The Immorality of North Carolina's racist history hovers over its "Moral Mondays" and over the Inauguration of Donald Trump; Gil Caldwell

This years Martin Luther King holiday caused me as an African American born 83 years ago
in Greensboro, North Carolina to remember Senator Jesse Helms and Dr. Josephine Boyd
Bradley, the niece of my wife, Grace Dungee Caldwell.

JESSE HELMS: "Senator Jesse Helms, (R. N.C.) charging that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
espoused 'action-oriented Marxism' and often 'radical political' views, yesterday temporarily
blocked Senate action on a House-passed bill to create a new national holiday in memory of
the slain civil rights leader...'King used nonviolence as a provocative act to disturb the peace
of the state and to trigger, in many cases, overreaction by authorities...King's very name itself
remains a troubling symbol of divided society.'"

                   "Helms Stalls King Day in Senate" - Washington Post, October 4, 1963

JOSEPHINE BOYD BRADLEY: "The petite brown-skinned girl had tightly grasped her mothers
hand...'It was during this walk, which never seemed to end that I wondered, 'why do these
people hate me?', Josephine Boyd Bradley once said about walking through the doors of all-white Senior High School nearly six decades ago...Josephine Ophelia Boyd Bradley, 75, died
in Atlanta last week..Bradley was the first black student to integrate a high school in North
Carolina from Virginia to Louisiana. And she did it alone in a school of nearly 2000...She had
been met with jeers of 'Nigger, nigger, go home!' She remembers an administrator telling her
that he didn't want her to be there, but the law said she had a right to be there. Throughout
the school year she was spat upon and objects, including rocks rolled up in spitballs, thrown
at her. Tacks were put on her seat. The threats lasted almost the entire day - and even came
via calls over the family's telephone."

 "Josephine Boyd Bradley, who integrated Grimsley High dies" - Greensboro News and Record
                                                    September 23, 2015

Why do I, the day before the inauguration of Donald Trump as President, dredge up these articles from a 1963 newspaper and a 2015 newspaper? And how are Jesse Helms and
Josephine Boyd Bradley, both deceased, related to this moment in history?

I SUGGEST THE INTOLERANCE THAT TODAY EXISTS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND IS EMBEDDED
IN THE ELECTION VICTORY OF DONALD TRUMP, IS PRESENT BECAUSE WE DO NOT REMEMBER JESSE HELMS OR JOSEPHINE BRADLEY, AS DIFFERENT AS THEY ARE. JESSE HELMS IS NOT REMEMBERED BECAUSE HE EXPRESSED OPENLY THE INTOLERANCE THAT TODAY IS STILL PRESENT, BUT IS NOW EXPRESSED IN ACTIONS RATHER THAN WORDS. AND JOSEPHINE BRADLEY IS NOT REMEMBERED BECAUSE HER EXPERIENCE of INTOLERANCE REPRESENTS THE "GREATNESS" OF THE PAST, THE PRESIDENT-ELECT WOULD HAVE US RESTORE, BUT NOT ADMIT.

"The more things change, the more they remain the same."

But, my hope is rooted in my belief that the Saturday after the Friday Inauguration, will
INAUGURATE a "We the People" Movement unlike any seen before!

(Permission granted to share the above, excerpts, and/or re-written in your words)


Gil Caldwell