MLK

I remember watching the civil rights movement on the evening news and in Life magazine back in the sixties, when Alabama governor George Wallace tried to block integration at the University of Alabama. I remember the U.S. Marshals on the steps of the Little Rock school when the schools were integrated. I remember watching the freedom marching on the evening news, watching the police dogs attacking the freedom marchers and the fire hoses spraying them. I member reading in Life magazine about the Greensboro, N.C. Woolworth’s Sit-ins and watching the sit-ins spread over the south. I remember watching Martin Luther King’s “I Had a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. These were the images that shaped my youth.

Maybe something deep inside me struck a cord for fairness and equality. Their goals were simple, to have a job in order to feed their family, to have a roof over their head to shelter their family and to be able to go freely wherever they wanted to go. Maybe back then knowing that I was different, their message of equality resonated with me.

Fast forward close to sixty years, in class for grassroots organizing, watching the old footage of the sit-ins, bus boycotts and marches of how they were organized, it was amazing the work then went in behind the actions. The planning for the sit-in Montgomery Greensboro, N.C. Woolworth’s Sit-ins covered everything from how they had different groups staged to go in to Woolworth when the police arrested one group; the next group were already staged to enter Woolworth to take over the sit-in. The organizers made sure each protester was dressed appropriately, they didn’t want the news media to make an issue of the way they were dressed. Each protester was instructed in non-violent resistance and they were told to refuse bail because they wanted to fill up the jails with protesters. In class, we read an article by Dr. King called the “Drum Major Instinct” on motivating people. If you look over to right the side of my blog, you will see a number of quotes by Dr. King that I like.

The first time non-violent protests were used by the trans-community that I know of was at the Dewey Lunch Counter protests in Philadelphia on April 25 1965. When more than 150 patrons in “non-conformist clothing” were turned away by the management and 3 people stage a sit-in. Then on May 2, activists staged another sit-in and the Janus Society of Philadelphia issued a statement supporting the sit-ins. The trans-community is struggling for the same rights as the Civil Right’s movement back in the sixties, to have a job to be able to feed our families, to have a roof over our heads to shelter our families and to be able to go freely wherever we wanted to go. We just want to be treated fairly and equally.