield them from the impacts of urban life. For the first time the recognition that the idea of a Majority and Minority in this country is disappearing. Change has once again come to America and it has upended what many long defined. They do not like it and they want the country they knew back.
But it is too late. The proverbial cat is out of the bag. Baldwin described the Civil Rights Movement as a recognition of the invisible man. "They are looking at him now, not because there's been a change of heart, but only because they must." A recognition that this is his country too. If this country is to survive each must come to gripes with the reality that the country many want back no longer exist.
It was that recognition that shaped Ron Walters life after the sit-in. Walters long after that incident dedicated his life to improving the ability of both Blacks and Whites to recognize that fact. Walters became an activist and a scholar. He became a historian and longtime professor at Howard and the University of Maryland where he headed the African-American Leadership Institute. He attempted through his vision and his knowledge to continue to prove to America that each of its citizens held ownership to the country and its ideals.
Ron Walters died this weekend at the age of 72. Fifty years after his first attempt to prove to America he belonged and wanted it to recognize his rightful place. This was his country, too and the country is better because he recognized that basic fact. Now, it's up to the rest of us to do the same.
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