Comments on: A Voice From a Truly Violent Year

By: Bob McGowan

Bob McGowan — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 06:52:19 +0000

I’m glad this feature from ‘POST and Present’ appears this week. I’d actually forgotten (or blocked out) the complexities and violence that prevailed so heavily in 1968. I actually turned 11 that May, right between the two assassinations. Those do stand out in my mind, but when I read about so many of the other terrible things before and after that, all in 1968, it really is still shocking, 44 years later. We do need to be grateful that things aren’t worse than they are when put in this perspective.

By: Ima Ryma

Ima Ryma — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 08:05:42 +0000

In ’68, I heard a voice
Asking, “Has this country gone mad?”
My Momma did not have a choice.
All life around her had gone bad.
A poor, uneducated, black,
Single, unemployed woman just
Had little chance, as I look back,
For cause for hope, let alone trust.
For Momma there would never be
Finding the American Dream.
Each day she woke to misery.
Life does not change, so it would seem.

Today, my Momma’s life I live.
Time stands still and does not forgive.

By: Mary A. Berger

Mary A. Berger — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 21:49:09 +0000

Jeff Nilsson has done a wonderful job with this article. We need to keep being reminded of the way things were a few years back, as well as the horror of more recent catastrophes . It’s amazing how the American spirit seems to gain strength after such terrible events. As the song says . . . “proud to be an American.”