“When will we ever learn?”
Talking to a free lance writer today about my upcoming trial for “praying at Marquette University” made the events that led to my arrest seem strange or as the reporter said after she saw the information I sent her “peculiar.”
I got a letter tonight from a friend about how they were producing a film about the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) at Marquette which resulted from a civil rights movement at Marquette in 1968 which I was a significant member. There was a call for a reunion of participants. I was one of the small group of white students arrested for ‘trespassing’, staying in the union beyond hours, in solidarity and support of the African American students who had resigned from the university for Marquette’s failure to ‘respond’ to ‘institutional racism’. I stayed in jail till the last group of African American students came back to the university. This event also cost me my Master Degree and a suspension, yet I was not even mentioned in the email sent to other participants for a reunion.
This is just another example how history is rewritten by those in power. In fact the movement to eliminate military training (ROTC) at Marquette began the next year, 1969, with students at Marquette. This struggle continues today and, although 70 years old, I am involved. This is probably why I was not invited to 1968 reunion and is the reason for my trial next Monday.
As someone who enjoys history and research I have noticed that history gets rewritten and individuals actions are represented in a way not true to events. An example, I have been told by reliable persons that Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and Dorothy Day were not involved in many “nonviolent actions”. From my reading and study of these three persons I do not believe this statement as historical accurate. I was on my way to the Catholic Worker archives at Marquette University to continue my research on Dorothy Day, co-founder of Catholic Worker movement when I was turned away and later arrested for trespassing.
These thoughts encourage me to read more of Howard Zinn’s book, “A People’s History of the United States” where he tells history from the people’s rather than from the side of the ‘powerful’. I am blessed to live in historical times and to be a small part of local history if I am mentioned or not. Learning from history, not rewriting it, is the way to go.
Comments
(:commentboxchrono:)