Carry Me Home
From the Mobile Register :
Birmingham native Diane McWhorter received the Pulitzer Prize Monday for her impassioned and often deeply personal history of her hometown's epic racial struggle, "Carry Me Home: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Movement."

[...] "Birmingham's in my bloodstream. Alabama, it's the crucible. It's the state that's working out its race problems," she said.

McWhorter is a longtime contributor to The New York Times, and to the commentary pages of USA Today.

Although other Alabama natives have received the Pulitzer Prize in journalism for newspaper work -- among them in recent years Howell Raines (from Birmingham) and Rick Bragg (from a community outside Jacksonville), of The New York Times -- only one other came to mind on Monday who had received it for a book: Harper Lee of Monroeville, in the fiction category, for her novel, "To Kill A Mockingbird."

And from The Birmingham News:

[...] What this says about Birmingham is it's an important place in our national story and the Pulitzer says so," McWhorter said. "I'm so happy I'm from Birmingham."

The book, which took McWhorter 18 years to complete, chronicled the civil rights movement in Birmingham and the city's staunch resistance to desegregation. It climaxed with the 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing that left four girls dead and a nation horrified.

Not only does McWhorter's book spotlight unsavory aspects of Birmingham's history, but attempts to answer how the city could engender such violence as the church bombing. McWhorter tells the tale through the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and other courageous local civil rights leaders who were often overshadowed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Earlier I posted about the "but"-sayers, those who tacitly condone murder as just in the face of perceived injustice. For those who think strapping explosives about you and killing innocents is the way to celebrate your moral authority, you might be well served to read a bit about some other people who found themselves in dire straits.

They served, and continue to serve, a prophet the Koran says is worthy of respect. Their prophet, who said "Blessed are the peacemakers," caused them to stand unflinchingly in the face of the spite and anger and death. They were poor. They were oppressed. They were denied their just rights as citizens of the United States. But the lunch counters at Loveman's and Woolworth's were not integrated by suicide bombers. They do not sit in the mayor's offices of our cities or in the desks of the State Capital because they slit the throats of the former holders of those seats.

They had faith in something greater than themselves, whether it was God, the humanity of their fellow citizens, or the desire to give their children a better world. And they acted upon that faith, not in blind hatred, but in the assurance of a higher moral authority who said "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Is it just possible they could be better role models for you and your children than roving gangs of murderers?

(Update--I was checking my referrer logs and noted that Odawg of Odawg's Blizzog came up with the very same argument two whole days ago. And said it much better: Desperate people don't just blow themselves up. Rather, they first search for leaders and ideas to give them hope or a course of action. Sometimes, those leaders are good people - Mandella, King, Ghandi. Sometimes, however, those people are evil, like Hitler, Mussolini, or Mao.

Yasser Arafat and groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Al-Aqsa Brigades aren't asking people like Rosa Parks to take moral, non-violent stands against people they believe are oppressing them. Instead, they're convincing their followers to commit heinous acts. If the Palestinians were not lead by the likes of Arafat, but rather by a Mandella or Ghandi, does anyone doubt they would have their nation, their freedom, and peace, or that at least their future would be brighter?

The homicide bombers aren't victims of Israeli oppression, lashing out from hopelessness and despair. Rather, they are victims of immoral leaders who have convinced them to commit atrocities. They have been socialized and indoctrinated into a culture of hate and destruction. And it is all because of their leaders.)
posted by Terry at 11:41:00 AM