On courage (aka valor, gutsiness, moxie) and the lack thereof!
I grew up scared of Mississippi. Why? Because I believed that anyone in their right mind wouldn’t want to step one foot into that state given its horrible history of lynchings and assassinations of folks who looked like me – think Medgar Evers, Emmitt Till, Rev. George Lee, Jimmy Lee Jackson and James Chaney to name a few.
On top of that, the ominous lyrics of Lena Horne’s famous, “Mississippi Goddam” only exacerbated my jitters, a fear cemented by images of the Confederate flag, the Klan, and, more terrifying, grainy black and white photos of Black men dangling from the end of hangman nooses while throngs of white adults and children took it all in on Sunday afternoons after morning church services.
And I continued to hold onto this portrait of Mississippi when I first drove through there flummoxed with the question of am I driving too fast or too slow, paranoid with staying within the speed limit to minimize the chances of getting pulled over by the caricature of a sunglass wearing “good ole boy.”
Now that was before I encountered the courageous works of Oxford, Mississippi born novelist William Faulkner, before I met some phenomenal Mississippians who were then students at the Harvard Medical School, and before I met a talented spoken word artist Mississippian named “Bernard.” Point being the more I traveled the scenic road of life, I met new people, re-educated myself and corrected my knowledge of history.
So today I’m hard pressed to get Mississippi out of my system, particularly the good folks from there whose good deeds have been overshadowed by the state’s sordid history of racism. Further deepening my affection for those Mississippians is their courage under trying circumstances. “Courage” – and by inference, the lack thereof – is the operative word of this narrative.
Now happenstance, divine providence or something else, but here I was completely absorbed in a book about the life of the little-known Civil Rights activist and Mississippian, Unita Blackwell, author of “Barefootin’…Life Lessons from the Road to Freedom,” when the news broke.
That news? Well, another largely unknown Bishop Marianne Budde politely – again politely – asked a newly elected president to be “merciful.” But what occurred during the aftermath left me scratching my head and asking since when it is such a terrible thing to ask anyone, let alone the president, to be merciful. His negative late-night response and the hateful vitriol she encountered, including death threats, afterwards rendered me speechless.
C’mon folks, really? Is this what we’ve become – or always have been – as Americans? What happened to “the home of the free, land of the brave?” Sorry but I just don’t get it.
Nor do I get why the president, the so-called most powerful person in the free world, would accuse her of being “nasty,” his go to word for women who dare to stand up to him. Courageous? Yes. Nasty. No, anything but.
Now If there’s any doubt about the “nastiness” of her message, just listen to it again like millions of us have done. Unless I exist somewhere in la la land, my ears didn’t lie and neither did yours.
Now after finally getting past the exhaustion of all that, I tried to get back to completing Unita Blackwell’s book when tragedy struck when an American Airlines plane crashed into a helicopter over the Potomac River resulting in the deaths of 64 travelers.
But if there’s such a thing as an upside to that heart breaking accident, for yours truly it was learning about the courageous Mississippi born Martin Skutnik, an employee of the United States Congressional Budget Office who, on January 13, 1982, saved the life of Priscilla Tirado following the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 into the frozen Potomac river. Yes, that same Potomac River.
As passengers were being rescued, Tirado was too weak to take hold of the line dropped from a helicopter. Skutnik—one of hundreds of bystanders—dove into the icy water and brought her to the riverbank. Of the 79 passengers and crew on board the airplane, 74 died. Because of television coverage, Skutnick was lionized by the media and received numerous well-deserved “hero” awards.
So, this is to acknowledge the courage manifested by the Bishop Budde, other Mississippians I called out in this space and the scores of others from all backgrounds who gave it their all in the struggle to help others obtain their constitutional rights.
On courage, here’s what Unita Blackwell had to say:
“I don’t know if it was courage I had or not. But if it was courage this is what I know about courage; you don’t have to think about courage to have it. You don’t have to feel courageous to be courageous. You don’t have to sit down and say you’re going to be courageous. Courageousness is the most hidden thing in your mind until after it’s done. There is some inner something that tells you what’s right.”
There’s no doubt that we’re in the midst of an epidemic of a lack of courage these days; a crisis that’s threatening to undermine our democracy. Look no further than politicians whose Modis Operandi are to vote to remain in power and to gain favor – what’s common sense and right be damn.
In the end, valor, gutsiness, gumption, moxie (or, eh, “growing a pair”), call it what you want, but if ever there’s a common word that connects Unita Blackwell, Bishop Budde and Lenny Skutnick with the great Mississippians of yore, it’s that word – “courage.”
Returning back to page 46, that’s where I left off while reading Mrs. Blackwell’s “Barefootin”…Life Lessons from the Road to Freedom.” Terry Howard is an award-winning writer, a contributing writer with the Chattanooga News Chronicle, The American Diversity Report, The Douglas County Sentinel, Blackmarket.com, the Augusta County Historical Society Bulletin and recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award, and third place winner of the Georgia Press Award.