When I was much younger, I believed political action could save the world. During high school in Oregon I wrote letters to our senator Wayne Morse and later to the president. I asked them to please find a way to end racial discrimination. In June 1964 just days after I graduated from high school, three young civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi by the Ku Klux Klan.
Just a month later, President Johnson managed to force passage of the Civil Rights Act that President Kennedy had instigated not long before his assassination. Yet we have never truly vanquished racism in our country and it still permeates the lives of people of color.
Beginning in my early twenties I joined with tens of thousands of others to try and stop the war in Vietnam. It wasn’t until I was nearly 30 that the U.S. brought our troops home after losing over 50,000 men and women. Their names are listed row upon row on the polished black granite of the Vietnam War Memorial simply called The Wall.
I remember during one peace march, a gray-haired veteran of WWII surprised me by approaching and reaching out to shake my hand. Even more surprising were his words, “You young folks are fightin’ the good fight.” In 2008 I finally made my first visit to Washington, DC. My husband and I spent a day at the Wall, walking silently and reading names and dates. As I walked all I could think of was what an unnecessary and grievous loss to all those families and to our country.
In the 1968 Oregon primary election, I went door to door, manned the phones and stuffed a lot of envelopes for Robert Kennedy. While he lost that race to Senator Eugene McCarthy, Bobby went on to win the California primary just days later. That victory ended in tragedy just before midnight on June 5, 1968. After being announced as the winner, Senator Kennedy was gunned down. The next morning my three-year-old daughter was on my lap when they made the announcement of his death. She kept patting my arm and saying, “Mama, don’t cry.”
Those early efforts with civil rights and the peace movement led to other things. When Oregon’s major energy provider decided to construct a nuclear power plant right on the banks of the Columbia River near Portland, I joined one of the groups hoping to stop the project. It prevailed of course, but after only 16 years of operation, the plant was discovered to be irreparably defective and was shut down.
My first husband often ridiculed my political interests and efforts. He told me I was naïve and just wasting my time. There was some truth to his complaints. Looking back, there have been more than once that politics broke my heart.
Now we are in the worst political season I’ve known. There is meanness and ugliness and so much fear and anger in the rhetoric. With the crises that are affecting us, we need leaders who not only have wisdom, courage and integrity, but also a deep love for this country and all its people, a love for the world itself.
At 74 it’s been a long time since I thought politics could save the world, but I haven’t given up hope. Politics can certainly change things, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Last week I read this advice: “Choose your leaders like you’d catch a porcupine — very carefully.” The election is fast approaching. This morning I will fill out my ballot — carefully, very carefully.
Source:- Sonoma West
