Happy Birthday!
"You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea." — Medger Evers
“Brute force, no matter how strongly applied, can never subdue the basic human desire for freedom.” — the Dalai Lama
Just this past week, I was lamenting to a friend that it was getting harder and harder to write One Good Thing. What I meant was that sometimes it feels hard to find one good thing to write about. The United States is being taken apart at the seams. I don’t think I know a single person who is unconcerned about the current direction of this nation. And yet, to fill my own sails, and maybe yours, too, it feels important to find some positive things to write about.
“Yes, you’ve created a problem for yourself,” my friend responded. And it’s true; I have. Maybe that’s why I return to history so often, current events being more infuriating and worrying than uplifting right now. This weekend seems a perfect time to return to stories from the past.
Two hundred fifty years ago, on July 4, 1775, the Declaration of Independence was published, marking America’s official rejection of monarchy and her journey down the road to democracy. At the time, the Declaration was printed on broadsides and read in town squares and from pulpits throughout the colonies, buttressing the bid for freedom here. Over time its soaring rhetoric inspired other nations all around the world. It still inspires today.
Many Americans can quote by heart some or all of its most famous line: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Some years ago, I read the Declaration in its entirely from the pulpit during a July 4 church service. When I reached the last seven words of the aforementioned sentence, I paused and gestured to the congregation to finish the sentence for me. They responded with gusto, their voices ringing out: “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness!”)
Happy birthday, America. May revisiting the Declaration bring this nation to its senses in these troubled times.
I love history for many reasons. For one thing, history is really a collection of stories, and I like stories. For another, history can serve as a cautionary message. The history of the Holocaust, with its heinous concentration camps, for example, ought to serve as a cautionary tale to America right now in the wake of the Big Awful Bill that Congress just passed and Trump signed into law. Exponentially exploding the budget for Homeland Security, the funding provides for constructing what are, in essence, concentration camps — allegedly for immigrants who are here illegally, although Trump himself has repeatedly said he would like to lock up what he calls “home-growns” as well as to rescind citizenship of certain naturalized citizens. (This past week, for instance, he mused about rescinding the citizenship of Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City.) Against the dastardly game of “some people are better than others,” and “some people are more worthy than others,” and “some people belong, but others aren’t welcome here,” history has stunning examples of the immorality and basic stupidity of taking that tack.
One thing I love about history, too, is that stories from the past can inspire, motivate, and bring hope. That’s where I want to focus One Good Thing this week.
The other day I was listening to National Public Radio. That’s where I heard that Medger Evers’ 100th birthday was on July 2. I only vaguely remember when Medger Evers was assassinated in 1963 — I was quite young at the time. And, you know, memory is a strange thing. Do I remember the actual event? Or do I remember learning about it later? I honestly can’t say. Either way, his assassination made a big impression on me. In the ensuing years, as I have studied American history I have learned more about his life and death.
The NPR report on Evers’ 100th birthday mentioned that Evers was among the notable Black veterans whose biographies have been scrubbed from the Arlington National Cemetery website as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to rewrite American history to make it appear as though the only worthwhile contributions to our country came from White Americans. (Excuse me, I meant to say straight, White, Christian, cisgender, male Americans.) The NPR broadcaster reported that nowadays a lot of Americans have no idea who Medger Evers was. So, in the spirit of freedom, let’s just review.
Born and raised in Decatur, Mississippi, Evers was drafted in 1942, and he served in the U.S. Army until he received an honorable discharge in 1946. He saw action in both France and Germany during World War II.
Note: Even though Evers and other Black Americans served their country honorably during World War II, they returned home to a country that excluded Black service members from GI Bill benefits. I don’t know if Evers, specifically, applied for those benefits and was rejected. But I am sure he was quite aware of the disparity, unfairness, prejudice, and racism involved. After all, he had been living within that system his whole life; it was hardly news to him.
Evers married his college sweetheart Myrlie Beasley shortly before he was graduated from Alcorn College in Mississippi in 1952. Initially he worked as an insurance salesman before, together with his older brother Charles, becoming involved in the civil rights movement. That is where he found his true calling. His contributions were manifold. His entree into the civil rights movement was to organize a boycott of gas stations that refused to let Black people use their restrooms. His work gained the notice of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where, ultimately, he was elevated to the position of first field secretary in Mississippi. In that capacity, he organized economic boycotts, voter registration drives, membership recruitment drives, and more.
Because of his civil rights work, Evers lived with regular death threats aimed at both him and his family. Perhaps that ongoing threat is what inspired his words, quoted at the top of this blog post: "You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea." Despite the threats, he persevered, never wavering from the belief that freedom is a basic right for all. Shortly after midnight on June 12, 1963, Evers was ambushed when he returned home from a meeting. Shot in the back, he died less than an hour later.
The timing of the assassination couldn’t have been more pointed: Only hours before, President John F. Kennedy had addressed the nation in a broadcast calling for civil rights. Would President Kennedy have delivered such a message without the hard work of people like Medger Evers who kept elevating the call for freedom? We will never know, of course. But personally, I doubt it. President Kennedy was responding to the times in which he lived, and the rising voices advocating civil rights eventually became too loud for him to ignore.
Medger Evers, the man, died much too young in a racist system fueled by hatred and violence. But his work for freedom carried on, because you can’t kill an idea. No matter how some might try to stamp out the desire for freedom, that desire will always, ultimately, rise up from the human soul. We know this because, just as the desire and work for freedom did not begin with Evers, it did not end with his death, either. That work had been carried through the ages on the shoulders of many who had thirsted just as he did. It has been carried by countless people since Evers died. And the work continues today. Remembering him — his bravery, his commitment, his ability to move things forward — is a hopeful message history can give me now.
A significant birthday in another part of the world this past week magnifies the call for freedom. July 6 was the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday. As you no doubt know, the Dalai Lama has been living in exile ever since fleeing Tibet during the Tibetan uprising in 1959. In the ensuing decades China has tried to dampen, even erase, true Tibetan Buddhism. But because of the Dalai Lama’s unstinting leadership from afar, Tibetan Buddhism has thrived far beyond the borders of Tibet. A lama few westerners had probably even heard of before the Dalai Lama’s exile now has the eyes of the whole world on him and the world’s sympathy and support as well. Part of that is the Dalai Lama’s delightful personality and countenance. But part of it is the human spirit’s longing for freedom, a longing exemplified by Tibetan Buddhism’s expression on the world stage now.
“Brute force, no matter how strongly applied, can never subdue the basic human desire for freedom,” the Dalai Lama has said. Maybe it’s safe to say brute force can sometimes make the heart long for freedom even more.
Two very different men — Medger Evers and the Dalai Lama — with their significant birthdays noted this past week help me to celebrate the human spirit. The spirit that longs for freedom. The spirit that inspires courage to work for it. The spirit that holds us, even in the most stormy days.
I think it must have been that same spirit that inspired America’s founders to pen the lofty words of the Declaration of Independence. Surely it was that same spirit that helped America’s struggle for independence.
The human heart longs for freedom. That longing can carry us forward now.
In celebration of that spirit, I encourage you to watch this:
Love,
Sylvia
Sources: Medgar Evers - Quotes, Death & Facts
Medgar Evers | Biography, Civil Rights Movement, Activist, & Facts | Britannica