Better Together

The Low Road, by Marge Piercy

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can't walk, can't remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can't stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more

What a serendipitous and inspiring experience I had in Atlanta a few years ago. I was visiting one of Atlanta’s most historic neighborhoods, where Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthplace, gravesite, the King Center, and the Ebenezer Baptist Church are all located. A history junkie, I signed up for a tour of MLK’s birthplace.

On the steps of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, childhood home. He was born in this house and spent his early childhood here while his father pastored the nearby Ebenezer Baptist Church.

As we made our way from room to room, the tour guide recounting stories about the King family, the people on the tour began to open up with questions and recollections of their own. Amazingly, one of the women on the tour had been a childhood friend of Linda Brown.

The Linda Brown.

As in the little girl at the center of the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown versus Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas, which overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine established by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1897.

Linda Brown could have walked to school in her own Topeka, Kansas, neighborhood, but the neighborhood public school was for white children only. Linda and other black children in her neighborhood had to commute to a segregated black public school four miles away. At the heart of Brown v. Board of Education was the fact that black families were not only inconvenienced by such unequally applied challenges, but also that the education available in black public schools was inferior because black public schools received far less funding and other material support than white public schools did. The “separate but equal” doctrine had, in fact, spawned an educational system that was actually separate and unequal.

Linda Brown was only 9 years old in 1951 when her father, Oliver Brown, and 12 other plaintiffs sued the Topeka Board of Education. The wheels of justice move slowly: It took three years for the case to make it all the way to the Supreme Court. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued its ruling, overturning “separate but equal” and establishing racial integration in public schools. This week, we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

As the woman on the tour of MLK’s birthplace shared her childhood memories, one seemingly small detail captured my attention: her description of the carpool her church established to ferry Linda Brown and other black children from her neighborhood to and from school. That’s the sort of mundane detail that rarely makes it into the history books. Yet every time I hear Brown v. Board of Education mentioned (and I have heard it mentioned a lot this anniversary week), both my mind and my heart return to that little vignette about the carpool. We will never know who drove the cars. Their stories are lost. But we do know that, even while important issues were debated and decided at the highest levels of the U. S. justice system, regular people back home established a community to make sure the children’s needs were met as best as possible.

Children in the Brown v. Board of Education lawsuit. Linda Brown in third from the left.

It takes many people to build a world of justice and peace. Countless people write the letters, join the picket lines, visit the elected officials, make the sandwiches and deliver them around, organize the carpools, knock on doors, and a million other things needed to make changes for the good. Critical leadership roles are out in front, highly public, and widely publicized. Martin Luther King, Jr., gained international fame and recognition for his leadership and nonviolent resistance, for instance. Rosa Parks became the face of the Montgomery bus strike. Mahatma Ghandi led the Indian people to the Arabian Sea in the famous Salt March. In addition to those revered leaders, however, thousands and thousands of largely anonymous people gathered for protests, walked instead of riding the city buses, and marched to the sea.

In the meantime, nameless thousands and thousands of others kept the wheels of daily life turning in the background. They delivered children to school and brought them home again. They cared for the aging and infirm. They made sure people were fed and clothed. They did whatever was necessary to care for the community.

Margaret Mead said, famously, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” The story of Brown v. Board of Education epitomizes that great truth. The Browns lived far from any seat of power. They were simply regular people who wanted what was best for their children — an educational system that neither favored nor excluded any child. They collaborated with a small group of others who were devoted to that august purpose. Together, they wrought enormous and necessary change.

When I look at the bigger picture, I can also see another great truth. In so many cases, that small group of committed citizens needs the encouragement and support of a much larger group of people who work hard in the background to do whatever needs to be done. Even while Brown v. Board of Education was making its laborious way through the U.S. justice system, for example, somebody still had to make sure the children in Topeka, Kansas, got to school and home again.

To build a world of justice and peace, one need not be famous or rich or influential in ways that few people are. One simply has to show up to do what needs to be done. One simply needs to join hands with the throngs of people committed to realizing similar dreams. When I feel discouraged and powerless, I try to remember my actions and words matter, and they gain power when added to the voices and deeds of others. Thinking of that long-ago carpool established in Topeka, Kansas, inspires me to shoulder my share of the load in whatever ways I can, being mindful of the power, encouragement, and support I can find in connection with others.

Local musician Jud Caswell makes a similar point with his song That’s the Way We Climb. With his permission, I am sharing the link below. If you live near me, you are probably already aware of Jud’s enormous musical and poetic talent. If you live far away, you may not have heard his music before. If that is the case, I encourage you to peruse his YouTube channel — you are in for a real treat.

Love,

Sylvia